Chris Hedges's Blog, page 583

Gunman Opens Fire in Texas High School, Killing 10 People

SANTA FE, Texas — The Latest on a shooting at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas (all times local):

4:40 p.m.

U.S. Senator John Cornyn says the 17-year-old student accused in a fatal shooting at a Texas high school used a semi-automatic pistol and a sawed-off shotgun to kill 10 people.

The Republican from Texas says investigators are still determining whether the shotgun’s shortened barrel is legal.

Dimitrios Pagourtzis (Puh-GORE-cheese) has been charged with capital murder in the Friday shooting that also wounded 10 people at Santa Fe High School near Houston.

Cornyn says the suspect had a variety of homemade explosives in his car and at the school, including pipe bombs and “pressure-cooker-like bombs” similar to those used in the Boston Marathon attack.

Cornyn says the suspect “planned on doing this for some time, he advertised his intentions but somehow slipped through the cracks.”

___

4:15 p.m.

Vice President Mike Pence says President Donald Trump “has been taking action to make our schools and our communities safe,” hours after a mass shooting at a high school in Texas.

Pence on Friday called it a “heartbreaking day” after at least 10 people were killed at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas.

Speaking at political event in his home state of Indiana, Pence is highlighting the administration’s efforts on school safety, including signing legislation authorizing $2 billion for state and local governments to use to protect schools and a bill to strengthen the nation’s firearm background check system.

Pence says the administration is still calling on states “to follow the example of Indiana and allow qualified school personnel to carry concealed weapons.” A school police officer was among the 10 people who were shot and injured Friday in Santa Fe.

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4:05 p.m.

Texas’ governor says the 17-year-old student believed to be behind a high school shooting that killed 10 people wrote in his journal of wanting to carry out such an attack.

Republican Greg Abbott said Friday that the suspect “has information contained in journals on his computer, in his cellphone that … said … not only did he want to commit the shooting but he wanted to commit suicide after the shooting.”

Abbott added that the suspect gave himself up to authorities, saying he “didn’t have the courage” to take his own life.

Dimitrios Pagourtzis (Puh-GORE-cheese) has been charged with capital murder in the Friday morning shooting that killed 10 people and wounded 10 others in Santa Fe, near Houston and Galveston.

___

3:45 p.m.

A hospital spokesman says a school resource officer who was shot in the arm when he engaged a gunman during a shooting at a Houston-area school is undergoing surgery.

David Marshall, the University of Texas Medical Branch’s chief nursing officer, says Santa Fe school resource officer John Barnes is in stable condition Friday afternoon.

Marshall says a bullet hit Barnes’ arm, damaging the bone and a major blood vessel around his elbow. He says the blood vessel has been repaired, and that Barnes is expected to emerge from surgery within a few hours.

Marshall says Barnes was the first person to engage a student armed with two guns who opened fire at Santa Fe High School Friday morning. The shooter killed at least 10 people and injured 10 more.

___

3:30 p.m.

President Donald Trump has ordered that U.S. flags fly at half-staff as a mark of “solemn respect” for those affected by the school shooting in Texas.

Flags are to be flown at half-staff until sunset on May 22. The order applies to the White House and all public buildings and grounds, military posts and naval stations and vessels, as well as at U.S. embassies, consular offices and other facilities abroad. The flag atop the White House was immediately lowered on Friday.

Texas authorities say 10 people, mostly students, were killed Friday when a 17-year-old student carrying a shotgun and a revolver opened fire at a Houston-area high school.

Ten other people were wounded at the school in Santa Fe.

___

3:15 p.m.

A sophomore baseball player was one of at least 10 people injured in a shooting at a Houston-area high school.

Rome Shubert tells the Houston Chronicle that he was hit in the back of his head with what he says was a bullet, but that it “missed everything vital.”

Shubert posted on Twitter that he was “completely okay (sic) and stable.”

Authorities say 17-year-old student Dimitrios Pagourtzis fatally shot 10 people and wounded 10 others at Santa Fe High School on Friday. He is being held on a capital murder charge.

Shubert says the gunman walked into the classroom and tossed something. He said there were “three loud pops” before the attacker fled into the hall.

Shubert says he realized he’d been struck and injured as he was running out the back door.

___

2:55 p.m.

Gov. Greg Abbott says there were few prior warnings about the suspected gunman who opened fire inside a Texas high school, unlike in other recent mass shootings.

Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset says 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis has been charged with capital murder in the Friday morning shooting that killed 10 people and wounded 10 others in the community of Santa Fe.

Abbott said that “unlike Parkland, unlike Sutherland Springs, there were not those types of warning signs.” He was referring to the Feb. 14 school shooting in Florida and one in November inside a church in a town near San Antonio.

Abbott says “the red-flag warnings were either non-existent, or very imperceptible” in the case of the suspected Santa Fe shooter.

___

2:40 p.m.

A sheriff says the 17-year-old suspect in the fatal shooting of at least 10 people at his Houston-area high school is being held on a capital murder charge.

Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset says in a statement that the student, Dimitrios Pagourtzis, is being held without bond in the Galveston County jail.

At least 10 other people were wounded in the shooting Friday morning at the Santa Fe High School.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says investigators also found explosive devices, including a Molotov cocktail, in the school and nearby.

