Chris Hedges's Blog, page 93

Bernie Sanders Surges in Latest Polls

Enjoying a national upswing this week—including a return to second place in the Real Clear Politics poll average and in a new poll out Wednesday—Sen. Bernie Sanders also now leads in the key early state of New Hampshire, according to a new state survey.

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Bernie Sanders Is America's Beating Heart



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According to the Emerson poll released Tuesday, Sanders is now in first place with 26% followed by South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg in second with 22%, and former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren tied for third with 14% each.

NH POLL: @BernieSanders leads #NewHampshire primary, followed by @PeteButtigieg https://t.co/CpRJCGRgBG pic.twitter.com/ZiF9KBT9gL

— Emerson Polling (@EmersonPolling) November 27, 2019

Dramatic in the results of the tracking poll was the swing among the top four candidates since it was last conducted in September, with Sanders up 13 points and Buttigieg up 11 points, while Warren and Biden dropped 6 and 10 points respectively.

Spencer Kimball, director of Emerson Polling, said “the Democratic voters have taken a look at Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren and they appear unsatisfied at this time which brought some voters back to Bernie Sanders while others are now moving to a fresh face in Pete Buttigieg, this demonstrates the fluidity of the race.”

According to Emerson:

Sanders has retaken a strong lead among those under 50 in New Hampshire, now leading with 38% support among that group. Following him among younger voters is Warren at 16%, Buttigieg at 12% and Biden at 8%. Buttigieg leads with those 50 and over with 32% support, followed by Biden with 19%, Sanders with 15% and Warren with 11%.

Sanders holds a stronger lead among registered Democrats as he garners 31% support among this group, followed by Buttigieg and Biden with 17%, and Warren with 15%. Among independents, Buttigieg leads with 29% support, followed by Sanders with 21%, Warren with 12% and Biden with 10%.

Looking within ideology, Sanders leads within those who are very liberal with 47% support, followed by Warren with 18%, Buttigieg with 12%, and Biden with 7%. Among those self-described as somewhat liberal, Buttigieg leads with 28% support, followed by Sanders with 25%, Warren with 18% and Biden with 12%. Among moderate/conservative voters, Buttigieg leads with 23% support, followed by Biden with 18%, Sanders with 17% and Gabbard with 11%.

As members of the Sanders campaign noted, the Emerson poll emerged just one day after the New York Times ran a headline—titled “Did New Hampshire Fall Out of Love With Bernie Sanders?“—that strongly suggested the senator’s star was falling in the early voting New England state. Campaign speechwriter David Sirota tweeted:

Literally the same 24 hour news cycle pic.twitter.com/1U6vsbMPyN

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) November 27, 2019

And Mike Casca, the campaign’s communication director, said wryly: “I read somewhere recently that New Hampshire fell out of love with Bernie.”

Meanwhile, on the national level, the Real Clear Politics poll average showed Sanders had returned to second place behind Biden, pushing Warren back to third place with Buttigieg still at a distant fourth. The average, which incorporates national polls taken up through Nov. 25th, showed Biden leading nationally with 28.2%; followed by Sanders with 17.8%; Warren with 16.7%; and Buttigieg with 10.5%.

For the first time in months, @BernieSanders is back in second place in the @RealClearNews average of recent polls. This is a significant improvement in position for Sanders, who has been rising steadily in recent weeks. pic.twitter.com/ZHPGR2ugnp

— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) November 26, 2019

Following that trend, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS released Wednesday showed Biden in the lead with 28% followed by Sanders in second place with 17% percent of support among registered Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents. Warren holds the third spot with 14% while Buttigieg comes in last among the top tier with 11%.

Notably, as CNN points out, Sanders enjoys the trust of most voters when it comes to the key issues of the climate crisis and healthcare:

On health care, 28% say Sanders—an advocate of “Medicare for All” and the elimination of private health insurance—would best handle the issue. That’s about even with the 26% who choose Biden, who has argued against moving to a completely government-run system. Another 19% say they prefer Warren’s approach, which ultimately results in government health coverage for all, while 7% choose Buttigieg, and no other candidate has the backing of more than 3% on the issue.

Sanders leads the way more clearly on handling the climate crisis: 27% favor his approach, followed by 21% who prefer Biden and 15% Warren.

In an edition of the Sanders campaign’s Bern Notice newsletter sent Tuesday, Sirota noted that his candidate is now surging nationally but also pointed to the early voting states where, in addition to New Hampshire, Sanders is gaining ground.

