Chris Hedges's Blog, page 475

U.S. Closes PLO Office, Threatens Sanctions on International Criminal Court

President Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, made two announcements in a speech to the ultraconservative Federalist Society on Monday that were designed to strengthen the U.S. relationship with Israel—further alienating Palestinians and much of the international community.

The speech, titled “Protecting American Constitutionalism and Sovereignty from International Threats,” was Bolton’s first formal address since his appointment in April.

As The New York Times reports, Bolton threatened to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it pursues an investigation of the actions of American troops in Afghanistan. He also announced the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington, D.C., a move the Times says is “linked to the International Criminal Court, which he said was being prodded by the Palestinians to investigate Israel.”

Bolton told the Federalist Society audience that “the United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court.”

“We will ban its judges and prosecutors from entering the U.S.,” Bolton said. “We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and, we will prosecute them in the U.S. criminal system. We will do the same for any company or state that assists in an ICC investigation of Americans.”

Bolton has been an opponent of the ICC since his tenure in the first term of the George W. Bush administration, where he served as an undersecretary of state and then ambassador to the United Nations.

The Trump administration is closing the PLO office because, as the State Department said in a statement to The Washington Post, the PLO “has not taken steps to advance the start of direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel.”

The decision comes on the heels of months of strained relations between Palestinians and the U.S., including Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing the contested city as Israel’s capital, and canceling most U.S. aid to Palestinians, including $25 million in funding for Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem.

In response, Palestinians withdrew from talks for a still-unformed, U.S.-brokered peace plan with Israel.

Palestinian officials, the Post reports, “vowed to fight what they called bullying tactics and ‘collective punishment’ of the Palestinian people.”

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, told the Post that the Trump administration had “decided to stand on the wrong side of history by protecting war criminals and destroying the two-state solution.”

California Aims to Get All Electricity From Clean Sources

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—California has set a goal of phasing out fossil fuels from the state’s electricity sector by 2045 under legislation signed Monday by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Brown, who has positioned California as a global leader in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, approved the measure as he prepares to host a summit in San Francisco of climate change leaders from around the world later this week.

The renewable energy measure would require California’s utilities to generate 60 percent of their energy from wind, solar and other specific renewable sources by 2030. That’s 10 percent higher than the current mandate.

The goal would then be to use only carbon-free sources to generate electricity by 2045. It’s merely a goal, with no mandate or penalty for falling short.

“It’s not going to be easy and will not be immediate, but it must be done,” Brown said. “California is committed to doing whatever is necessary to meet the existential threat of climate change.”

Phasing out fossil fuels would be a massive change in the energy grid. Utilities rely on natural gas plants to meet demand when renewables fall short, particularly in the early evening when the sun sets and people turn on their air conditioners as they get home from work.

Utilities are already dealing with an abundance of solar energy during peak times, which must be offloaded to other states when there’s not enough demand locally for the power.

Renewable energy experts have looked to batteries that can store solar energy generated in the afternoon as one possible solution, but the technology is not ready for wide-scale deployment.

Brown has often faced criticism that he’s too cozy with the oil industry, including from environmental groups that plan to protest at the San Francisco summit.

Critics say the renewable energy goal is not realistic and worry that individuals and businesses will face higher energy prices.

The measure was written by Democratic Sen. Kevin de Leon, a Los Angeles Democrat who is running for U.S. Senate against Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Immigration Judges Must Be Efficient With Backlog, Sessions Says

FALLS CHURCH, Va.—Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a group of new immigration judges Monday they have an obligation to decide cases efficiently in a system besieged by ballooning dockets and lengthy backlogs.

Speaking to the group of 44 new judges — the largest class of immigration judges in U.S. history — Sessions told them they must keep “our federal laws functioning effectively, fairly, and consistently.”

The attorney general has pushed for faster rulings in immigration cases and issued directives preventing judges from administratively closing cases, which has reignited a debate about the independence of immigration judges, who work for the Justice Department and are not part of the judicial branch.

Earlier this year, the Justice Department sent a memo to immigration judges telling them they would need to clear at least 700 cases a year in order to receive a “satisfactory” rating on their performance evaluations.

On Monday, the attorney general also reiterated the Trump administration’s plan to increase the number of immigration judges by 50 percent compared to the number of judges when Trump took office last year.

James McHenry, the director of the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, said the department would “keep hiring until we run out of space or money.”

