Chris Hedges's Blog, page 355

Senate Sets Up Showdown Votes on Shutdown Plans

WASHINGTON — Senate leaders on Tuesday agreed to vote on dueling proposals to reopen shuttered federal agencies this week, forcing a political reckoning for senators grappling with the longest shutdown in U.S. history: Side with President Donald Trump or vote to temporarily end the shutdown and keep negotiating.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. set up the two showdown votes for Thursday, a day before some 800,000 federal workers are due to miss a second paycheck. One vote will be on his own measure, which reflects Trump’s offer to trade border wall funding for temporary protections for some immigrants. It was quickly rejected by Democrats. The second vote is set for a bill approved by the Democratic-controlled House reopening government through Feb. 8, with no wall money, to give bargainers time to talk.

Both measures are expected fall short of the 60 votes need to pass, leaving little hope they represent the clear path out of the mess. But the plan represents the first test of Senate Republicans’ resolve behind Trump’s insistence that agencies remain closed until Congress approves $5.7 billion to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. For Democrats, the votes will show whether there are any cracks in the so-far unified rejection of Trump’s demand.

Democrats on Tuesday ridiculed McConnell’s bill, which included temporarily extended protections for “Dreamer” immigrants, but also harsh new curbs on Central Americans seeking safe haven in the U.S.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the GOP plan’s immigration proposals were “even more radical” than their past positions. “The president’s proposal is just wrapping paper on the same partisan package and hostage taking tactics,” offering to temporarily restore programs Trump himself tried to end in exchange for wall funding, Schumer said.

McConnell accused Democrats of preferring “political combat with the president” to resolving the 32-day partial federal shutdown. He said Democrats were prepared to abandon federal workers, migrants and all Americans “just to extend this run of political theater so they can look like champions of the so-called resistance” against Trump.

The confrontational tone underscored that there remained no clear end in sight to the closure. Amid cascading tales of civil servants facing increasingly dire financial tribulations from the longest federal shutdown in history, the Senate chaplain nudged his flock.

“As hundreds of thousands of federal workers brace for another painful payday, remind our lawmakers they can ease the pain,” Chaplain Barry Black intoned as the Senate convened.

The planned vote on the Democratic plan marked a departure for McConnell, who had vowed to allow no votes on shutdown measures unless Trump would sign them.

The White House views its latest offer as a test of whether Democratic leaders can hold their members together in opposition, said a person familiar with White House thinking who was not authorized to speak publicly. The administration also wants to show they are willing to negotiate, hoping it will push more blame onto Democrats, who are opposing negotiations until the government reopens. Public polls show Trump is taking the brunt of the blame from voters so far.

As the stalemate grinded on, Alaska Airlines said the closure would cause at least a three-week delay in its plan to start new passenger flights from Everett, Washington. Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, said the shutdown could slow home sales by 1 percent in coming months. And a restaurant in Red Bank, New Jersey, owned by musician Jon Bon Jovi joined the list of establishments serving free meals to furloughed federal workers.

McConnell’s bill largely reflects the proposal Trump described to the nation in a brief address Saturday. It would reopen federal agencies, revamp immigration laws and provide $5.7 billion to start building his prized border wall with Mexico — a project Democrats consider an ineffective, wasteful monument to a ridiculous Trump campaign promise.

Republicans posted the 1,301-page measure online late Monday. Its details provoked Democrats, particularly immigration provisions Trump hadn’t mentioned during his speech.

The measure would provide a three-year extension of protections against deportation for 700,000 people covered by the Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Democrats want far more to be protected — Trump last year proposed extending the safeguards to 1.8 million people, including many who’d not yet applied — and want the program’s coverage for so-called “Dreamers” to be permanent.

Trump has tried terminating the Obama-era DACA program, which shields people brought to the U.S. illegally as children, but has been blocked so far by federal judges.

The GOP bill would revive, for three years, protections for people from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua who fled natural disasters or violence in their countries. Trump has ended that Temporary Protected Status program for those and several other countries.

Republicans estimated the proposal would let 325,000 people remain in the U.S. But the GOP proposal contains new curbs, providing those protections only to those who are already in the U.S. legally and who earn at least 125 percent of the federal poverty limit.

The bill would also, for the first time, require minors seeking asylum from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to process their applications at facilities the State Department is to establish in several Central American countries. Other new conditions include a limit of 15,000 of these minors who could be granted asylum. Currently, many asylum seekers apply as they’re entering the U.S. and can remain here as judges decide their request, which can take several years.

As a sweetener, the Republican measure also contains $12.7 billion for regions hit by hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters. The Democratic bill also includes the disaster aid.

One White House official said Trump was open to counter-offers from Democrats. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, said Trump was also willing to use his proposed temporary extensions for “Dreamers” as a way to seek long-term deal.

The official said Trump would be willing to seek at least permanent legal status for “Dreamers,” but probably not a path to citizenship.

Democrats have refused to negotiate until Trump reopens the government. Trump is worried Democrats won’t agree to a wall compromise if he relents, while Democrats say Trump would use the shutdown tactic again if it works.

“If we hold the employees hostage now, they’re hostage forever,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Tax Proposal Rattles Billionaires at Davos

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., during a 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper on Jan. 6, proposed a 70 percent marginal tax rate on income earned above $10 million. Cooper called this “radical.” The proposal has earned extensive media coverage, and has been debated by pundits on both sides of the political aisle.

One group that is not thrilled, according to Hugh Son and Brian Schwartz of CNBC, are attendees at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, the annual gathering of international business and political leaders who meet to discuss the state of the world economy. “It’s scary,” Scott Minerd, global chief investment officer for Guggenheim Partners, told CNBC, adding, “By the time we get to the presidential election, this is going to gain more momentum. … I think the likelihood that a 70 percent tax rate, or something like that, becomes policy is actually very real.”