“A new poll shows that since early October, Bernie has gained a whopping 9 points in the early primary and caucus states that could play a pivotal role in the 2020 election,” Sirota wrote. “As of today, Bernie is at 23 percent—and just 3 points behind Joe Biden—in Morning Consult’s tracking poll of Democratic voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.”

In Iowa on Tuesday, the campaign released a new ad focused on the state that featured a new rallying cry for the campaign: “Big Us.”

“Bernie is in the pocket of #BigUs,” supporters online were saying as they shared the ad and the message on social media. “Pass it on.”

Glenn Greenwald Sounds the Alarm on Bolsonaro’s Brazil

As is so often the case with the commander-in-chief, it wasn’t his words so much as what they might portend. On Monday, while feting Conan the military dog for his alleged role in the raid on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi—a ghastly, jingoistic celebration in its own right—Donald Trump joked that he might sic the canine on a White House reporter. “It’s trained that if you might open your mouths, you will be attacked,” he quipped. “You ought to be very, very careful.”

For the time being, these threats remain idle (although the U.S. did crack the list of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists in 2018). But in Brazil, under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, they’re being carried out. Writing in The New York Times this week, Glenn Greenwald argues that a recent incident “illustrates how press freedoms and the democratic order in Brazil are endangered—not just with words, but violence—by this authoritarian movement that now wields power in the world’s fifth-most-populous country.”

Earlier this month, The Intercept co-founder appeared on the Brazilian radio show “Pânico” with conservative columnist-cum-Bolsonaro-loyalist Augusto Nunes. According to Greenwald, Nunes had responded to a series of Intercept exposés on Bolsonaro and his administration by asking a federal judge to investigate him and his partner, Socialism and Liberty Party Congressman David Miranda, for parental neglect. Because both are working, Nunes claimed, they are unable to care for their two children.

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“[That] attack on our family did not come out of nowhere,” Greenwald observes. “President Bolsonaro has long featured anti-L.G.B.T. animus as a central weapon in his political arsenal and has repeatedly used anti-gay attacks against me. He and his allies have attacked other journalists and activists who oppose him.”

When Greenwald confronted Nunes about the cowardice of his accusations, Nunes took a swing at him live on air. The fight was quickly broken up, but the message was clear: Criticism of the president and his media enablers will be met with force. The Brazilian government confirmed as much when the president’s guru and spiritual adviser, Olavo de Carvalho, as well as two of his politician sons, Carlos and Eduardo Bolsonaro, openly cheered Nunes’ conduct—the latter calling it a “legitimate defense of his honor.”

“The Bolsonaro movement, like most authoritarian factions, favors intimidation and violence over civic discourse — against their adversaries in general, but especially against journalists they regard as obstacles,” Greenwald continues. “Predictably, the climate for journalists since the 2018 presidential election has become far more dangerous than before.”

Greenwald notes that such prominent journalists as Patricia Campos Mello, who writes for one of Brazil’s oldest newspapers, Folha de São Paulo, have been “targeted with credible threats of violence,” while Globo’s Miriam Leitão had to a cancel a public appearance after the president targeted her personally. Following a Globo investigation exposing his family’s ties to the assassination of City Councilwoman Marielle Franco, Bolsonaro has followed through on his promise to suspend all public funding of the newspaper. Greenwald reveals that he himself cannot leave his home “without a team of armed security guards and an armored vehicle.”

“As long as there is a free press, we are able to not just reveal corruption and wrongdoing by the nation’s most powerful actors, but also to ensure that history is not rewritten, that the horrors of Brazil’s two decades of military regime are not whitewashed or forgotten,” he concludes. “That’s precisely why members of the Bolsonaro movement target us: They know that transparency and free discourse are the primary obstacles to returning Brazil back to its darkest days. The more they show their true face, the more resistance they have encountered. The job of journalists, the purpose of a free press, is to ensure that this truth remains clear.”

Read Greenwald’s op-ed in its entirety at The New York Times.

The Intellectual and Financial Bankruptcy of NATO

When the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded some 75 years ago, its first secretary-general, Lord Ismay, famously noted that the purpose of the treaty alliance was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” NATO’s mission was to secure peace in Europe, promote cooperation among its members and guard their freedom by countering the threat posed by the Soviet Union at the time. This latter point was critical—by signing onto NATO, the United States agreed to accept the leadership of a burgeoning resistance to ostensible Soviet aggression and subversion transpiring in Europe in the aftermath of World War II. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, NATO has been an organization in search of a mission.