Abbott says the suspect told authorities after his arrest that he had intended to kill himself too, but that he lacked the courage.

___

2:30 p.m.

At least one student isn’t at all surprised that a deadly shooting happened at her high school in Texas.

Paige Curry, who is 17, says “it’s been happening everywhere” and that she “always … felt like that eventually it was going to happen here too.”

Gov. Greg Abbott says 10 people were killed and 10 more were injured Friday morning when a gunman opened fire at Santa Fe High School.

Curry says she was sitting in a classroom when she “heard the loud booms.” It took a second for her to realize what was going on. She and her classmates ran onto the stage and hid together backstage, trying to keep each other calm until SWAT officers found them.

___

2:20 p.m.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says the school shooting suspect used a shotgun and .38-revolver he obtained from his father.

At a news conference on Friday, Abbott said both weapons were owned legally by the suspect’s father. But it’s not clear whether the father knew his son had taken them.

Abbott says 10 people were killed and 10 more wounded in the shooting Friday morning at Santa Fe High School.

Abbott said “we look to God to give the first responders, as well as the victims and the families, the guidance they need in the coming days and weeks.”

Abbott says he will organize roundtables around the state to discuss preventing further shootings.

___

2:10 p.m.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says 10 people are dead and 10 more wounded after a shooting at a high school in the town of Santa Fe.

Abbott called Friday’s shooting “one of the most heinous attacks that we’ve ever seen in the history of Texas schools.”

He says explosive devices including a molotov cocktail that had been found in the suspected shooter’s home and a vehicle as well as around the school and nearby.

The governor says the suspect said he originally intended to commit suicide but gave himself up and told authorities that he didn’t have the courage to take his own life.

Abbott said there are “one or two” other people of interest being interviewed about the shooting.

___

1:45 p.m.

A 16-year-old boy who says he considers Dimitrios Pagourtzis a friend says the Texas high school shooting suspect is interested in guns and war simulation video games, but that he has never about talked about killing people.

Tristen Patterson is a junior at Sante Fe high School, where at least eight people were killed in the shooting Friday morning.

Patterson says Pagourtzis didn’t show signs of being bullied, but that he rarely talked about himself.

He says Pagourtzis would sometimes enter the classroom “acting a little bit down or sad. A little bit sluggish. … But he never talked about why.”

___

1:25 p.m.

A sophomore says it was “chaos” when the fire alarm sounded at Santa Fe High School and people realized it was an active shooter situation.

Sixteen-year-old John Robinson says he was in first period English class when the fire alarm went off.

Robinson says: “Everybody was just trying to get away from the school. They kept saying there was a shooter, people were shot.”

He says he felt scared and simply wanted to get as far away from the school as possible. He and other students ran to a nearby Shell station.

Robinson says he thinks two of his friends might have been injured in the shooting but that he hasn’t been able to speak with them.

___

1:05 p.m.

A law enforcement official has identified a person in custody in the Houston-area school shooting as 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis.

The official was not authorized to discuss the shooting by name and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press.

Authorities say eight to 10 people, mostly students, were killed in the nation’s deadliest such attack since the massacre in Florida that gave rise to a campaign by teens for gun control.

A woman who answered the phone at a number associated with the Pagourtzis family declined to speak with the AP.

She said: “Give us our time right now, thank you.”

Pagourtzis plays on the Santa Fe High School junior varsity football team, and is a member of a dance squad with a local Greek Orthodox church.

___

Eric Tucker in Washington D.C. contributed to this report.

___

1 p.m.

The emergency room medical director at a Texas hospital says the facility has treated eight patients injured in a shooting at a Houston-area school.

Dr. Safi Madain at Clear Lake Regional Medical Center says six of the eight patients have been treated and released. Madain says one patient remains in critical condition and the other is in fair condition.

Madain says all appeared to be high school students with gunshot wounds.

Other victims have been treated at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Dr. David Marshall, chief nursing officer, says one adult male is in critical condition at the hospital. He says that man was shot in the upper arm and is undergoing surgery.

Officials have said eight to 10 people were killed in the Friday morning shooting at Santa Fe High School.

___

12:50 p.m.

A student inside the Houston-area high school where several people were fatally shot says he was near the art classroom where the shooting took place.

Eighteen-year-old Logan Roberds says he heard a fire alarm at Santa Fe High School and went outside. He says he then heard two loud bangs, which he didn’t initially think were gunshots. He says he thought someone loudly hit a trash can.

But he later heard three loud bangs. He says, “that’s when the teachers told us to run.” He says he ran with other students to a nearby gas station. His mother says she quickly drove to meet her son.

The local sheriff says eight to 10 people were killed after a gunman opened fire inside the school Friday morning. Two people are in custody.

___

12:30 p.m.

The police chief at a Houston-area school district says a police officer was shot and wounded during a shooting that killed multiple people at a local high school.

Walter Braun is the police chief of Santa Fe Independent School District. He says the fatal shooting Friday morning at Santa Fe High School also left at least six people wounded, including a police officer.