Stephen Schwartzman, the CEO of Blackstone, a private equity firm and a major Republican donor, sarcastically (as reported by Son and Schwartz) told CNBC that he is “wildly enthusiastic,” about the plan.

Another billionaire, who declined to be named, told CNBC that despite the massive media attention around Ocasio-Cortez’s interview, Democrats would not be likely to support the plan. “It’s not going to happen—trust me,” he said.

One prominent Democrat interviewed at Davos agreed. Glenn Hutchins, founder of the private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, who CNBC calls a member of the “Democratic establishment,” said, “The important thing in my view is not to try to score political points with having a 70 percent, very high tax rate. The important thing is to try to figure out a tax system that is both fair and efficient.”

Although Davos attendees and Anderson Cooper see Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal as extreme, as Matthew Yglesias of Vox points out, “[The] top tax rates used to be much higher,” adding, “Under [President] Eisenhower, the top earners paid a 91 percent marginal rate, falling to Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed 70 percent under Kennedy and Johnson, before falling to 50 percent after Ronald Reagan’s first big tax cut, and then down to 38 percent after the 1986 tax reform.”

While the proposal is just two weeks old, early surveys indicate Americans are receptive to Ocasio-Cortez’s idea. One poll, from The Hill-HarrisX, suggests that the idea may gaining favor with the public, as 59 percent of respondents answered yes to the question, “Would you favor or oppose a tax proposal that would apply a 70% rate to the 10 millionth dollar and beyond for individuals making $10 million a year or more in reportable income.” This includes 45 percent of Republican respondents.

Defending her plan on Twitter, Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Tuesday, “It’s wild that some people are more scared of a marginal tax rate than the fact that 40% of Americans struggle to pay for at least one basic need, like food or rent.”

Syria’s Sunken Cost Fallacy: American Deaths Are Not a Reason to Stay

I’m just old enough to remember a time – before 9/11 – when the death of a US soldier in combat was an exceptionally rare thing. Indeed, its hard not to look back fondly on those days of relative peace. Since then, nearly 7000 Americans – and perhaps half a million local civilians – have been killed in the wars for the Greater Middle East. Most of our fallen troopers, and all of the indigenous victims, are essentially nameless, faceless, forgotten. Sure, Americans “thank” their veterans, and display diligent adulation rituals at weekly sporting events, but most military casualties receive only a passing reference on the nightly news. War is the new normal after all, a standard fact of modern American life that’s far less interesting – and less lucrative – than reporting on the latest soap-opera-drama in the White House.

That’s why the detailed media attention on the latest bombing in Syria, which killed four Americans, is so notable. And strange. So why the sudden interest in individual troop deaths after 17+ years of aimless war? The answer, as is so often the case these days, is simple: Donald Trump. Last week’s fatal attack, and another attempted bombing this Monday, happened to occur on the heels of the president’s controversial announcement of a total troop withdrawal from Syria. Make no mistake: that’s the only reason these tragic deaths happen to matter to the mainstream media outlets and a slew of suddenly interested congressmen.

Before the families of the fallen were even notified, and prior to the release of the service-members’ names, a cacophony of voices flooded the big three TV news outlets to express concern and shamelessly use these deaths to attack the president. Their argument: ISIS attack us so now we have to stay put in Syria. Hawkish legislators – Dems and Republicans alike – claimed to know exactlywhat the latest attacks portend. Their conclusion, which is always their conclusion, was simple: more war, perpetual military intervention. It seems nearly every Beltway insider, media talking head, semi-retired general, and hawkish congressman immediately came to the same conclusion – that ISIS isn’t defeated and only prolonged U.S. military occupation can get the job done.

That analysis may seem ordinary in the perpetual American warfare state of 2019, but take a step back and it’s really a rather remarkable conclusion. Indeed, one might think that sacrificing four more of our over-adulated-troopers would instead add urgency to Mr. Trump’s announced exit and serve as proof positive that these endless wars aren’t worth the cost in blood and treasure. In a sane country, the latest attacks might even generate a soul-searching debate about broader military interventionism in a troubled region. No such luck. In our increasingly Orwellian moment, any event in the Mideast has the same solution: more troops for ever more time.

It all comes back to reflexive hatred of the president – any Trump policy must be foolish – and the general sunken cost fallacy. According to this absurd line of thinking, any sacrifice of American blood in Syria somehow justifies staying the course in order to honor said sacrifice. Hardly anyone pauses and takes this evaluation to its logical conclusion of literally endless war. Furthermore, a more rational analysis demonstrates why the very opposite may be true.

The fact that ISIS remains capable of conducting terror attacks should come as little surprise and hardly influence the strategic decision for the US military to stay or go. When the president declares ISIS “defeated,” he isn’t totally off base. The Islamic State, as a physical entity, is, for the most part, vanquished. That, lest we forget, was the declared purpose of American military intervention in the first place. Later mission changes and justifications for a troop presence in Syria – containing Russia, protecting the Kurds, and checking Iran – were not only later additions but essentially impossible outcomes.

A mere two thousand US military advisors on the ground in Northeast Syria was never going to alter the outcome of Syria’s civil war (which the Assad regime has essentially won), force Russia or Iran to leave the country, or establish a permanent, viable Kurdish nation-state. American troops aren’t miracle workers and could, at best, delay the inevitable pro-Assad settlement in Syria. Nor could those US soldiers extinguish the ISIS ideology – which is, in part thanks to counterproductive American interventions – deeply embedded in the region. Islamist fighters, though not holding much physical territory, remain capable of terrorism and low-level insurgency – in Syria and across the Mideast. That’s just a reality. Inconvenient and uncomfortable, for sure, but true nonetheless.