NATO’s original parameters still apply, but for all the wrong reasons. “Keeping the Russians out” is more an economic argument than a political one, especially when it comes to Russian energy (one need only witness the ongoing angst within the EU and NATO over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project), while “keeping the Americans in” has similarly devolved into an economic argument surrounding the high financial cost of sustaining NATO, and the American perception that its European partners are not paying their fair share of the bill. “Keeping the Germans down” also has become an economic-based argument reflecting an internal European debate over the role of its central bank in driving economic policy. American financier J.P. Morgan once observed, “If you have to ask how much, you can’t afford it.” The fact that the current debate regarding NATO has primarily devolved into an economic argument is proof positive that the organization has deviated so far from its original purpose as to make moot any notion of underlying logic and legitimacy as to its viability going forward.

French President Emmanuel Macron sent shock waves through the transatlantic community when, in a recent interview published in The Economist, he lamented the current state of affairs between the U.S. and its European allies regarding NATO. Commenting on Donald Trump’s relentless criticism of NATO, Macron said that it is high time the organization acknowledge the “instability of our American partner,” noting that it can no longer rely on the U.S. to come to its defense. Macron questioned the continued viability of Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which stipulates that an attack against one member is an attack against all. It is Article 5 that gives the NATO alliance its credibility. “What will Article 5 mean tomorrow?” Macron asked in The Economist.

“What we are currently experiencing,” he concluded, “is the brain death of NATO.” Lulled into a false sense of complacency regarding its security by decades of reliance on the guarantee of U.S. support, Macron said, Europe today stands on “the edge of a precipice,” compelled to begin envisioning a world where it stands alone. “Europe must become autonomous in terms of military strategy and capability” in the face of American unilateralism, the rise of China and Russia, and the instability in the Middle East, which raised doubts about a fellow NATO member, Turkey. Failure to do so, Macron noted, would mean Europe would “no longer be in control of our destiny”.

In a pointed rejection of what she termed Macron’s “sweeping blow” against NATO, German Chancellor Angela Merkel lambasted his “drastic words.” “The French president has chosen drastic words,” she told reporters. “That is not my view of co-operation inside NATO.” From Germany’s perspective, she said, “NATO is in our interest. It is our security alliance,” even if, she noted, “we do have problems and even though we do have to get our act together.”

Merkel was joined in her defense of the alliance by German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. Speaking at a NATO event in Berlin, Kramp-Karrenbauer noted that while it is important for German politicians to better explain to the German public why Germany needs to become more actively involved in international security issues, “NATO remains a decisive cornerstone” of Germany’s national security. Another prominent German, Wolfgang Ischinger, a former ambassador to the U.S. and deputy foreign minister who chairs the Munich Security Conference (which self-describes as “the world’s leading forum for debating the most pressing challenges to international security”), joined Kramp-Karrenbauer in contesting Macron’s comments. “Our American partners have increased their presence in Europe,” Ischinger told the press. “They are planning a big exercise next year, bigger than any exercise before. So we can’t call it brain-dead.”

The exercise Ischinger referred to is Defender 2020, set to be the third-largest military exercise in Europe since the Cold War ended. Involving some 37,000 troops from 15 NATO nations, including some 20,000 American troops who will be flown in from their bases in the U.S., Defender 2020 brings to mind the massive REFORGER (Reinforcement of Forces in Germany) exercises that were a staple of the Cold War. The 1983 REFORGER exercise, known as Autumn Forge 83, involved, among other things, a “radio-silent” airlift of 19,000 U.S. soldiers to Europe using 170 flights. While Defender 2020 matches the 1983 exercise in the number of troops deployed from the continental U.S., it pales in comparison with the scope of the U.S. commitment then when compared to now. In 1983, more than 250,000 U.S. troops were stationed in Germany, compared to approximately 35,000 now. The 20,000 troops the U.S. is flying in next year represents the maximum number the U.S. can deploy on short notice; the 19,000 flown in in 1983 were part of a larger force of over 350,000 earmarked for deployment should the need have arisen.