Dr. David Marshall is the chief nursing officer at the University of Texas Medical Branch in nearby Galveston. He says one man is in critical condition and undergoing surgery at the hospital after suffering a gunshot wound to the upper arm. It wasn’t immediately clear if the man is the wounded officer.

Two other victims are being treated for gunshot wounds to their legs. Hospital spokesman Raul Reyes says one of those is believed to be a student. The other is a middle-aged woman.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez says eight to 10 people were killed after a gunman opened fire inside the school. Two people are in custody.

___

12 p.m.

Survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, took to social media to express outrage and heartbreak after the latest school shooting in Texas where authorities say a gunman opened fire killing eight to 10 people.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas students Jaclyn Corin said in a tweet Friday that her “heart is so heavy” for the students at Santa Fe High School, telling them Parkland will stand with them.

She also directed her frustration at President Donald Trump, urging him to “DO SOMETHING” because children are being killed.

Classmate David Hogg warned the city that politicians would soon descend on the school acting like they care but are only looking to boost approval ratings.

Corin and Hogg were part of a grassroots movement that rallied hundreds of thousands for gun reform.

___

11:50 a.m.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is headed to the scene of a school shooting outside Houston where officials say as many as 10 people were killed.

Abbott tweeted Friday that he was on his way to Santa Fe High School, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Houston. The Republican said an afternoon press conference was planned.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez says most of the victims were students. He says authorities have also detained two people believed to be students.

Gonzalez says authorities didn’t yet have information on the weapon or weapons used.

The White House says President Donald Trump spoke with Abbott to offer his condolences and pledged to work with the governor to provide all appropriate federal assistance

___

11:35 a.m.

Authorities say possible explosive devices have been found at and adjacent to the Texas high school where a shooting left as many as 10 people dead.

The Santa Fe Independent School District said in a statement Friday that authorities are in the process of rendering the devices safe.

There’s no indication how many devices have been found. Police asked the public to “remain vigilant” and to call 911 if they see any suspicious items in the area.

The school outside Houston went on lockdown around 8 a.m. after an active shooting was reported.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez says there “could be 8 to 10 fatalities” from the shooting. Gonzalez says the majority of the dead are students.

The sheriff says one person is in custody and a second person has been detained.

Santa Fe is about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Houston.

___

11:15 a.m.

President Donald Trump is sending condolences for the “absolutely horrific attack” at a Texas high school.

Trump is telling those affected that “we’re with you in this tragic hour and we will be with you forever.”

He says his administration is working to protect students, secure schools and keep weapons out of the hands of those who want to do harm.

He called this a “very very sad day.” Trump says “everyone must work together” to keep children safe.

The local sheriff says the shooting Friday morning at Santa Fe High school left as many as 10 people dead, most of them students. The school is about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Houston.

___

10:50 a.m.

The local sheriff says as many as 10 people may have been killed during a shooting at a high school near Houston, most of them students.

Harris County Sherriff Ed Gonzalez Harris County said there “could be 8 to 10 fatalities” from the shooting Friday morning at Santa Fe High School, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Houston.

Gonzalez says the majority of the dead are students.

The sheriff says one person is in custody and a second person has been detained.

Gonzalez says a police officer is among the injured but the extent of the officer’s injuries is unknown.

___

10:45 a.m.

Vice President Mike Pence says he and President Donald Trump have been briefed on the school shooting at Santa Fe High School near Houston.

Pence said the students, families, teachers and all those affected should know: “‘We’re with you. You’re in our prayers and I know you are in the prayers of the American people.”

Trump adds in a tweet that, “Early reports not looking good. God bless all!”

First lady Melania Trump is also weighing on Twitter. She says, “My heart goes out to Santa Fe and all of Texas today.”

Houston-area media citing unnamed law enforcement officials are reporting that there are fatalities following the Friday morning shooting. The Associated Press has not been able to confirm the reports.

___

10:30 a.m.

Officials say at least three people are being treated for gunshot wounds and two people have been detained following a shooting at a high school near Houston.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez tweeted Friday that one person is in custody and a second person has been detained following the Friday morning shooting at Santa Fe High School.

Gonzalez says a police officer was injured but the extent of the officer’s injuries is unknown.

Gonzalez says there are “multiple casualties” but didn’t elaborate. Houston-area media have cited unnamed law enforcement officials saying there were fatalities. The Associated Press has not been able to confirm the reports.

Dr. David Marshall is chief nursing officer at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. He says one man was undergoing surgery at the hospital Friday morning following the shooting. He says a juvenile has been admitted and a second adult is being treated in the emergency room.

___

9:45 a.m.

Houston-area media citing unnamed law enforcement officials are reporting that there are fatalities following a shooting at a high school.

Television station KHOU and the Houston Chronicle are citing unnamed federal, county and police officials following the shooting early Friday at Santa Fe High School, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Houston.

The Associated Press has not been able to confirm the reports.

The school district has confirmed an unspecified number of injuries but is not immediately releasing further details. Assistant Principal Cris Richardson says a suspect “has been arrested and secured.”

___

9:30 a.m.

School officials say people have been injured in a shooting at a Houston-area high school and the suspected shooter is in custody.

Assistant Principal Cris Richardson says the suspect in the shooting Friday at Santa Fe High School “has been arrested and secured.”