Sessions cautioned the jurists will face challenges because “we have a lot to do right now.”

“As you take on this critically important role, I hope that you will be imaginative and inventive in order to manage a high-volume caseload,” he said. “I do not apologize for expecting you to perform, at a high level, efficiently and effectively.”

Sessions said the system for seeking asylum in the U.S. has been “abused for years” and while the judges must respect the rights of immigrants they should also “reject unjustified and sometimes blatantly fake claims.”

Sessions also defended the government’s “zero tolerance” policy to prosecute people illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, which he said will deter others from doing the same.

“Our U.S. Attorneys are prosecuting over 90 percent of those cases referred to us. It’s a two to threefold increase – and it has some deterrent effect,” he said.

The U.S. government separated more than 2,500 children from their parents this year as the Trump administration adopted a “zero-tolerance” policy on illegal immigration. On June 20, Trump reversed course amid an international outcry and said families should remain together. As of last week, more than 300 parents remained separated from their children.

Mention of Climate Change Scrubbed From National Parks Report

Park officials scrubbed all mentions of climate change from a key planning document for a New England national park after they were warned to avoid “sensitive language that may raise eyebrows” with the Trump administration.

The superintendent of the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park in Massachusetts had signed off a year ago on a 50-page document that outlines the park’s importance to American history and its future challenges. But then the National Park Service’s regional office sent an email in January suggesting edits: References to climate change and its increasing role in threats to the famous whaling port, such as flooding, were noted in the draft, then omitted from the final report, signed in June.

The draft and the emails were obtained by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The documents provide a rare peek behind the usually closed curtains of the Trump administration. They illustrate how President Donald Trump’s approach to climate change impacts the way that park managers research and plan for future threats to the nation’s historic and natural treasures.

The editing of the report reflects a pattern of the Trump administration sidelining research and censoring Interior Department documents that contain references to climate science.

Earlier this year, Reveal exposed an effort by park service managers to remove references to human-induced climate change in a scientific report about sea level rise and storm surge at 118 national parks. The Guardian recently reported on the Trump administration’s efforts to stall funding for climate change research in the Interior Department by subjecting research projects to unprecedented political review by an appointee who has no scientific qualifications.

In a survey by the Union of Concerned Scientists, government scientists reported being asked to stop working on climate change and connecting their science to industry actions. These are just a few of the examples of science under siege compiled by Columbia University in its “silencing science” tracker.

The email suggesting changes in the New Bedford park report was sent in January by Amanda Jones, a community planner with the park service’s northeast region.

“You’ll see that anything to do with ‘climate change’ has been highlighted in these documents. In a nutshell, we’re being told that we can talk about climate change in terms of facts – if we have data to back our claim, that is ok. We should, however, avoid any speculative language – like what ‘may’ happen in the future,” she wrote to Meghan Kish, the New Bedford park’s superintendent.

Scientists say telling park managers to avoid references to “what may happen in the future” is worrisome.

Steven Beissinger, a professor of conservation biology at University of California, Berkeley who reviewed the emails and edits in the New Bedford report, called it “irresponsible to future generations of Americans” for the park service to direct managers to ignore research on the future risks of rising sea levels, risks to endangered species, worsening wildfires and other effects.

“We should have confidence in scientists’ projections and prepare for those kinds of scenarios,” Beissinger said. “We can hope they won’t happen, but we surely want to be prepared for them. We have to be looking at the future because places are going to be changing.”

A comparison of the draft and final documents shows all 16 references to “climate change” were removed.

Park service officials involved in editing the New Bedford report did not respond to repeated requests for interviews. But a park service spokesman said parks are told to “address issues like climate change … using the best available scientific information.”

“Sound management requires that we rely on specific, measurable data when making management and planning decisions,” Jeremy Barnum, chief park service spokesman, said in an email response to Reveal. “Climate change is one factor that affects park ecosystems, resources, and infrastructure.”

Barnum did not answer questions about the deletions from the New Bedford park report, which is known as a “foundation document.” But he said such documents are reviewed “to ensure that they are consistent with current policy and directives.”

The New Bedford park was created by Congress in 1996 to preserve 13 city blocks of a Massachusetts seaport that was home to the world’s largest whaling fleet in the 19th century. The park tells the broader history of American whaling.