The costs associated with these exercises are considerable, as is the price tag associated with raising, training, equipping and maintaining forces in the high state of readiness needed for short-notice response to emerging situations—such as an attack on a NATO member by Russia, the scenario for which both Autumn Forge 83 and Defender 2020 were designed to address. In 1983, the West German defense budget was around 2.4% of the gross domestic product. Today, that figure is less than 1.3%, far short of the 2% threshold agreed to by NATO as the goal for all members to reach. Germany’s failure to increase its defense spending has drawn the ire of the Trump administration, which has indicated that it is considering withdrawing U.S. forces from Germany and basing them instead in neighboring Poland, which has exceeded the 2% benchmark. (By way of comparison, France has increased its defense spending by nearly 40% over the past few years, bringing it to the 2% GDP figure; the U.S. spends approximately 3.1% of its GDP on defense.)

The U.S. has long sought to use NATO as a vehicle for exporting transatlantic influence into areas of the world traditionally viewed as beyond the remit of what ostensibly remains a defensive alliance. While NATO involvement in Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia in the late 1990s could be justified as a necessary response to a European threat, the same cannot be said of Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria—places where the U.S., in the name of fighting a global war against terrorism, has sought to employ NATO forces. Germany has been reticent about sending its forces beyond its borders; it dispatched thousands of troops to Afghanistan as part of the NATO mission there post-9/11, but it has recently refused to support U.S. requests for forces in Syria and the Persian Gulf, citing concerns over the economic costs that could be accrued by recklessly confronting Iran. Even France—which traditionally has supported U.S. requests for military involvement in Africa and the Middle East—finds the costs associated with these adventures prohibitive; Gen. Francois Lecointre, chief of staff of the French military, recently observed that the French military is overstretched and unable to adequately support the missions it has undertaken.

Ursula von der Leyen, former German minister of defense and current president-elect of the European Commission, spoke to this reality in a speech delivered in Berlin after Macron’s remarks. “In its 70-year history, much has changed in NATO,” she observed. “But one thing has always remained the same: NATO was and is always what its member states make of it.” Lacking a shared vision of what NATO stands for, and to what extent it should be funded, has created a divide in the transatlantic alliance that cannot be readily repaired, if ever. The problem isn’t simply bringing into alignment European and American visions for the proper role of the alliance in a post-Cold War reality, but perhaps more critically, bringing Europe in alignment with itself—which means France and Germany.

The European unity that emerged from the ashes of World War II was built upon the belief that deep historical differences could be papered over through economic integration. Initially, this line of thinking bore fruit; the postwar period that was secured by the existence of NATO brought with it a period of European economic revitalization, which in turn provided the opportunity for nations such as France and Germany to bridge their historical differences through the establishment of common economic policies and transnational institutions. While the initial vehicle for European economic unity, the European Coal and Steel Community, formed in 1951, was designed to permit France to monitor German industry and allay concerns over potential German militarization, its actual impact was to create supranational supervisory bodies that ultimately led to the creation of the European Union in 1993.

The connectivity between Europe’s economic development and NATO is real; there are 28 current EU members, 22 of whom are also members of NATO. But World War II ended 75 years ago, and the old national differences and prejudices long embedded in Europe are re-emerging with a vengeance. The foundation of the EU’s economic health is the European Monetary Union (EMU), whose strength is derived from fundamental rules of economic management enshrined in various treaties of the EU. The dual financial crises of 2007-08 and 2010-12, however, resulted in these rules being circumvented or broken outright in order to bail out failing EMU member nations such as Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. The bailouts were the manifestation of French-backed policies favoring relaxed fiscal and monetary policy over the more rigid financial controls favored by Germany, and they drove a wedge between Europe’s two major economic powers in the process, with the France-supported policies ultimately being paid for by Germany.

The Franco-German political-economic duopoly that has held Europe together during the postwar period is fracturing, with Europe being pulled in different directions by the gravitational forces of these two incompatible economic models that are likely incapable of sustaining a singular economic union, let alone underwriting a geriatric military alliance that has lost its purpose and meaning. NATO is on life-support, and Europe is being asked to foot the bill to keep breathing life into an increasingly moribund alliance whose brain death is readily recognized, but rarely acknowledged.

Michael Bloomberg’s Trying to Buy the 2020 Election for One Simple Reason

Gracie Mansion, the official residence of New York’s mayors since 1942, hosted billionaire Michael Bloomberg for three terms.

The first of these terms began after Bloomberg, then the Republican candidate for mayor, spent an incredible $74 million to get himself elected in 2001. He spent, in effect, $99 for every vote he received.

Four years later, Bloomberg — who made his fortune selling high-tech information systems to Wall Street — had to spend even more to get himself re-elected. His 2005 campaign bill came to $85 million, about $112 per vote.