The point is that the enemy, in this case ISIS, gets a vote. And their threshold for “victory” is much lower than that of the United States. To “win” ISIS need only survive as an ideology and rallying point for Islamist jihadis. On the other hand, Washington’s victory threshold – total erasure of the ISIS movement and elimination of Russian/Iranian influence – is essentially impossible. So long as those two thresholds remain so obviously out of balance, the war-hawks in D.C. will have a justification for their preferred policy of perpetual war. And, if they can bash Trump’s foreign policy in the process, more’s the better.

Which brings us back to ISIS’ latest attacks and the troublesome fact that the enemy has agency. Maybe the obvious explanation for the surge in violence actually does cohere with the hawk’s analysis: that ISIS is trying to force the US military out, embarrass the president, and claim victory by forcing the withdrawal. Perhaps. Then again, what if the enemy’s calculus is a bit more complex, a shade cleverer? What if ISIS wants the US military to stay put in Syria, and hopes a few well-timed attacks may sway the president to change course? After all, ISIS’ remaining fighters won’t fare better under the inevitable future attacks from Assad, his allies, and maybe even the Turks – all of whom loathe the Islamists as much as the US does. So a US withdrawal necessarily better for the Islamic State.

Indeed, ISIS has a consistent playbook for survival and recruiting that they’ve used since forming in Iraq so many years ago. It goes like this: tie down the US military in a prolonged quagmire and then rally a coalition of Islamist hardliners and frustrated nationalists to oppose the occupation. It’s a formula that’s worked time and again – In Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Syria.

Only it doesn’t have to be that way this time. Nothing is inevitable. The president can stand firm, withdraw the troops from an aimless, risky civil war and refuse (for once) to play into the enemy’s hands. He can recognize that from its dubiously legal start the Syria intervention was all risk and no rewardand stay on the sensible track of rapid withdrawal. Should he do so, expect mainstream interventionist pundits and politicians on both sides of the aisle to consistently attack him. That’s just fine.

After all, whenever a policy upsets both hawkish Republicans and Dems, it just might be the prudent path.

Former MS-13 Member Who Secretly Helped Police Is Deported

Henry was twice forced to join the brutal gang MS-13, first in El Salvador and then on Long Island. Twice, he tried to escape its violence. He became an informant, helping law enforcement arrest other MS-13 members.

But his FBI gang task force handler broke a promise to help him, and immigration authorities revealed his identity, as we reported last year. This month, Henry was deported to El Salvador, despite warnings that MS-13 members there would hunt him down and kill him. He’s now gone into hiding.

In an unusually emotional decision, a copy of which was recently obtained by ProPublica, an immigration judge, Thomas Mulligan, wrote that he was “very sympathetic” to Henry and found the 19-year-old’s testimony “truthful.” Nevertheless, Mulligan ruled that he had no choice but to deport him under U.S. and international law, because Henry had admitted to participating, albeit under duress, in two MS-13 murders when he was 12 years old, and because his chances of being tortured in El Salvador were less than 50 percent.

Henry “had a very difficult childhood and was roped into a gang life from a very young age,” Mulligan wrote in his Nov. 27 decision. Yet the court “does not have the discretionary authority to take such humanitarian factors into its consideration.”

His deportation illustrates how hard it has become for immigrants fleeing MS-13 to find asylum in the U.S., even if they have shown a commitment to helping law enforcement. A new Trump administration directive that immigrants targeted by gangs should not be granted special status has increased the odds against them. Run by the U.S. Department of Justice, immigration courts are required to follow its guidance.

Issued in June 2018, while Henry was in detention, this guidance “flavors the whole ruling” in his case, said Lenni Benson, who teaches immigration law at the New York Law School and reviewed Mulligan’s decision.

She said the judge could have granted Henry asylum if he believed there were mitigating factors in the murders. The U.S. has allowed child soldiers who committed serious crimes under duress to stay in the country, she said. “In U.S. law, for a child to have culpability as an adult, you generally have to be over the age of 14,” she said. “What’s important is that the judge says, ‘I do believe you.’”

Henry, whose last name is being withheld for his safety, was raised by his grandmother in El Salvador after his parents moved to the U.S. when he was a small child. He was recruited into MS-13, which enlisted him on the condition that he kill a rival gang member. Henry held a gun while an older MS-13 member put his hand over Henry’s and pulled the trigger. Soon after, he helped kill a man with a machete, on the instructions of a gang leader who threatened to kill him if he didn’t obey. “He was pressured into killing two individuals when he was only twelve years old and was forced to witness many other forms of violence and cruelty that would be extremely traumatizing for any human being,” Mulligan wrote.

Henry vowed to break with the gang and came to live with his mother on Long Island when he was 15. But there were MS-13 members on Long Island, too. They recognized Henry and reminded him that gang membership is binding until death. Fearing for his life, he rejoined.

In desperation, Henry wrote a letter to his English teacher, describing his gang history, his constant fear and his yearning for a fresh start. A school-based police officer introduced him to Angel Rivera, a Suffolk County homicide detective assigned to the FBI’s Long Island Gang Task Force. Believing authorities would help him start a new life, Henry provided information about other MS-13 members.

Despite Henry’s cooperation, police turned his file over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE detained him, identified him in a document as an informant and jailed him alongside those he informed on. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is conducting an ongoing investigation into ICE’s treatment of Henry.

Mulligan criticized Rivera for “mistakenly” assuring Henry that he would help him. “This was poor police work and misled” Henry, he wrote. At the hearing, Rivera said Henry had indeed been trying to leave the gang, but the information he gave was not very useful. Rivera did not respond to requests for comment.

Asylum hearings often take less than an hour, but Henry’s lasted for six sessions over seven months. The school police officer, George Politis, testified that if MS-13 found out what Henry had done, “I do believe he would be killed.” Henry’s English teacher and a school administrator testified that he had sought their help.

ICE portrayed Henry as a danger to the community who was only pretending to cooperate with law enforcement. Under questioning by an ICE lawyer, Henry testified at length about a dozen murders he witnessed in El Salvador, including one person being fed alive into a wood chipper. He described watching the gang torture a member-turned-informant by pulling out his fingernails. “He started screaming for us to kill him, because the pain was too much,” Henry said in a whisper in the courtroom.