Flooding from rising seas, increased snow melt and stormwater, larger storm surges and extreme heatwaves are among the threats from human-caused climate change to the park’s historic structures. A 1960s hurricane barrier that protects New Bedford is vulnerable to widespread failure in a 100-year storm if sea levels rise by 4 feet. A Category 3 hurricane could breach the barrier at current sea levels.

The original draft obtained by Reveal was dated Sept. 29, 2017, and signed by Kish. The final version, signed by Kish and Gay Vietzke, regional director of the park service’s northeast region, is dated June 2018. It is not yet available online, but the park sent Reveal a printed version of the 50-page booklet.

Among the sections highlighted for review and then deleted were references to climate change in charts outlining threats to New Bedford’s historic structures, port and natural resources.

This sentence was removed: “Climate change and sea level rise may increase the frequency of large storms and storm surge, rising groundwater tables, flooding, and extreme heat events, all of which have potential to threaten structures.” In its place, the final document says: “Large storms and storm surge, rising groundwater tables, flooding, and extreme heat events all have the potential to threaten structures.”

Also, in a section about research needs, the original draft called for a “climate change vulnerability assessment.” That’s missing from the final version, which instead calls for an “assessment of park resilience to weather extremes.”

In several places, the phrase “changing environmental conditions” is substituted for the deleted term “climate change.”

Also deleted is a mention of how development near the park “could impact character and ambiance of historic district.” Elsewhere, a reference to “gentrification” is replaced with “urban renewal.” Mentions of declining park service funding and the limited control that managers have over privately owned buildings in the park are also removed. The museum in the park, which contains ships, skeletons and whaling artifacts, is privately owned.

The January email suggests that the edits are part of a broader review of foundation documents that Vietzke assigned a park service official named Ed Clark to conduct for the northeast region, which includes 83 national parks in 13 states.

“This late review came at Gay’s (Vietzke) request when she began her role as (regional director). Ed Clark was asked to review all foundation documents for sensitive language that may raise eyebrows especially with the current administration,” the email from Jones says. She wrote that the edits are “for your consideration, but not mandatory.”

Jonathan Jarvis, who headed the National Park Service under President Barack Obama, said that the direction to scrub the foundation documents must have originated from Trump administration officials, because he knows regional director Vietzke well.

“She would not be doing this of her own accord. This would have come down from on high, verbally,” he said.

Jarvis said career park service officials told him that their supervisors verbally directed them to make changes in a sea level rise report so that they did not leave anything in writing.

Scientists say climate change already is affecting parks and that the threats will increase if people continue to release greenhouse gases, which come largely from burning fossil fuels.

Jarvis was director of the agency in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy brought devastation to the northeastern coast, including several national parks. The parks incorporated climate change projections into rebuilding efforts, including moving utilities out of the basements in the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, both of which were flooded by the storm.

“Without considering climate change, we would have put them back in the basement. That’s why it has to be in a planning document,” Jarvis said.

In many national parks, flowers are blooming sooner and birds are nesting earlier, temperatures and seas are rising, and glaciers are disappearing.

Mary Foley retired in 2015 after 24 years as the chief scientist for the park service’s northeast region. She said she was frustrated during the Bush administration because the park service lacked permission and funding to solicit key research about climate change. But she said the Trump administration’s policy of sidelining climate science is much more concerning. Now much of the science has been done, but the unwritten policy seems to be to order park managers to ignore it, she said.

“Managing a park is a difficult and expensive task,” Foley said. “It’s pretty shortsighted to ignore future climate change. If you are going to plan for construction of a visitor center you wouldn’t want to put it where sea level rise is going to challenge that structure.”

But Foley and other former park service leaders said they hope that park managers will incorporate science into the planning for parks even if they scrub documents to please Trump’s team.

“Current managers are pretty knowledgeable of the implications of climate change. Whether or not that is written into formal documents, I don’t think that they will ignore it,” Foley said.

“The bottom line is, this is just paper,” Jarvis added. “You can’t erase in the superintendents’ minds the role of climate change. They’re going to do the right thing even if it’s not in the policy document.”

Trump Administration Widely Condemned for Alleged Venezuela Plot

Critics across the globe are expressing alarm over the “stunning but not surprising” revelation reported by the New York Times on Saturday that, according to 11 American officials and a former Venezuelan military commander, “the Trump administration held secret meetings with rebellious military officers from Venezuela over the last year to discuss their plans to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro.”