In 2009, he had the toughest sledding yet. Bloomberg first had to maneuver his way around term limits, then convince a distinctly unenthusiastic electorate to give him a majority. Against a lackluster Democratic Party candidate, Bloomberg won that majority — but just barely, with 51 percent of the vote.

That majority cost Bloomberg $102 million, or $174 a vote.

Now Bloomberg has announced he’s running for president as a Democrat, arguing he has the best chance of unseating President Trump, whom he describes as an “existential threat.” Could he replicate his lavish New York City campaign spending at the national level? Could he possibly afford to shell $174 a vote nationwide — or even just $99 a vote?

Let’s do the math. Donald Trump won the White House with just under 63 million votes. We can safely assume that Bloomberg would need at least that 63 million. At $100 a vote, a victory in November 2020 would run Bloomberg $6.3 billion.

Bloomberg is currently sitting on a personal fortune worth $52 billion. He could easily afford to invest $6.3 billion in a presidential campaign — or even less on a primary.

Indeed, $6.3 billion might even rate as a fairly sensible business investment. Several of the other presidential candidates are calling for various forms of wealth taxes. If the most rigorous of these were enacted, Bloomberg’s grand fortune would shrink substantially — by more than $3 billion next year, according to one estimate.

In other words, by undercutting wealth tax advocates, Bloomberg would save over $6 billion in taxes in just two years — enough to cover the cost of a $6.3 billion presidential campaign, give or take a couple hundred million.

Bloomberg, remember, wouldn’t have to win the White House to stop a wealth tax. He would just need to run a campaign that successfully paints such a tax as a clear and present danger to prosperity, a claim he has already started making.

Bloomberg wouldn’t even need to spend $6.3 billion to get that deed done. Earlier this year, one of Bloomberg’s top advisers opined that $500 million could take his candidate through the first few months of the primary season.

How would that $500 million compare to the campaign war chests of the two primary candidacies Bloomberg fears most? Bernie Sanders raised $25.3 million in 2019’s third quarter for his campaign, Elizabeth Warren $24.6 million. Both candidates are collecting donations — from small donors — at a $100 million annual pace.

Bloomberg could spend 10 times that amount on a presidential campaign and still, given his normal annual income, end the year worth several billion more than when the year started.

Most Americans don’t yet believe that billionaires shouldn’t exist. But most Americans do believe that America’s super rich shouldn’t be able to buy elections or horribly distort their outcomes.

But unfortunately, they can — or at least, you can be sure they’ll try.

Trump’s Latest Handout to His Rich Buddies Is Truly Unbelievable

Breaking news: Donald Trump inadvertently said something true! He recently exulted that his special tax incentives to spur investment in poverty projects have gone “beyond anything that anybody… even thought.”

So true! His “Opportunity Zone” tax breaks are financing such “anti-poverty” projects as a “superyacht marina” on the toney waterfront of West Palm Beach, Florida. Who would’ve thought?

Named Rybovich, this project is a “luxurious resort-style” marina that will accommodate the $100-million, football-field-sized yachts of the superrich. Not your typical poverty zone.

It’s being developed by Wayne Huizenga Jr. — the politically connected billionaire who inherited a fortune last year from his father, a corporate baron who owned Blockbuster Video and was a major donor and plutocratic pal of Donald Trump.

Father and son were also big money backers of Rick Scott, the notoriously sleazy Republican governor of (and now senator from) Florida, who had authority under Trump’s Opportunity Zone program to designate which poverty areas were eligible for the multimillion-dollar tax subsidies.

Obviously, an opulent superyacht marina does not qualify. But money talks.

Huizenga Jr. simply asked his buddy the governor to give the tax break to him, and Scott waved his magic gubernatorial wand and transformed the posh marina into a poverty zone — an area in which Huizenga himself had just bought a $5 million house. The tax subsidy he’s been given could cover the cost of that house — but we won’t know, since Trump’s law requires no disclosure of who gets how much of a tax handout.

Even more disgusting is that, since the law limits the number of Opportunity Zone projects, slipping in the Huizenga’s luxury Marina meant that an actual poverty-stricken area in Florida got rejected by the governor. Plutocracy in action.

Corporate Media Are Blatantly Calling for a Right-Wing Coup in Venezuela

Western corporate media outlets have often cried foul when foreign elections don’t go the way the US empire wants them to, and find roundabout ways to label the violent attempts by vocal right-wing minorities to use military forces to overthrow leftist governments as “protests” rather than coups (FAIR.org, 5/16/18, 5/1/19). But it’s still rare to see them blatantly call for a right-wing coup without a hint of their usually subtler pretenses.