The school district also confirmed an unspecified number of people are injured but provided no other details.

School officials say law enforcement officers are working to secure the building “and initiate all emergency management protocols to release and move students to another location.”

Students are being transported to another location to reunite with their parents.

One student told Houston television station KTRK that a gunman came into her first-period class and started shooting. The student says she saw one girl with a bloody leg as the class evacuated.

___

8:37 a.m.

Law enforcement officers are responding to a high school near Houston after an active shooter was reported on campus.

The Santa Fe school district issued an alert Friday morning saying Santa Fe High School has been placed on lockdown.

Galveston County sheriff’s Maj. Douglas Hudson says units are responding to reports of shots fired. He had no immediate details on whether anyone has been hurt.

Santa Fe is a city of about 13,000 residents, located 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Houston.

One student told Houston television station KTRK in a telephone interview that a gunman came into her first-period art class and started shooting. The student says she saw one girl with blood on her leg as the class evacuated the room.

Authorities have not yet confirmed that report.

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Adam Parfrey, an Uncompromising Rebel

“Whatever provokes satisfies me,” Adam Parfrey, one of America’s most courageous and unconventional publishers, told podcaster Marc Maron in 2016. “If it stimulates thought, that’s perfect.”

Parfrey, founder and proprietor of the Feral House publishing company, died May 10 in Seattle, the victim of a stroke at the age of 61. He left a legacy of books which are controversial and wouldn’t be touched by mainstream publishers. He was to the smug, materialistic 1980s and 1990s what the Grove Press was to the narrow, repressed culture of post-World War II America.

Years ago, Adam was my son-in-law. My wife Nancy wrote on the Feral House Facebook page, “Adam and our late daughter, Robin, were married when they were very young. The marriage didn’t work out, but we all (including Robin) remained friends. He was a nice guy. Brilliant, too.” We had visited with his late parents, Woody, a well-known character actor, and his mother, Rosa. I have talked over the years with his brother, Jonathan, an environmentalist and social activist, who is executive director of Climate Change.

“Nice guy” is an unlikely but accurate way of describing such an uncompromising rebel. He was a warm and friendly man. But once he was writing and editing, he had the heart and mind of a rabble rouser, scornfully ignoring the bland, conventional way that the media business—broadcast, internet, newspapers, magazine, books—approaches events.

Maron, the well-known podcaster whose guests have ranged from Adam to President Barack Obama, said on his website that Adam “had a profound effect on the brain of young Marc Maron. … Adam opened the minds of many unsuspecting readers to the weird, the marginal, the obscene and the mysteries of the world hidden in plain sight.”

Ellis W. Conklin wrote in Seattle Weekly in 2010, “In essence, what Parfrey does is publish books that explore the marginal aspects of culture. And in many cases … he sheds light on subjects that society prefers to leave unexplored, carving a niche catering to those of us with an unseemly obsession with life’s darkest, most depraved sides.”

Feral House’s long book list reflects that. Adam’s most famous—and best-selling book—was “Apocalypse Culture,” a collection of essays and articles he edited. The late J.G. Ballard, a respected author of dystopian literary fiction and the more conventional “Empire of The Sun,” wrote that the book is “compulsory reading for all those concerned with the crisis of our time … an extraordinary collection unlike anything I have ever encountered. These are the terminal documents of the 20th Century.”

Other titles include “Apocalypse Culture II,” with a contribution from Unabomber Ted Kaczynski; “White House Call Girl”; “Anne Bonny, The Infamous Female Pirate”; and “A People’s History of Civilization,” by John Zerzan, who critiqued agriculture-based civilization as inherently oppressive and advocated drawing upon the lives and experiences of hunter-gathers for inspiration. One of Feral House’s books inspired Tim Burton’s film “Ed Wood.”

Adam also wrote “The Manson File: Charles Manson As Revealed in Letters, Photos, Stories, Songs, Art, Testimony and Documents.”

Some of Feral House’s books have been banned. Adam in 2014 criticized the American Library Association and Random House for not including small publishers like him who are ignored by “sanctimonious bookstores or libraries” in their “Banned Books Week.” He noted that Feral House’s “The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror” was “sued into non-existence” by the deputy chief of the FBI. “Most recently there has a been a call to ban and burn the satirical Feral House book Hipster Hitler. … the irony of the call to ban and destroy this satirical tome is just too fucking much,” he wrote.

Adam told podcaster Meron that “the things I publish conflict with The New York Times … or it’s considered craziness. But it’s part of American history … a big part of our culture, a big part of our political structure. … Think about eccentrics. Eccentrics are revered maybe in England, but they are ridiculed, cast aside in the United States. You can’t be eccentric.”

Eccentric is an odd—actually an eccentric—way of thinking of Charles Manson. But the killer was part of our history, as was the Unabomber and some of the others whose stories Adam told.

A number of writers and editors understood that. They were inspired by his imagination and determination to give a voice to society’s outcasts.

Adam was an example to those of us who write and edit for publications scorned by the mainstream, which aim to do the same.

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Blaming the Victims of Israel’s Gaza Massacre

Israel massacred 60 Palestinians on Monday, including seven children, bringing to 101 the total number of Palestinians Israel has killed since Palestinians began the Great March on March 30. In that period, Israel has killed 11 Palestinian children, two journalists, one person on crutches and three persons with disabilities.