Some called out the Trump administration for the United States’ record on human rights. American activist and political analyst Ajamu Baraka tweeted, “There are few nations that can lecture other nations on human rights [and] democracy but the one nation that can never lecture anyone is the Unite[d] States of America.”

There are few nations that can lecture other nations on human rights & democracy but the one nation that can never lecture anyone is the Unites States of America. We need human rights & real democracy in the U.S., ask Reality Winners about human rights! https://t.co/PHyenk0EdJ

— Ajamu Baraka (@ajamubaraka) September 9, 2018

“Not that it makes a difference for the gangsters making policy in the U.S.,” Baraka added, “but threatening military actions against other states is a violation of U.N. Charter.”

The Times reported that “in a series of covert meetings abroad, which began last fall and continued this year, the military officers told the American government that they represented a few hundred members of the armed forces who had soured on” the presidency of Maduro, who recently survived what his government deemed an “assassination attempt” and has been criticized by human rights advocates and world leaders for the current conditions in his country.

As Tamara Taraciuk Broner of Human Rights Watch outlined for Foreign Policy in Focus, Maduro “has abused his powers to crack down on dissent, brutalize peaceful protesters, turn a blind eye to the pressing humanitarian crisis, and move forward with presidential elections despite widespread concerns that they lacked guarantees to be free and fair,” which has led millions of Venezuelans to seek refuge in neighboring nations.

Although “American officials eventually decided not to help the plotters, and the coup plans stalled,” the Times noted that “the Trump administration’s willingness to meet several times with mutinous officers intent on toppling a president in the hemisphere could backfire politically” because the United States has a “long history of covert intervention across Latin America,” and “many in the region still deeply resent the United States for backing previous rebellions, coups, and plots in countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, Brazil, and Chile.”

The revelation that the United States was plotting a coup in Venezuela with some of the worst people in the world shouldn’t come as a surprise. It fits the pattern that the US has done for decades. pic.twitter.com/Hml9gK6JRS

— Nando (@nandorvila) September 8, 2018

Venezuelan foreign minister Jorge Arreaza tweeted in Spanish that the Times report “brought to light new and crude evidence” of a coup plot. He added, “We denounce before the world the United States’ intervention plans and help to military conspirators against Venezuela.”

Denunciamos ante el mundo los planes de intervención y apoyo a conspiraciones militares del gobierno de los Estados Unidos contra Venezuela. En los propios medios estadounidenses salen a la luz nuevas y groseras evidencias: https://t.co/1vvuusfgrb

— Jorge Arreaza M (@jaarreaza) September 8, 2018

Bolivian President Evo Morales, a Maduro ally, also responded on Twitter, condemning “Trump’s coup conspiracy” and declaring, “The free countries of Latin America will withstand and defeat any further attacks of the Empire against the peace and democracy in the region.”

We condemn Trump’s coup conspiracy by holding secret meetings with Venezuelan military traitors to overthrow our brother Nicolás Maduro. The free countries of Latin America will withstand and defeat any further attacks of the Empire against the peace and democracy in the region

— Evo Morales Ayma (@evoespueblo) September 8, 2018

Garrett Marquis, a spokesman for the Trump administration’s National Security Council, insisted in a statement following the report that “U.S. policy preference for a peaceful, orderly return to democracy in Venezuela remains unchanged.”

“The United States government hears daily the concerns of Venezuelans from all walks of life—be they members of the ruling party, the security services, elements of civil society, or from among the millions of citizens forced by the regime to flee abroad,” he said. “They share one goal: the rebuilding of democracy in their homeland.”

However, as the Times pointed out, “one of the Venezuelan military commanders involved in the secret talks was hardly an ideal figure to help restore democracy: He is on the American government’s own sanctions list of corrupt officials in Venezuela.”

“He and other members of the Venezuelan security apparatus have been accused by Washington of a wide range of serious crimes,” the Times explained, “including torturing critics, jailing hundreds of political prisoners, wounding thousands of civilians, trafficking drugs and collaborating with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.”

While the meetings with Venezuelan coup plotters were just revealed, for more than a year Trump has provoked widespread concern over his reported remarks about Venezuela. In August of 2017, he told reporters, “We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option,” which prompted the Venezuelan opposition, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, and a chorus of others to warn Trump against any such action.

Robert Reich Exposes One of the Right’s Favorite Cons

Trump and his appointees are on a binge of deregulation that masks another kind of trickle-down economics, in which the gains go to the top and the rest of us bear the risks and losses.