For Reuters (11/11/19), the failure of “Maduro’s” military to launch a coup “stands in the way” of regime change in Venezuela.

Reuters’ report, “Maduro’s Military Stands in the Way of a Bolivia Repeat in Venezuela” (11/11/19), noted that “Venezuelan opposition leaders looking to oust their country’s socialist government” can “take some hope” from the “resignation of its leftist ally in Bolivia, Evo Morales.” There’s just one problem:

But one key factor makes the Bolivia playbook a difficult one to carry out against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro: Venezuela’s armed forces have consistently refused to take the side of protesters as Bolivia’s military did on Sunday.

Reuters’ Brian Ellsworth and Vivian Sequera complained that “Venezuela’s barracks have stood by the ruling Socialist Party,” despite a “crippling economic meltdown,” “waves of major protests” and “broad condemnation of Maduro’s 2018 re-election that was widely described as fraudulent.” (Despite such descriptions, which are indeed widespread, there is no reason to question whether President Nicolás Maduro won the May 2018 election, which was largely boycotted by the opposition.)

Reuters lamented that the unpopular US-backed Juan Guaidó’s unconstitutional efforts to “court the armed forces have not been enough to sway their allegiance to Maduro,” despite his being “recognized by more than 50 countries as Venezuela’s legitimate president.” (Note that this means that approximately 75% of the world’s countries don’t recognize Guaido, who lacks UN recognition.) The implication is that the Venezuelan military should stage a coup, just as the Bolivian military did when the armed forces commander William Kaliman

called on Morales to step aside, giving momentum to street protestors alleging fraud at an October presidential election that Morales was judged to have narrowly won.

Morales’ run for the presidency was approved by the Bolivian Supreme Court (whose judges are elected, rather than appointed as in the US), and, as was predicted in pre-election polling, Morales “narrowly won” the October 2019 election by more than 10 percentage points, which is why he did not face a runoff election. The Center for Economic and Policy Research found that there’s no evidence discrediting the legitimacy of Morales’ reelection. Only one US president in the past 50 years—Ronald Reagan in 1984—has won the popular vote by more than 10 percentage points.

Reuters (7/28/19) ponders the “mystery” of why Venezuela’s military hasn’t overthrown the elected government.

But Reuters has a history of lamenting that Venezuela’s military is more loyal to its democratically elected government than the US empire. In another report pondering why the Venezuelan military remains loyal to Maduro and the Socialist Party, Reuters (7/28/19) complained that the Socialists took steps to prevent another coup like the one that temporarily removed Hugo Chávez from power before he was restored by popular support. The piece by Brian Ellsworth and Mayela Armas also criticized the Venezuelan military for assisting in public works programs like refurbishing schools, filling potholes, planting vegetables and clearing garbage; apparently a proper military spends its time preparing to invade other countries.

Reuters (8/22/19) has also presented Venezuelan efforts to prevent a military coup, such as removing disloyal officers, as sinister Cuban-inspired “repression” that has “cowed” the military. “Opposition pleas for a military rebellion have gone unheeded,” as reporter Angus Berwick lamented.

The Daily Beast’s report  “Evo Morales Is Out. Is Nicolás Maduro Next?” (11/13/19) likewise bemoaned the lack of a “domino effect” that would bring a Bolivian-style coup to Venezuela. The Beast’s Eduard Freisler acknowledged:

In Bolivia, it was largely the Bolivian army that forced Evo Morales out. This was the strategy that Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó tried in order to force Maduro out. But the young leader, who in late January proclaimed himself the interim president here, has never managed to sway the powerful and affluent generals to his side and away from Maduro.

The Daily Beast described Morales as “one of several presidents in Latin America who have claimed to represent the masses in their countries…sometimes helping to raise them from poverty, sometimes plunging them back into it.” The role of US sanctions in punishing the economies of countries that stray from Washington’s agenda was, of course, never mentioned in either of these reports (FAIR.org, 5/6/19)—as the Beast complained that “concerted economic and political pressure from the United States couldn’t shake” elected left-wing governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua. Neither do these reports mention CEPR’s relevant findings that recognition of Guaidó as Venezuela’s “legitimate president” effectively functions as a devastating oil embargo on the country.