Monday’s casualties included 1,861 wounded, bringing total injuries inflicted by Israel to 6,938 people, including 3,615 with live fire. Israel is using bullets designed to expand inside the body, causing maximum, often permanent damage: “The injuries sustained by patients will leave most with serious, long-term physical disabilities,” says Médecins Sans Frontières.

On the 70th anniversary of Israel’s so-called “declaration of independence,” the United States opened its new embassy in Jerusalem—a city Israel claims as its own, despite what international law says on the matter—and Palestinians undertook unarmed protests in reaction to the move and as part of the Great Return March. Although to this point, the only Israeli casualty during the entire cycle of demonstrations has been one “lightly wounded” soldier, considerable space in coverage of the massacres is devoted to blaming Palestinians for their own slaughter.

Two of the first three paragraphs in an NBC report provided Israel’s rationalizations for its killing spree. The second sentence in the article says that the Israeli military:

accused Hamas of “leading a terrorist operation under the cover of masses of people,” adding that “firebombs and explosive devices” as well as rocks were being thrown towards the barrier.

A Washington Post article devoted two of its first four sentences to telling readers that Palestinians are responsible for being murdered by Israel. Palestinian “organizers urged demonstrators to burst through the fence, telling them Israeli soldiers were fleeing their positions, even as they were reinforcing them,” read one sentence. “At the barrier, young men threw stones and tried to launch kites carrying flames in hopes of burning crops on the other side,” stated the next one, as though stones and burning kites released by a besieged people is violence remotely equivalent to subjecting people to a military siege and mowing them down.

The New York Times article said that “a mass attempt by Palestinians to cross the border fence separating Israel from Gaza turned violent, as Israeli soldiers responded with rifle fire,” painting Israel’s rampage as a reaction to a Palestinian provocation. Like FAIR has previously said of the word “retaliation,” “response” functions as a justification of Israeli butchery: To characterize Israeli violence as a “response” is to wrongly imply that Palestinian actions warranted Israel unleashing its firing squads.

A Yahoo headline described “Violent Protests in Gaza Ahead of US Embassy Inauguration in Jerusalem,” a flatly incorrect description in that it attributes the violence to Palestinian demonstrators rather than to Israel. The BBC did the same with a segment called “Gaza Braced for Further Violent Protests.”

One Bloomberg article by Saud Abu Ramadan and Amy Teibel had the same problem, referring to “a protest marred by violence,” while another one attributed only to Ramadan is headlined “Hamas Targets Fence as Gaza Bloodshed Clouds Embassy Move,” as though the fence were Monday’s most tragic casualty. Ascribing this phantom violence to Palestinians provides Israel an alibi: Many readers will likely conclude that Israel’s lethal violence is reasonable if it is cast as a way of coping with “violent protests.”

The second paragraph of the Bloomberg article solely written by Ramadan says that:

Gaza protesters, egged on by loudspeakers and transported in buses, streamed to the border, where some threw rocks, burned tires, and flew kites and balloons outfitted with firebombs into Israeli territory.

This author—like the rest in the “Palestinians were asking for it” chorus—failed to note that Israel’s fence runs deep into Palestinian territory and creates a 300-meter “buffer zone” between Palestinians and Israeli forces, which makes it highly unlikely that the kites and balloons of the colonized will have an effect on their drone-operating, rifle-wielding colonizers, let alone on people further afield in Israeli-held territory.

The New York Times editorial board wrote as though Palestinians are barbarians against whom Israel has no choice but to unleash terror:

Led too long by men who were corrupt or violent or both, the Palestinians have failed and failed again to make their own best efforts toward peace. Even now, Gazans are undermining their own cause by resorting to violence, rather than keeping their protests strictly peaceful.

The board claimed that “Israel has every right to defend its borders, including the boundary with Gaza,” incorrectly suggesting that Palestinians were aggressors rather than on the receiving end of 100 years of settler-colonialism.

Moreover, like the Times and Bloomberg articles discussed above, the editorial attempts to legitimize Israel’s deadly violence by saying that it is defending a border that Palestinians are attempting to breach, but there is no border between Gaza and Israel. There is, as Maureen Murphy of Electronic Intifada pointed out, “an armistice line between an occupying power and the population living under its military rule” that Palestinians are trying to cross in order to exercise their right to return to their land.

A Washington Post editorial called the Palestinians hunted by Israel “nominal civilians.” Apart from being a logical impossibility (one either is or isn’t a civilian), the phrase illuminates how too much of media think about Palestinians:  They are inherently threatening, intrinsically killable, always suspect, never innocent, permanently guilty of existing.

A Business Insider piece by columnist Daniella Greenbaum described “Palestinian protesters who ramped up their activities along the Gaza strip and, as a result, were targeted by the Israeli army with increasing intensity.” Greenbaum’s use of the phrase “as a result” implies that it was inevitable and perhaps just that Palestinians’ “ramped up activities” led to Israel mowing down a population it occupies, 70 percent of whom are refugees Israel refuses to allow to return to their homes.