Mulligan was unconvinced by ICE’s arguments. He found Henry “generally credible” and his desire to leave the gang “believable.” However, he said that under U.S. law, a person who has committed a serious crime cannot receive asylum, and so Henry was disqualified by the two murders in El Salvador.

Henry had also asked to stay in this country under the 1987 United Nations Convention Against Torture. The treaty, which the U.S. has signed, bans deporting people who are “more likely than not” to be tortured if they returned home.

Mulligan said Henry’s fears of being tortured in El Salvador by MS-13 or police death squads were understandable. Still, he said, the Salvadoran government is making progress against gangs and extrajudicial killings, and so Henry did not prove the probability of torture.

After the judge ruled against him, Henry had to decide whether to accept deportation. Immigration law experts said that an appeal might well have succeeded.

“It’s unusual to see that level of sympathy expressed while also denying everything. I would be very optimistic about that appeal,” said Heather Axford, supervising staff attorney at Central American Legal Assistance. Axford said she has gotten several similar cases reversed in federal courts.

Henry’s family encouraged him to stay and fight, because they worried that his return to El Salvador would endanger not only him but his relatives, since MS-13 has been known to target families who shelter snitches. But an appeal would have taken years, and Henry felt his life was at risk in his New Jersey detention center. He said gang members detained there were becoming increasingly adamant that they knew he was an informant, and a friend on Long Island and relatives in El Salvador received threats.

Henry’s health was also deteriorating. In the gang, his nickname had been “Triste,” Spanish for “sad.” In recent months, the jail guards gave him a new nickname, “Skinny.” Two of his asylum hearings were postponed because he was ill. Henry took up yoga to try to deal with his mounting anxiety and worked a night shift in the jail kitchen because he was afraid to sleep in the dark with gang members around him.

In the end, Henry accepted the ruling and on Jan. 10, he was deported. His lawyer, Bryan Johnson, arranged for a team to meet him at the airport in El Salvador and get him to Europe. “Henry ended up a refugee of both El Salvador and the United States,” Johnson said. Out of concern for Henry’s safety, ProPublica held this story until he left El Salvador.

Drawing on tens of thousands of dollars donated by readers to a fund created by Johnson, Henry is now setting up a new life in a European city, where he is seeking asylum. He plans to work during the day and to finish high school. He said he was grateful to readers for allowing him to create a makeshift witness protection system for himself. “I have broken with the gang forever now, that’s one good thing to have come of all this,” he said. “I hope I helped people see how hard it is to make that kind of change. You never know what’s going to happen, but the important part is to try.”

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Supreme Court Gives Green Light to Trump’s Ban on Transgender Service Members

In a decision LGBTQ rights advocates immediately denounced as an “awful attack” on the rights of transgender Americans, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Tuesday gave a green light to President Donald Trump’s widely condemned ban on transgender people serving in the military.

While one nationwide injunction against the ban remains in effect—meaning Trump’s policy cannot yet be implemented—Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern noted that the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling makes it likely that the remaining injunction will “soon be reversed.”

“This is heartbreaking and temporary,” declared ACLU staff attorney Chase Strangio, expressing hope that Trump’s ban will be defeated in the lower courts. “We will all keep fighting to take down this discriminatory ban. In court, at the ballot, and through our transformation of public discourse and understanding.”

The impact of SCOTUS action on trans military cases:

1. Legally – 1 nationwide injunction is still in place. So ban not yet in effect.

2. Practically – This is an awful attack on trans people and we will keep fighting.

Your “both sides” takes on trans existence are not wanted.

— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) January 22, 2019

It’s deeply upsetting that the Supreme Court lifted blocks on the trans military ban that were secured by two lawsuits while federal courts continue to review.

It did NOT lift the nationwide block secured in our case, Stone v. Trump, which is before a court in Maryland.

— ACLU (@ACLU) January 22, 2019

“Disgusting, shameful, bigoted, cruel. Trans people have the right to exist, to serve, to live with dignity,” added LGBTQ rights advocate and writer Lauren Rankin. “This is frightening indication of what’s to come from this far-right Supreme Court.”

Trump’s initial plan, unveiled in 2017, would have completely barred transgender individuals from serving in the military, but several courts ruled that the proposal was unconstitutional.

As the Washington Post notes, the plan the Supreme Court approved on Tuesday—devised by former Defense Secretary James Mattis—would “bar those from the military who identify with a gender different from their birth gender and who are seeking to transition. Mattis’s plan makes exceptions, for instance, for about 900 transgender individuals who are already serving openly and for others who would serve in accordance with their birth gender.”

Sales Slump, Political Shifts Cast Shadow Over Gun Industry

When gunmakers and dealers gather this week in Las Vegas for the industry’s largest annual conference, they will be grappling with slumping sales and a shift in politics that many didn’t envision two years ago when gun-friendly Donald Trump and a GOP-controlled Congress took office.

Some of the top priorities for the industry — expanding the reach of concealed carry permits and easing restrictions on so-called “silencers” — remain in limbo, and prospects for expanding gun rights are nil for the foreseeable future.

Instead, fueled by the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, the federal government banned bump stocks and newly in-charge U.S. House Democrats introduced legislation that would require background checks for virtually every firearm sale, regardless of whether it’s from a gun dealer or a private sale.

Even without Democrats’ gains in November’s midterm elections, the industry was facing a so-called “Trump slump,” a plummet in sales that happens amid gun rights-friendly administrations. Background checks were at an all-time high in 2016, President Barack Obama’s last full year in office, numbering more than 27.5 million; since then, background checks have been at about 25 million each year.

Gary Ramey, owner of Georgian gunmaker Honor Defense, says the mood at last year’s SHOT Show, which stands for Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade, was subdued. He’s expecting the same this year.