After a “classic military coup” failed to materialize in Venezuela, the Daily Beast (5/2/19)wondered, “How many more disappointments can the Venezuelan people stand?”

Like Reuters, the Daily Beast also has a history of mourning the improbability of the Venezuelan people and military’s supporting a US-backed coup. An earlier piece by Christopher Dickey (Daily Beast, 5/2/19) mourned the failure of Guaidó to convince the military to overthrow Venezuela’s government, claiming, that “a classic military coup, a quick and decisive golpe de Estado, would have been welcomed by many, and probably most, after years of suffering under Maduro.” Dickey also asserted that “no doubt some Venezuelans would welcome US military intervention,” though he thought that was unlikely. “How many more disappointments can the Venezuelan people stand?” he concluded.

It’s not accidental that both outlets downplayed the fact that a US-supported coup had occurred in Bolivia by acting as if only defiant left-wing governments in Latin America deem what happened in Bolivia to be a coup. Reuters (11/11/19) cited “leftist governments saying [Morales] was victim of a coup,” while the Beast (11/13/19) reported that “Chavista party members…termed Morales’ demise a coup,” even though both reports openly acknowledge, and indeed celebrate, the Bolivian military’s role in forcing Morales out (FAIR.org, 11/11/19). Section 508 of the Foreign Assistance Act requires that the US must cut off aid to any country “whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree.”

FAIR has documented how corporate media consistently criticize the success of left-wing political agendas pursued abroad in countries like Venezuela and Bolivia—in defiance of US imperialism—because they are afraid of the threat of a good example (FAIR.org, 2/8/19). That might be why corporate media are wondering why Venezuela can’t be more like Bolivia in calling for a repeat coup there—which they won’t call a coup, of course.

One-Two Punch of Storms Threatens Thanksgiving Travel in U.S.

DENVER — Heavy snow and wind shut down highways Tuesday in Colorado and Wyoming, closed schools in Nebraska and forced more than 1,000 travelers to sleep overnight in Denver’s airport after hundreds of flights were canceled just as Thanksgiving travel moved into high gear.

The storm was heading to South Dakota, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, while a “bomb cyclone” weather phenomenon began toppling trees, knocking out power and dumping snow as it barreled into California and Oregon — making for a double whammy of early wintry weather.

The National Weather Service in Northern California urged people to wait to travel for the holiday until the weather improves.

At Denver International Airport, about 10 inches (25 centimeters) of snow mixed with winds that limited visibility prompted the cancellation of about 30 percent of the airport’s average daily 1,600 flights.

The storm dumped nearly 3 feet (1 meter) of snow in parts of northern Colorado and closed long stretches of highways there and in Wyoming. One person was killed, and two others were injured when a tractor-trailer jackknifed and was hit by two other trucks on Interstate 70 near the Colorado ski town of Vail.

The system moved east, allowing the Denver airport to begin returning to normal.

Southwest Airlines canceled about 200 flights. Spokesman Brad Hawkins said it would take “a couple of days” to get stranded passengers on other flights because there are few during the pre-Thanksgiving travel crush. That makes it hard for airlines to rebook passengers.

About 1,100 people spent the night at the airport, including many cadets from the Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs who either missed flights or wanted to get to the airport before road conditions deteriorated, airport spokeswoman Alex Renteria said.

Among them was cadet Sadie Luhman, whose trip to the airport took three hours — twice the normal driving time. She got to the airport at 1 a.m., 10 hours before her scheduled flight to Chicago for Thanksgiving.

“I just wanted to beat the storm. We kind of left in the middle of it so it kind of didn’t work, but we got here,” she told Denver news station KCNC-TV.

Airport workers handed out blankets, diapers, baby formula, toothbrushes and toothpaste to passengers who camped out on floors and in chairs.

Many government offices closed in the Denver area and Cheyenne, Wyoming, along with colleges and schools not already on holiday break. In Nebraska, several school districts canceled classes Wednesday, and the southwestern city of Sidney had received about 8 inches (20 centimeters) of snow.

It wasn’t a snow day for everybody. Carli Webber cleared snow off her car and braced herself for her commute to a call center near Denver’s Union Station.

“I am not like a lot of people and cannot work from home, so I have no choice but to go,” she said.

Blizzard and wintry weather warnings extended into the Great Lakes states with the storm expected to bring high winds and snow to Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin later Tuesday and a chance of snow over the weekend for parts of New England, said Alex Lamers, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

“That could be a coast-to-coast storm,” he said.