They say getting rid of regulations frees up businesses to be more profitable. Maybe. But regulations also protect you and me—from being harmed, fleeced, shafted, injured or sickened by corporate products and services.

So when the Trump administration gets rid of regulations, top executives and big investors may make more money, but the rest of us bear more risks and harm.

After heavy lobbying by the chemical industry, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency has scaled back the way the government decides whether some of the most dangerous chemicals on the market pose health and safety risks. This may increase the profits of the chemical industry but will leave the rest of us less protected from toxins that can make their way into dry-cleaning solvents, paint strippers, shampoos and cosmetics.

Scott Pruitt may be gone from the EPA, but Trump put a former coal executive in his place. This means the EPA will continue to try to repeal the Clean Power Plan, a regulation that set the first-ever limits on carbon pollution from U.S. power plants. If it’s repealed, wealthy shareholders may do better, but most of us will bear the costs of more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and faster climate change.

Trump’s Education Department under Betsy DeVos has stopped investigating for-profit colleges. This may result in more profits for the for-profits, but leaves many young people and their parents more vulnerable to fraud.

Trump’s Labor Department is reducing the number of workers who are eligible for overtime pay, and it’s proposing to allow teenagers to work long hours in dangerous jobs that child labor laws used to protect them from. Again, more profits for business, more cost and risk for the rest of us.

Trump is weakening banking regulations put in place after the financial crisis of 2008, even rolling back the so-called Volcker Rule that prevented banks from gambling with commercial deposits. The result: More profits for the banks, and more risk on you and me.

Trump’s gang of industry lobbyists and executives who are busy deregulating the same industries they once represented will no doubt do very well when they head back into the private sector.

But the rest of us won’t do well. We may not know for years the extent we’re unprotected—until the next financial collapse, next public health crisis, next upsurge in fraud, or next floods or droughts because the EPA failed to do what it could to slow and reverse climate change.

Don’t fall for it. Trump’s binge of deregulation is just another form of trickle-down economics—in which the gains go to the top, and nothing trickles down except risks and losses.

Israeli Music Scene Jolted by International Boycott Movement

Israel’s Meteor Festival was meant to bring together indie groups from around the world in what organizers billed as a Woodstock-like “cutting edge musical journey that surpasses borders and distorts time and space.”

Instead, some 20 acts, including headliner Lana Del Rey, withdrew at the last minute amid apparent pressure from a Palestinian-led international boycott campaign.

The cancellations turned the weekend festival, held in the bucolic setting of an Israeli kibbutz, into the latest battleground between Israel and the boycott movement that says it seeks to end Israeli rule over Palestinians.

Campaign organizers claimed success, saying it reflects growing opposition to Israeli government policies among international millennials.

“The fact that these artists are canceling is showing just how different the younger generation is viewing Israel,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian analyst who supports the movement known as BDS.

The campaign, founded in 2005, calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israeli businesses, cultural institutions and universities.

BDS says it seeks to end Israel’s occupation of lands captured in the 1967 Mideast war and what it describes as discrimination against Israel’s Arab minority. It calls for the “right of return” for millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to homes their ancestors fled or were expelled from in the 1948 war over Israel’s creation.

The campaign compares itself to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and its nonviolent message has resonated with audiences around the world.

Israel says the campaign masks a deeper aim of delegitimizing or even destroying the country.

“The fact that these artists are canceling is showing just how different the younger generation is viewing Israel.”

Although BDS says it’s pushed some companies and investment funds to curtail their activities in Israel, its economic impact appears to be modest. Israel’s high-tech economy is humming along, making it an attractive base for corporate giants like Google, Apple, Microsoft and others. World leaders visit regularly to promote business ties.

Culture and academia have been easier targets. Virtually any artist who plans to perform in Israel these days can expect to come under pressure on social media to cancel.

A growing list of performers, including Israeli-American actress Natalie Portman and singer Lorde, have canceled appearances in Israel in recent months out of concern over Israeli policies.

Del Rey joined that list on Aug. 31 when she announced that she was withdrawing from the Meteor Festival after an intense BDS lobbying campaign. In a statement on Twitter, the Grammy-nominated singer said she was “postponing” until she could perform for both Israeli and Palestinian audiences.

Other no-shows included “of Montreal,” a popular indie band that previously performed in Israel.