“There was no one to beat up. You didn’t have President Obama to put up in PowerPoint and say ‘He’s the best gun salesman, look what he’s doing to our country,'” he said.

“Numbers are down,” he added. “You can’t deny it.”

Robert J. Spitzer, chairman of political science at the State University of New York at Cortland and a longtime watcher of gun issues, said that not only have shifting politics made it difficult for the gun industry to gain ground but high-profile mass shootings — like the Las Vegas shooting that happened just miles from where the SHOT Show will be held and the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting — also cast a pall.

“After the Parkland shooting, (gun rights’ initiatives) were kind of frozen in their tracks,” Spitzer said. “Now there’s no chance that it’s going anywhere.”

It’s easier to drive up gun sales when there’s the threat or risk of gun-rights being restricted, he said. “It’s harder to rally people when your target is one house of Congress. It just doesn’t have the same galvanizing effect.”

The National Shooting Sports Foundation’s SHOT Show has been held annually for more than four decades. This year more than 60,000 will attend the event that runs Tuesday through Friday — from gun dealers and manufacturers to companies that cater to law enforcement. There’s a wait list for exhibitors that is several hundred names long and it will have some 13 miles of aisles featuring products from more than 1,700 companies.

Last year’s show in Las Vegas was held just months after a gunman killed 58 people and injured hundreds at an outdoor music festival. The massacre was carried out by a gunman armed with bump stocks, which allow the long guns to mimic fully automatic weapons.

Organizers last year restricted media access to trade journalists. This year’s show will again allow reporters from mainstream media to attend.

Gun-control advocates are rejoicing in the gun industry’s misfortunes of late and chalking it up to not just shifting attitudes among Americans but a shift in elected political leaders.

“Without a fake menace in the White House to gin up fears, gun sales have been in a Trump slump and, as a result, the NRA is on the rocks,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Joe Bartozzi, the new president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said the industry isn’t disturbed by the drop in gun sales or the shift in federal politics. While Democrats who ran on gun-control platforms made huge gains in the House, he sees the Senate shifting to the other end of the spectrum.

“Having been in the industry for over 30 years and seeing the trends of gun sales ebb and flow over time, it’s very hard to put your finger on any one specific issue as to why this happens. It’s just the cyclical nature of the business,” he said.

Trump’s campaign was bolstered by about $30 million from the National Rifle Association and when he took office, the industry had hoped that a host of gun rights would be enacted. The Trump administration quickly nixed an Obama-imposed rule that made it more difficult for some disabled people to purchase and possess firearms.

But other industry priorities, such as reciprocity between states for carrying certain concealed firearms and a measure that would ease restrictions on purchasing suppressors that help muffle the sound when a gun is fired, failed to gain traction.

For now, Bartozzi said his organization is focused on a measure that would expand public gun ranges, funded by an existing tax on firearms and ammunition sales that supports conservation, safety programs and shooting ranges on public lands. The hope is that increasing the number of public ranges will encourage more people to become hunters.

Who Is Kevin Cooper?

Editor’s note: Kevin Cooper was convicted of a 1983 quadruple murder and sentenced to death in a trial in which evidence that might have exonerated him was withheld from the defense. His case was scrutinized in a June 17, 2017, New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof. Visit savekevincooper.org for more information.

Throughout my life, people have speculated about who Kevin Cooper is, or who they think I am. This is especially true since I was first sought, then arrested, and then wrongly convicted of what was dubbed by the mainstream media as the Chino Hills Murders. It is this horrific crime that sent me to California’s death row and for which I was almost executed in 2004.

It is an odd experience to become part of the American historical narrative, to have words spoken and written about oneself in such a way that it strengthens the storyteller’s version of the subject, often falsely or to the degradation of the person about whom they are writing or speaking.

This has happened to me, and it will, in all probability, happen again in the future.

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Could Kevin Cooper Finally Be Exonerated?



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For example, the Los Angeles Times published an article about me in July 2018 written by 10 students from Northwestern University’s Medill Justice Project. It was so incomplete and contained such serious errors that people who know my case well wonder why the Times published it without careful fact-checking. These were students, not professional journalists! My lawyer, Norman Hile, was standing by to fact-check the story, but no one called him. The Times published two corrections of the several that were made in the story.

The students did correctly note that I am writing a memoir I have titled, “My Life On Your Death Row,” and that I write for Truthdig, and that I speak with journalists and address gatherings from prison via phone. To be sure, my innocence has been pronounced by a number of prominent people, including an emissary of the pope, an international human rights commission, appellate justices, journalists and people inside and outside the legal community. You can read a factual article about my case in The New York Times here and in factual articles posted on Truthdig.

But I am more than all of this. When I read something about me and do not recognize that person, I want to shout out who I am, in my own words. I want people who don’t know me to ask: “Who Is Kevin Cooper?”

This is who I am:

First and foremost, I, Kevin Cooper, am a human being, a spiritual person and an innocent person on death row in the state of California. I am a father, a grandfather, a son and a brother. I am an uncle and a great-uncle, as well as a godson, nephew and cousin; I am a real part of a real American family.

I am a proud African-American man, and yes, I am a writer, a soon-to-be author and a painter/artist. I am an orator and a student, as I am still learning many new things, especially this country’s historical and present-day treatment of its poor and minority peoples, including immigrants.

I am a self-made man, who, like you, has the God-given right to my life, which no man or government has the right to take. Not the moral right, the legal right, or any other type of so-called right. I was spared in 2004 from a near-death experience, an execution, called “legal homicide” by the great state of California. I was a survivor of a sick, state-sanctioned ritual of death that took place on Dec. 17, 2003, when I was told that I was to be legally murdered by the volunteer executioners here at San Quentin prison on Feb. 10, 2004.