Greenbaum then climbs into the intellectual and moral gutter, claiming that:

absent from the commentary that children have unfortunately been among the injured and dead are questions about how they ended up at the border. On that question, it is important to recognize and acknowledge the extent to which Palestinians have glorified violence and martyrdom — and the extent to which the terrorist organization Hamas has organized the “protests.”

In her view, dozens of Palestinians died because they are primitive savages who take pleasure in sacrificing their own children, not because Israel maintains the right to gun down refugees in the name of maintaining an ethnostate.

In a rare instance of a resident of Gaza allowed to participate directly in the media conversation, Fadi Abu Shammalah wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that offered an explanation of why Palestinians are putting their lives on the line to march. Life for the people of Gaza, including for his three young sons, has been “one tragedy after another: waves of mass displacement, life in squalid refugee camps, a captured economy, restricted access to fishing waters, a strangling siege and three wars in the past nine years. ” Recalling the concern for his safety expressed by his seven-year-old child, Shammalah concludes:

If Ali asks me why I’m returning to the Great Return March despite the danger, I will tell him this: I love my life. But more than that, I love you, Karam and Adam. If risking my life means you and your brothers will have a chance to thrive, to have a future with dignity, to live in peace with all your neighbors, in your free country, then this is a risk I must take.

Palestinians have a right to liberate themselves that extends to the right to the use of armed struggle, yet as Shammalah wrote, the Great Return March signifies a “nearly unanimous acceptance of peaceful methods to call for our rights and insist on our humanity.” Nevertheless, based on media coverage, readers could be forgiven for concluding that it was Palestinians, not Israel, who carried out what Doctors Without Borders called “unacceptable and inhuman” violence.

Republican Congressman Offers Mind-Numbing Explanation for Rising Sea Levels

In 2015, Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., set the bar for Republican climate denialism when he presented a snowball on the Senate floor as evidence that global warming is, in fact, a hoax. Three years later, the GOP may have found a new standard-bearer.

During a House Science Committee hearing Wednesday on how technology can be used to address climate change, Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., hypothesized that rising sea levels were not a product of climbing temperatures but of fragments of earth tumbling into the ocean.

“Every time you have that soil or rock deposited into the seas, that causes the sea level to rise, because now you’ve got less space in those oceans, because the bottom is moving up,” he explained. “What about the white cliffs of Dover, Calif., where time and time again you’re having the waves crash against the shorelines, and time and time again, you’re having the cliffs crash into the sea. All that displaces water, which forces it to rise, does it not?”

Philip Duffy, a Ph.D. and former senior adviser to the White House National Science and Technology Council, was quick to point out the crushingly obvious—that warmer temperatures have coincided with sea level rises throughout history and that on a human time scale, the effects of rock and soil deposits were “minuscule.”

Duffy’s explanation probably fell on deaf ears. During his time in Congress, Brooks has repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of climate science, suggesting that global warming is not necessarily caused by humans. “If you look at climatological data going back centuries or millennia, we have periods of cooling, like the Ice Age, and warming. So it’s cyclical. So how are the proponents going to convince us that it’s not just part of a cyclical pattern?” he asked in 2011.

Ultimately, Brooks is right at home in a party whose president has theorized that global warming is a Chinese conspiracy. A Gallup poll in March found that 69 percent of Republicans believe the threat of climate change is “exaggerated,” despite a recent spate of historic natural disasters.

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20,000 North Carolina Teachers Walk Out, Demanding More Resources and Better Pay

Twenty thousand teachers staged a school walkout in North Carolina on Wednesday, demanding better salaries and more money for education. Forty school districts canceled classes in what The New York Times reports is the first walkout for teachers in that state.

North Carolina, as The Guardian reports, “stood 39th nationwide in terms of public school teacher pay in 2017 and teachers’ wages have fallen by 9.4% in real terms over the last decade. Over the same period, spending on public schools here has dropped by 8%.”

Both the low pay and the lack of resources have taken a toll on teachers’ morale. “I have to work other jobs,” Kaitlyn Davis, 26, a fourth-grade teacher, told The Guardian. “And it’s not fair because it takes away from the energy that I have to put into teaching.”

North Carolina is the sixth state where teachers have staged walkouts, if not full-fledged strikes, in 2018. Starting with West Virginia, the strikes have been concentrated in red and purple states, particularly states with years of both state budget reductions and tax cuts that have decimated funding for education, not to mention teachers’ pay, their health care and their retirement benefits.

As in the other striking states, teachers swarmed both the state capital and their own towns, wearing red (#redfored is a common Twitter hashtag and rallying cry) and attempting to grab the attention of state legislators.

North Carolina teacher salaries have not kept up with inflation since the 2008 recession, falling, according to the National Education Association, by an average of 4 percent. The drop in salaries in other states that have seen walkouts is even steeper.

Previous teacher protests have helped galvanize the labor movement in the states involved, even in those that have adopted anti-union right-to-work laws. Teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona won pay raises. Even if North Carolina teachers don’t win similar gains immediately, it gives both North Carolina unions and its Democrats a popular issue to organize around for the upcoming statewide midterm elections.

As The Guardian notes, “The Democratic party in North Carolina hopes that running on raising teacher pay will help take back the North Carolina general assembly in November.”