“Now is not the time for escapism and celebrations,” it said on Facebook. “Now is the time for activism and protests against Israeli apartheid, Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the human rights atrocities being carried out every day in Gaza by Israeli forces.”

It is difficult to quantify the impact of BDS pressure.

Del Rey did not explicitly endorse the boycott message, and Portman said outright that she does not support BDS. Del Rey and several artists who skipped the Meteor Festival did not respond to interview requests.

Meanwhile, numerous A-listers, including Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Justin Timberlake and Justin Bieber, have performed in Israel in recent years. Later this month some of the world’s top DJs are expected to converge on Tel Aviv for the DGTL festival. Last year, the Australian musician Nick Cave accused the boycott movement of trying to “bully” artists who played in Israel.

“Now is the time for activism and protests against Israeli apartheid, Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the human rights atrocities being carried out every day in Gaza by Israeli forces.”

Still, the movement’s inroads have raised alarm in Israel.

Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs spends millions of dollars fighting BDS and has banned some activists from entering the country. Israel and its supporters also run outreach programs on U.S. college campuses in the battle for hearts and minds.

This comes at a time when opinion polls indicate waning support for Israel among American millennials.

A survey by the Pew Research Center earlier this year found that 32 percent of Americans under the age of 30 sympathize more with Israel, compared with 23 percent who sympathized more with the Palestinians. The poll found that older Americans are much more sympathetic to Israel.

The numbers are not surprising.

Opinion polls indicate that American millennials tend to be more liberal than their parents on issues ranging from race to same-sex marriage to immigration. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s close ties with President Donald Trump, his alliance with conservative evangelical Christians and a nationalistic agenda that includes a Jewish nation state law widely seen as sidelining Arabs all risk alienating younger liberals.

In the case of the Meteor Festival, Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry said a “small minority” of musicians backed out, arguing that they had fallen prey “to the incitement and hate-filled agenda of the Israel boycott movement.”

Festival organizers argued that music should unite people and that BDS “insanely politicized our event.”

The Jerusalem Post newspaper, which opposes BDS, said Del Rey’s cancellation should be a wake-up call for those in Israel trying to play down the potential dangers posed by the campaign.

“Artists like Del Rey and Lorde, and DJs like Leon Vynehall and Python are followed by millions of impressionable fans who are totally ignorant of the complexities and nuances of the Middle East,” it wrote in an editorial. “The only thing they know is that their favorite artist is more sympathetic to Palestinians than to Israelis.”

In the end, thousands of people attended the Meteor Festival.

Many camped out under the stars, and fans enjoyed an eclectic mix of dozens of artists over three days. Media critics gave it warm reviews, barely mentioning the BDS issue.

“There was a good atmosphere and people enjoyed themselves. They were excited about the artists who were coming and didn’t notice that much who was missing,” said Nitzan Amitay, 25, a volunteer festival organizer.

Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement, said the campaign against Meteor had succeeded “beyond expectations,” estimating that roughly 40 percent of international artists pulled out. He said fans of such bands are a natural audience for his message.

“The common denominator is younger fans that are more progressive and liberal,” he said.

BDS now has its sights on a more high-profile target — the Eurovision Song Contest. Israel is expected to host the hugely popular event next year, and last week dozens of European artists, led by former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, signed a letter calling for the contest to be moved to another country.

“If Eurovision is hosted by Israel, and this is still quite uncertain, it would art-wash Israel’s regime of occupation and apartheid,” Barghouti said.

Despite Trump’s Tweet, Ford Won’t Build Hatchback in U.S.

WASHINGTON — Ford won’t be moving production of a hatchback wagon to the United States from China — despite President Donald Trump’s claim Sunday that his taxes on Chinese imports mean the Focus Active can be built in America.

Citing Trump’s new tariffs, Ford on Aug. 31 said it was dropping plans to ship the Focus Active from China to America.

Trump took to Twitter Sunday to declare victory and write: “This is just the beginning. This car can now be BUILT IN THE U.S.A. and Ford will pay no tariffs!”

But in a statement Sunday, Ford said “it would not be profitable to build the Focus Active in the U.S.” given forecast yearly sales below 50,000.

For now, that means Ford simply won’t sell the vehicle in the United States. Kristin Dziczek of the Center for Automotive Research said that Ford can make Focuses “in many other plants around the world, so if they decided to continue to sell a Focus variant in the U.S. market, there are several options other than building it in the United States.”