This torture did not end with the stay of execution that I received on Feb. 9, 2004. It continued for years afterward, because of the post-traumatic stress that I suffered due to having come within three hours and 42 minutes of being strapped down to that death gurney, having razor-sharp needles stuck in my arms, being injected and tortured with red, white and blue poison in my black body, and then murdered by so-called justice-seeking, God-fearing, revenge-wanting Californians!

I am also a pen pal who writes to many people in different parts of the world. I am a friend, a teacher, a person who respects all people and their uniqueness and differences, no matter who or what they are. I am a music lover, an animal lover, a lover of books and history. I am a humanitarian, and I donate my artwork and paintings to different people and nonprofit groups and organizations so that they can sell them to raise money for their cause.

I am an abolitionist who speaks out at every chance I get against the death penalty by sharing with all people who will listen America’s troubled history with the death penalty, and my near-death experience in 2004.

This tortured and troubled history most definitely includes women who have been tortured and murdered in the name of the law, historically and in the present day. I am a male feminist, because I truly believe in the equality of women.

I am an athlete who still plays basketball and enjoys watching damn near all sports on TV. While I can go on and on about who I am, just in these things that I have written, you have learned far more about me than what those student journalists wrote about who they thought I was, or am.

But to not leave out anything, let me say this about me: I am a reformed small-time criminal. I have rehabilitated myself while on your death row. I got rid of the small-time criminal, the uneducated and miseducated person that I once was. I was a poorly educated child who ran away from home countless times, beginning at age 6, to escape senseless beatings, only to be returned. I became a well-read adult in prison, reading scores of books and learning new words by studying the dictionary at my side.

I am a nonviolent man. I am an educated man and a person who is being talked about by certain people in outdated terms. I will not allow those students from the Medill Justice Project or anyone else to define me, or to tell a story about me that is not the truth. Why?

Because I, Kevin Cooper, am a fighter and will not be a stereotype, or a victim of this country’s historical narrative as it pertains to black men who are in prison, who have small-time criminal histories, and who, after all, are products of America.

This is who I am.

26 Billionaires Have as Much Wealth as the World’s Poorest Half, Oxfam Reports

This week, in Davos, Switzerland, the world’s wealthiest and most powerful politicians and business leaders meet at the World Economic Forum to discuss the state of the global economy. In advance of this annual gathering, the anti-poverty charity Oxfam performs an annual tradition of its own, what The Guardian calls “an annual wealth check” that examines the extent of the gap between the assets of the world’s richest and poorest. According to the 2018 version, titled “Public Good or Private Wealth?,” the world’s 26 richest billionaires own as much as the world’s 3.8 billion poorest people.

In 2018, billionaire wealth rose by $2.5 billion per day, a 12 percent increase over the previous year, while the poorest half of the world had an 11 percent decline in its already meager wealth.

The Oxfam report analyzed the assets of more than 2,200 billionaires around the world, using data from the Credit Suisse global wealth data book to calculate the wealth gap, and Forbes’ billionaire list from March 2018 to determine the wealth of individual billionaires.

Among the report’s findings is that Amazon owner Jeff Bezos—currently the world’s richest man—has a $112 billion fortune. As The Guardian observes, “Just 1 percent of his fortune is equivalent to the whole health budget for Ethiopia, a country of 105 million people.”

The number of billionaires in the world has doubled since the 2008 financial crisis, but as a statement from Oxfam America explains, “[W]ealthy individuals and corporations are paying lower rates of tax than they have in decades, thanks in part to the new tax law championed by President Trump.” Oxfam America’s statement continues:

The 2017 U.S. tax bill is super-charging the worldwide tax race to the bottom and exacerbating the trend of governments dramatically cutting tax rates for wealthy individuals and corporations around the world. In the U.S., 30 people hold as much wealth as the poorest half of the population. Cutting wealth and corporate taxes predominantly benefits men who own 50 percent more wealth than women globally, and control over 86 percent of corporations.

In the same statement, Paul O’Brien, Oxfam America’s vice president of policy and campaigns, added, “Since the global economy collapsed, we have learned nothing.” He continued, “While corporations and the super-rich enjoy lower tax bills, millions of girls around the world have no access to a decent education and women are dying due to a lack of maternal health care.”

Governments, the report observes, are widening the inequality gap by failing to invest in public services. As Matthew Spenser, Oxfam’s director of campaigns and policy, told The Guardian:

It doesn’t have to be this way—there is enough wealth in the world to provide everyone with a fair chance in life. Governments should act to ensure that taxes raised from wealth and businesses paying their fair share are used to fund free, good-quality public services that can save and transform people’s lives.

Oxfam estimates that adding half of 1 percent to the taxes of the world’s richest would raise $418 billion a year, enough money to educate 262 million children and provide health care that would save 3.3 million lives. The report does not provide recommendations on how to implement the tax policy.

Conservative opponents of Oxfam’s recommendations question whether tax increases and government intervention should be used to tackle the problem. Kate Andrews, associate director at the Institute of Economic Affairs, told CNBC, in reference to Oxfam, “[T]hey advocate a race to the bottom, with interventionist policies that are more likely to destroy wealth than they are to successfully redistribute it.”

View the full report here.

Nuclear Energy Plants Are Closing, Hurt by High Prices and Bad PR

Once hailed as a key part of the energy future of the United Kingdom and several other countries, the high-tech atomic industry is now heading in the opposite direction, towards nuclear sunset.

It took another body blow last week when plans to build four new reactors on two sites in the U.K. were abandoned as too costly by the Japanese company Hitachi. This was even though it had already sunk £2.14 billion (300 billion yen) in the scheme.

Following the decision in November by another Japanese giant, Toshiba, to abandon an equally ambitious scheme to build three reactors at Moorside in the north-west of England, the future of the industry in the U.K. looks bleak.