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Kelp Forests Under Threat From Acid Seas

Australian scientists have identified a risk to the kelp forests of the oceans, a new way in which carbon dioxide can change the world. Ever more acidic oceans could encourage weedy submarine grasslands to replace the rich habitats of the coastal kelp forests.

Although most climate change forecasts are based on computer simulation, this one has been tested in the real world. The scientists used natural volcanic seeps rich in carbon dioxide to observe the changes to sea floor ecosystems as water chemistry changes with greater levels of dissolved CO2.

“Carbon emissions might boost plant life in the oceans, but not all plant life will benefit equally,” said Sean Connell, of the Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide.

“Weedy species are quicker to capitalise on nutrients, such as carbon, and can grow faster than their natural predators can consume them.

Weedy turf wins

“Unfortunately, the CO2 that humans are pumping into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels gets absorbed by the ocean and favours weedy turfs, which replace kelp forests that support higher coastal productivity and biodiversity.”

He and colleagues from Australia, the US, New Zealand, Italy and Hong Kong report in the journal Ecology that they made a series of samples of submarine plant growth at natural volcanic vents in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty: they looked at rocky reefs on which grew a mosaic of kelp and turf algae, along barren stretches grazed by sea urchins and a native New Zealand mollusc.

They chose the sites because the levels of carbon dioxide – and therefore the measures of acidity – in the water were roughly what climate scientists would predict for the end of this century, if humans go on releasing greenhouse gases.

They found that ecosystems changed with shifts in water chemistry. “While elevated CO2 caused some weeds to be eaten in greater amounts, the dominant sea urchin predator ate these weeds at reduced amounts. This enabled the weeds to escape their natural controls and expand across coasts near the elevated CO2,” Professor Connell said.

The slow but inexorable changes in ocean acidity will have inevitable consequences for coastal protection offered by natural ecosystems. Kelp forests provide habitat or nourishment for seals, sea otters, sea lions, whales, cormorants, gulls, terns and shore birds as well as fish. There is evidence that warming has already damaged some of Australia’s kelp forests.

Researchers have been issuing such warnings for years: among them Professor Connell and his co-author from Adelaide, Ivan Nagelkerken, who, three years ago, surveyed 632 scientific studies of a huge range of marine habitats to conclude that the overall effect of acidification was to impoverish ocean life.

“Under the level of acidification we will find in the oceans in a few decades, marine life is likely to be dominated by fast-growing and opportunistic species at the expense of longer-lived species with specialist lifestyles, unless we set some change in place,” said Professor Nagelkerken.

“We need to consider how natural enemies might be managed so that those weedy species are kept under control.”

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Senate Confirms Gina Haspel as CIA Director

WASHINGTON — The Latest on a vote to confirm Gina Haspel as CIA director (all times local):

4:15 p.m.

Human rights groups are lamenting the Senate confirmation of Gina Haspel to be CIA director because of her direct involvement in the spy agency’s harsh detention and interrogation program.

Raha Wala at Human Rights First says the Senate’s decision on Thursday to confirm her was unwise. He says Human Rights First is putting Haspel on notice that Congress and the American people will hold her to her pledge to never reinstate such a program in the future.

Laura Pitter with Human Rights Watch says Haspel’s confirmation is a “perverse byproduct of the U.S. failure to grapple with past abuses.”

Supporters cited Haspel’s 33-year career at the agency. Former top intelligence officials said she earned the chance to take the helm of the intelligence agency.

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3:55 p.m.

The Senate has confirmed Gina Haspel as the first female director of the CIA following a rocky nomination process that reopened debate about one of the darkest chapters in the spy agency’s history.

Thursday’s vote was 54-45. Republican John McCain was absent.

Haspel’s nomination was contentious because of her role in a former CIA program to brutally detain and interrogate terror suspects at covert sites abroad following Sept. 11.

Her opponents said it wasn’t right to promote someone who supervised a black site in Thailand. They said the U.S. needs to close the book forever on the program that marred America’s image with allies abroad.

Haspel’s supporters cited her 33-year career at the agency. Former top intelligence officials said she earned the chance to take the helm of the intelligence agency.

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2:10 p.m.

The Senate is set to vote Thursday to confirm Gina Haspel as the first female director at the CIA.

Haspel’s nomination to lead the spy agency revived a debate on its now-banned torture program. She is expected to be confirmed after several Democrats joined most Republicans in saying they would back President Donald Trump’s nominee.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn said in a floor speech Thursday afternoon that the Senate would be voting soon.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was able to push voting past opponents, including ailing Sen. John McCain, who urged senators to reject her. He is home in Arizona and will not be voting on the nomination.

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12:40 a.m.

Political divisions within the Democratic Party are playing out in the vote to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the CIA.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has sent the nomination to the full Senate by a 10-5 vote, and her confirmation seems all but certain.

On one side of the Democratic divide is a growing list of a half-dozen senators whom many see as the future of the big-tent party. They are rural, noncoastal representatives of states won by Trump, places where some say the party needs to win back voters.

On the other are those in the comfort of blue-state incumbency, including liberal leaders who may take on Trump in 2020.