In April, Ford announced plans to stop making cars in the United States — except for the iconic Mustang — and to focus on more profitable SUVs. It stopped making Focus sedans at a Wayne, Michigan, plant in May. The plan, said industry analyst Ed Kim of AutoPacific, was to pare down the Focus lineup to Active wagons and import them from China. “Without the tariffs, the business case was pretty solid for that model in the U.S. market,” Kim said.

The tariffs changed everything. The United States on July 6 began imposing a 25 percent tax on $34 billion in Chinese imports, including motor vehicles. Last month, it added tariffs to another $16 billion in Chinese goods and is readying taxes on another $200 billion worth. China is retaliating with its own tariffs on U.S. products.

The world’s two biggest economies are clashing over U.S. allegations that China deploys predatory tactics — including outright cybertheft — to acquire technology from U.S. companies and challenge American technological dominance.

Moonves Out at CBS as 6 More Women Accuse Him of Sex Offenses

Update from The Associated Press:  

CBS said Sunday that CEO Leslie Moonves has resigned, hours after more sexual harassment allegations surfaced involving the network’s longtime leader.  A statement posted on CBS’s website says Moonves’ resignation is effective immediately.

The network’s chief operating officer, Joseph Ianniello, will serve as president and acting CEO while CBS’s board of directors looks for a replacement. 

Six more women have come forward accusing CBS CEO Leslie Moonves of sexual harassment or assault, according to a report published in The New Yorker on Sunday. He is accused of forcing a woman to perform oral sex as well as exposing himself, groping, and committing physical violence, intimidation and career-damaging retaliation.

Moonves is negotiating his exit and has been offered a $100 million package, according to CNBC. Last month, The New Yorker published a report that detailed six other women’s accusations against Moonves of harassment, intimidation and abuse.

“It’s completely disgusting,” writer Jessica Pallingston, one of the accusers, told The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow about Moonves’ potential exit deal. “He should take all that money and give it to an organization that helps survivors of sexual abuse.”

Pallingston has accused Moonves of coercing her to perform oral sex on him during the ’90s when she worked as his temporary assistant. Several massage therapists also accused Moonves of sexual harassment.

“The appalling accusations in this article are untrue,” Moonves told The New Yorker. “What is true is that I had consensual relations with three of the women some 25 years ago before I came to CBS.”

Television executive Phyllis Golden-Gottlieb, who worked with Moonves in the late ’80s, said she filed a complaint with the Los Angeles Police Department accusing him of abusive behavior including forcing her to perform oral sex on him and throwing her against a wall. “You sort of just go numb. You don’t know what to do … it was just sick,” she said.

Two law firms have been hired to investigate the accusations for CBS.

 

For First Time as President, Trump to Answer Questions Under Oath

Summer Zervos is about to achieve what Robert Mueller, Michael Avenatti and Stormy Daniels have so far failed to do: force President Trump to answer questions under oath.

Zervos, a contestant on Trump’s former TV show “The Apprentice,” is suing him for defamation. She says that Trump, while on the campaign trail in 2016, falsely accused her and other women of being liars. Responding to Zervos’ charge that he sexually assaulted her at a Beverly Hills, Calif., hotel in 2007, Trump told an audience at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania that the allegation was a “total fabrication” designed to get her and his other accusers “10 minutes of fame.”

In New York on Friday, Law & Crime reports, attorneys in the civil case agreed to exchange written answers to each side’s questions and objections by Sept. 28. These answers must be provided under oath, so Trump will have tell the truth or face a possible perjury charge.

As Truthdig’s Ear to the Ground noted in June, Trump’s legal peril here is significant. It was a lie by President Bill Clinton in sworn testimony in the Monica Lewinsky scandal that tripped him up, resulting in a perjury charge that ultimately led to his impeachment in 1998.

Beyond the Zervos case, legal maneuverings continued Friday in the two highest-profile cases involving Trump:

• In the Mueller probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani told The Associated Press that the president would not submit to questioning about potential obstruction of justice.

• In the Stormy Daniels case, a company created by Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, asked a Los Angeles court to void a “hush money” agreement made shortly before the election over her alleged affair with Trump. Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, called the move an attempt to protect Trump from being deposed in the case.

Only the Zervos case is likely to see the president sworn to tell the truth before the midterm elections. Fall is in the air, but Summer is still coming for Donald Trump.