The latest withdrawal means the end of the Japanese dream of keeping its nuclear industry alive by exporting its technology overseas. With the domestic market killed by the Fukushima disaster in 2011, overseas sales were to have been its salvation.

U.K. Policy Needed

It also leaves the British plan to lead an international nuclear renaissance by building ten new nuclear stations in the U.K. in tatters, with the government facing an urgent need for a new energy policy.

Across the world the nuclear industry is faring badly, with costs continuing to rise while the main competitors, renewables, both wind and solar, fall in price. The cost of new nuclear is now roughly three times that of both wind and solar, and even existing nuclear stations are struggling to compete.

Plans by another Japanese giant, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, to build four reactors at Sinop on the Black Sea coast of Turkey in partnership with the French were also abandoned in December because of ever-escalating costs.

These reverses mean that the main players left in the business of building large reactors are state-owned – EDF in France, Kepco in South Korea, Rosatom in Russia, and a number of Chinese companies. No private company is now apparently large enough to bear the costs and risk of building nuclear power stations.

Sole Survivor

In the U.K., only one of the original 10 planned nuclear stations is currently under construction. This is the twin reactor plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset in the West of England being built by EDF, a construction project twice as big as the Channel Tunnel, and at a cost of £20 billion ($25.7  billion).

Already, almost before the first concrete was poured, and with 3,000 people working on the project, it is two years behind schedule and its completion date has been put back to 2027.

The problem for EDF and Kepco is that both France and South Korea have gone cool on nuclear power, both governments realizing that renewables are a cheaper and better option to reduce carbon emissions.

To keep expanding, both companies need to export their technology, which means finding other governments prepared to subsidize them, a tall order when the price is so high.

EDF’s current export markets are China and the U.K. In England, in addition to Hinkley Point, EDF plans another two reactors on the east coast. How the heavily-indebted company will finance this is still to be negotiated with the U.K. government. China has bought two French reactors, but there are no signs of new orders.

Kepco is building four reactors in the United Arab Emirates,  a contract obtained in 2009 and worth $20 billion, but it has obtained no orders since.

That leaves Russia and China as the main players. Since nuclear exports for both countries are more a means of exerting political influence than making any financial gain, the cost is of secondary importance and both countries are prepared to offer soft loans to anyone who wants one of their nuclear power stations.

Growth Points

On this basis Russia is currently building two reactors in Bangladesh and has a number of agreements with other countries to export stations. Last year construction started on a Russian reactor in Turkey.

China has been the main engine for growth in the nuclear industry, partly to feed the country’s ever-growing need for more electricity. In 2018 only two countries started new reactors – eight were in China and two in Russia.

Significantly, while China has accounted for 35 of the 59 units started up in the world in the last decade and has another dozen reactors under construction, the country has not opened any new construction site for a reactor since December 2016.

By contrast, in both 2017 and 2018 the Chinese have dramatically increased installation of both solar and wind farms, obviously a much quicker route to reducing the country’s damaging air pollution.

Maintenance Problems

While there are 417 nuclear reactors still operating across the world and still a significant contributor to electricity production in some countries, many of them are now well past their original design life and increasingly difficult to maintain to modern safety standards.

There is little sign of political will outside China and Russia to replace them with new ones.

Even in the U.K., with a government that has encouraged nuclear power, there is increasing resistance from consumers to new nuclear plants, as they will be asked to pay dearly through their utility bills for the privilege.

Despite the fact that the U.K. nuclear lobby is strong, its influence may wane when consumers realize that the country has ample opportunities to deploy off-shore and on-shore wind turbines, solar and tidal power at much lower cost.

MLK Holiday Offers Stage for Democratic 2020 Hopefuls

COLUMBIA, S.C.—As Americans commemorated Martin Luther King Jr., Democratic presidential hopefuls fanned out across the country to honor the civil rights leader and make themselves heard on the national stage.

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., used the holiday to launch a presidential campaign that, if successful, would make her the first woman and the second black candidate to become president. Former Vice President Joe Biden accepted responsibility for his part in the passage of 1980s legislation that toughened sentences for crack cocaine possession, “a big mistake” because of its damage to the black community.

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand lashed out at President Donald Trump for inspiring “hate and darkness” in a fiery speech in Harlem. South Carolina, a critical early-voting state in the Democratic primary, hosted two senators expected to seek the White House in 2020: Cory Booker of New Jersey and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg assailed gun violence in remarks at a Washington breakfast celebrating King’s life. Massachusetts Sent. Elizabeth Warren denounced what she called the systematic suppression of black voters.

While the Democratic field for 2020 is only beginning to take shape, the year that would have marked King’s 90th birthday gives the party’s prominent members a valuable opportunity to address race and draw a contrast between their own views and those of Trump, whose approach to questions of racial justice has sparked criticism from multiple minority groups since he took office.

What Democratic contenders, both those officially in the race and those still mulling campaigns, said Monday while celebrating the King holiday:

Joe Biden

Biden atoned for his role in the passage of a crime bill that imposed stiffer sentences for those convicted of crack cocaine possession — a law that has disproportionately affected the black community.

Biden said he hasn’t “always gotten things right,” but has “always tried.” He also spoke about his support for efforts by former President Barack Obama’s administration to reduce crack possession sentences.

Biden was the head of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee when the 1994 crime bill — which is now criticized as having helped create an era of mass incarceration — was passed and signed into law.

“It was a big mistake that was made,” he told the Washington breakfast also attended by Bloomberg. .”We were told by the experts that ‘With crack you can never go back.'” He said: “It’s trapped an entire generation.”

Biden says the crack sentencing guidelines are one example of broader racial injustice in America.

“White America has to admit there’s still a systematic racism,” he said. “And it goes almost unnoticed by so many of us.”

Michael Bloomberg

Bloomberg said far too many U.S. politicians don’t “seem to give a damn” about the victims of gun violence.