Their opposition to Haspel fuels a fired-up base pushing for a more progressive, battle-tested party.

43 Percent of American Households Can’t Afford Basic Needs

Donald Trump may be celebrating the fact that America’s unemployment rate is at its lowest level in nearly two decades, but that’s not enough for the alarming number of American families still struggling to put food on the table and pay their rent.

On Thursday, the United Way’s ALICE project released a study showing, as CNN reports, “Nearly 51 million households don’t earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone.”

These numbers include both the 16.1 million families living at or below the federal poverty line (currently $24,600 for a family of four) and the 34.7 million families the United Way calls ALICE, or Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. This means people who earn too much to qualify for federal poverty programs but are still unable to cover their monthly expenses.

The severity of the problem varies by state. California, New Mexico and Hawaii have the highest number of struggling families, at 49 percent. By contrast, North Dakota has the lowest, at 32 percent.

As CNN quotes the study, the families represent “… the nation’s child care workers, home health aides, office assistants and store clerks, who work low-paying jobs and have little savings. … Some 66% of jobs in the US pay less than $20 an hour.”

More low-wage jobs may decrease the unemployment rate, but employment doesn’t mean families can pay their bills. Stephanie Hoopes, a founding author of the study, explained this frustration, telling NJ.com that “the rate of inflation in the past 10 years has been about 9 percent, but the cost of living for ALICE families has risen by nearly twice that.” As a result, she explained, “There’s a sense of frustration or even anger because people are being told that they’re doing better but they aren’t.”

This may be because the benefits of lower unemployment rates, lower inflation and higher wages are not being distributed equally. In fact, even when, in 2016, federal data showed that median household net worth was up across income brackets, the wealthiest Americans did the best.

According to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finance, the top 1 percent of wealthy Americans now holds 38.6 percent of the nation’s wealth, up from 33.7 percent in 2007. The bottom 90 percent of Americans had only 22.8 percent of the nation’s total wealth in 2017, down from 28.5 percent in 2007.

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Court Says Defamation Suit Against Trump Can Proceed

NEW YORK—A New York court says former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos can proceed with her defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump, at least for now.

A state appeals court on Thursday turned down a request by Trump’s lawyers to delay the case while they appeal a lower-court decision.

Zervos appeared on Trump’s former show, “The Apprentice,” in 2006.

She says he subjected her to unwanted groping and kisses when she sought a job in 2007.

When Trump called her a liar, she sued.

Trump’s lawyers want to freeze the case until an appeals court decides whether a president can be sued in state court. That’s likely to take at least until fall.

The decision means Zervos’ lawyers can proceed with demands that the president give a deposition and turn over documents.

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In Congo, Ebola Is Spreading

KINSHASA, Congo—Congo’s Ebola outbreak has spread to a city, the capital of the northwestern Equateur province, a worrying shift as the risk of infection is more easily passed on in densely populated urban areas.

Two suspected cases of hemorrhagic fever were reported in the Wangata health zones, which includes Mbandaka, a city of nearly 1.2 million people about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Bikoro, the rural area where the outbreak was announced last week, said Congo Health Minister Oly Ilunga.

One sample proved positive for the deadly Ebola virus, he said. This brings to three the number of confirmed Ebola cases. A total of 44 cases have now been reported, including 23 deaths, the World Health Organization reports. Among those are three confirmed, 20 probable and 21 suspected cases.

“We are entering a new phase of the Ebola outbreak that is now affecting three health zones, including an urban health zone,” he said, adding he is worried because Mbandaka is densely populated and at the crossroads of Equateur province. Ebola is spread by contact with the bodily fluids of people exhibiting symptoms.

“Since the announcement of the alert in Mbandaka, our epidemiologists are working in the field with community relays to identify people who have been in contact with suspected cases,” he said.

He said the lists of those exposed to suspected Ebola cases would receive, for the first time in Congo, a new component of response to an Ebola outbreak: vaccinations. Health experts are already tracing 500 contacts, he said.

The World Health Organization sent 5,400 doses of the experimental Ebola vaccine to Congo on Wednesday, according to the health minister. WHO has said it will send thousands more in the coming days, as needed.

Before this announcement, all confirmed Ebola cases were reported in the Bikoro health zone, where health facilities are limited and affected areas are difficult to reach.

“This is a concerning development, but we now have better tools than ever before to combat Ebola,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “WHO and our partners are taking decisive action to stop further spread of the virus.”

WHO said it has deployed 30 experts for surveillance in Mbandaka. WHO is also working with Medecins Sans Frontieres and other organizations to stem the outbreak and treat Ebola patients in isolation wards.

The vaccine, from U.S.-based pharmaceutical firm Merck, is unlicensed but has been shown to be highly effective against Ebola. It was tested in Guinea in 2015 during the outbreak that killed more than 11,300 people in West Africa from 2014 to 2016.

This is the ninth Ebola outbreak in Congo since 1976. While none has been connected to the one in West Africa, the experimental vaccine is thought to be effective against the Zaire strain of Ebola found in Congo.

WHO said it will use the “ring vaccination” method. It involves vaccinating voluntary contacts, contacts of those contacts and health care and other front-line workers.

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Petesch reported from Dakar, Senegal.

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