He said many politicians care more about “getting re-elected than saving lives.” He spoke of his own efforts to reduce gun violence, including millions of his own fortune that he’s spent supporting gun control initiatives.

His speech focused on policies he championed while New York’s mayor, such as his efforts to improve schools and reduce neighborhood pollution. And he highlighted how he apologized to the fiancee of Sean Bell, a black man who was shot to death by New York police in 2006, just hours before the man’s wedding. At the time Bloomberg was critical of officers, who he said used excessive force.

Elizabeth Warren

In Boston, Warren called for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a right to vote for every American.

Warren made the comment after saying “people of color have been systematically denied the most basic of human rights: the right to vote.”

“It would guarantee the right to vote to every American citizen and make sure that that vote is counted. Right now there is no constitutional right,” Warren said. “It would help protect and give us grounds for pushing back when localities undercut the right of people to vote.”

Warren said King’s fight was not just about civil rights, but also about economic rights. She said the road to prosperity is steep and rocky for millions of working people, but is “steeper and rockier for black and brown Americans.”

Warren also criticized the president for the partial federal government shutdown and responded to Trump’s offer to Democrats on Saturday to open the government.

“If the president wants to negotiate over immigration reform I’m all for it,” she said after the speech. “But open the government and open it now.”

Kirsten Gillibrand

Gillibrand addressed hundreds of African-Americans at a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration hosted by civil rights activist Al Sharpton. “We have to have an honest conversation about systemic, institutional and daily individual acts of racism in our country that hold people and families back for generations,” Gillibrand said, citing ongoing disparities for black Americans related to heath care, criminal justice and the economy.

She continued: “White women like me must bear part of this burden and commit to amplifying your voices. We have to join you on the battlefield for justice… If I really care about your family as much as my own, it really is my fight.”

Like some of the other ambitious Democrats who spoke out Monday, Gillibrand condemned Trump at length. The president, she said, “has inspired a hate and darkness” that’s tearing the country apart along both racial and religious lines.

She ended her remarks on a more positive note: “Only what’s right can defeat what’s wrong. And I feel very called at this moment to do what is right and to fight. Please join me.”

Bernie Sanders

Speaking in South Carolina, Sanders cited King’s “courage” in opposing U.S. military involvement in Vietnam as well as in fighting to end racial inequity.

“Racial equality must be central to combating economic inequality, if we are going to create a government that works for all of us, and not just the one percent,” Sanders said.

Sanders lost South Carolina’s 2016 Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton by more than 40 percentage points. His presence at a Columbia church service Monday and a rally after, as well as several other events in the state, signaled that he plans to redouble efforts in South Carolina should he launch a second White House run.

Sanders also spoke of King’s efforts to help workers organize and “change the national priorities,” leaning into what sounded like a campaign message-in-waiting on Monday. Among the specific proposals he cited were a federal jobs guarantee, free tuition at public colleges and universities, and universal access to child care.

He also attacked the president, calling him “a racist” and saying he has purposely tried “to divide us up by the color of our skin, by our gender, by the country we came from, by our religion.”

Cory Booker

Booker implored those gathered at South Carolina’s Statehouse to channel their dissatisfaction with the country’s direction into action.

Recalling King’s words on needing to work toward change rather than waiting for it, Booker urged those in the crowd to build on their ancestors’ successes and struggles.

“We are dissatisfied that we live in a society that’s being seduced by celebrity and forgets that substance is more important than celebrity,” Booker said.

The New Jersey senator and Sanders participated in a morning prayer service before leading a march to the Statehouse.

“We don’t just celebrate King’s holiday,” said Booker, who is African-American. “We recommit ourselves to be agents of change.”

Booker applauded Trump’s decision to visit the King memorial in Washington. “May everyone study his work,” Booker said of King. “This is not a day to criticize other Americans.”

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence laid a wreath at the memorial and held a moment of silence in a brief visit that had not been on their public schedule.

Kamala Harris

Harris, a first-term senator and former California attorney general known for her rigorous questioning of Trump’s nominees, opened the holiday by declaring her bid on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” She abandoned the formality of launching an exploratory committee, instead going all in on a presidential campaign.

“I love my country,” she said when asked what qualifies her for the presidency. “And this is a moment in time that I feel a sense of responsibility to stand up and fight for the best of who we are. And that fight will always include, as one of the highest priorities, our national security.”

Harris, 54, grew up in Oakland, California, a daughter of parents from Jamaica and India who were active in the civil rights movement.

King, she said, “was aspirational, like our country is aspirational. We know that we’ve not yet reached those ideals, but our strength is that we fight to reach those ideals. And that inspires me because it is true that we are a country that, yes, we are flawed, we are not perfect, but we are a great country when we think about the principles upon which we are founded.”

Harris also cited her years as a prosecutor in asserting: “My entire career has been focused on keeping people safe. It is probably one of the things that motivates me more than anything else.”

The senator plans a formal campaign launch in Oakland in a week and will have her headquarters in Baltimore. She’s already planning her first trip to an early primary state as a declared candidate.

Jay Inslee

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who attended a King event last week at a Seattle church, is in overwhelmingly white New Hampshire to address a private fundraiser for the League of Conservation Voters. The event aligns with his intention to put climate change at the center of a presidential campaign if he runs.

The juxtaposition highlights the challenges involved in building the diverse coalition necessary to win Democrats’ nomination.

Highly diverse South Carolina and Nevada are getting heavy early attention but the process still starts with Iowa, which is 91 percent white, and New Hampshire, which is 94 percent white. That all adds up to a balancing act: No one can emerge from a crowded Democratic field without winning a considerable number of non-white voters; but candidates, particularly those who are lesser known, must show some strength in Iowa and New Hampshire or risk not even being around by the time the nominating calendar turns to more diverse states.

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Associated Press reporters Brian Slodysko and Juana Summers in Washington, Steve Peoples in New York, and Steve LeBlanc in Boston contributed to this report.