The storm is expected to dump snow on the airport in Minneapolis, where Delta Air Lines is the major carrier, but most is expected to fall overnight when few flights are scheduled.

Delta prepared by filling de-icing tanks, calling in extra flight dispatchers and operations employees, and having some of its 20 in-house meteorologists focus on the Minneapolis forecast.

“The timing is very helpful,” said Erik Snell, a Delta senior vice president who oversees operations. “It gives the airport time to clear the runways, although we’ll have to watch the residual snowfall in the morning.”

The storm system could mean disappointment for fans of the larger-than-life balloons flown at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York.

Organizers were preparing for the possibility of grounding the iconic balloon characters because of 40-50 mph (64-81 kph) gusts in the forecast. Rules put in place after several people were injured by a balloon years ago require lower altitudes or full removal if sustained winds exceed 23 mph (37 kph) and gusts exceed 34 mph (54 kph). The decision will be made on parade day.

The second storm developing in the Pacific Ocean was expected to slam the West Coast of the U.S. on Tuesday evening, bringing snow to the mountains of California and wind and rain along the coasts of California and Oregon.

The bomb cyclone — a rapid drop in air pressure — could bring waves of up to 35 feet (11 meters), wind gusts of up to 75 mph (120 kph) and heavy snow in the mountains.

Snow shut down Interstate 80 north of Lake Tahoe and west of the Nevada-California line.

Angela Smith said the Oceanfront Lodge, a hotel she manages in Crescent City, in far Northern California, lost power briefly during rain and strong winds. She said the hotel is ready to withstand heavy downpours.

“It’s blowing pretty good outside but because we’re right on the coast, everything was built to ensure the safety of people,” Smith said.

Forecasters warned of “difficult to impossible travel conditions” across much of northern Arizona later this week as that storm dumps about 2 feet (61 centimeters) of snow.  The approaching storm accelerated the annual winter closure of the highway leading to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon by five days.

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Koenig reported from Dallas. Associated Press writers Thomas Peipert in Denver, Bob Moen in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Olga R. Rodriguez in San Francisco, Gillian Flaccus in Portland, Oregon, Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis, Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, and Paul Davenport in Phoenix contributed to this report.

 

Trump Campaign, GOP Groups Attack Google’s New Ad Policy

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and other Republican election groups criticized tech giant Google on Tuesday for making it harder for political advertisers to target specific types of people.

The GOP groups said the changes will lead directly to suppressing voter turnout and would “disproportionately” hurt Republican candidates.

Google has said that, beginning in January in the United States, advertisers will only be able to target political ads based on broad categories such as sex, age and postal code. Currently, ads can be tailored to more specific groups, such as political affiliation.

But the Trump campaign and Republican groups said Trump has built the greatest digital operation in politics, so Google’s decision will “disproportionately impact both the Trump operation and all of the Republican candidates and organizations that derive strength from it.”

“Google should immediately reverse its decision in order to ensure they do not suppress voter turnout during both the Democrat primaries and the 2020 general election,” the GOP groups said.

Democratic political groups have also been critical of Google’s new policy. “Tech companies should not reduce the power of the grassroots just because it is easier than addressing abuse on their platforms,” said leaders of the Democratic National Committee and allied groups helping oversee Democratic congressional campaigns.

Social media companies are grappling with how best to prevent a repeat of 2016 when Russian operatives, masquerading as Americans, used targeted advertisements and intentionally falsified news articles to interact with and attempt to deceive tens of millions of social media users in the United States.

Google’s announcement follows the decision by Twitter to ban political ads. Twitter also placed restrictions on ads related to social causes such as climate change or abortion rights. Twitter said the move would help reduce the flow of election-related misinformation. The Trump campaign protested that change as well but said Google’s will have more impact.

“Much has been made of Twitter’s equally concerning decision to ban political ads and suppress speech, but because advertising on that platform is ineffective and only a tiny percentage of Americans use Twitter, their impact is insignificant,” the Trump campaign and GOP groups said in a joint release. “Google, however, is a serious platform with very deep reach across the entire country.”

Trump has been complaining of bias from social media companies, though he is a voracious user of their services. Republican groups followed his approach Tuesday, saying they’re skeptical Google’s new ad policy will be applied equally to conservative and liberal groups.

Google said in response to the Republican groups’ complaints Tuesday that it’s going to stay the course.

“We know that political campaign strategists on both sides of the aisle have raised concerns about how our changes may alter their targeting strategies,” said Google spokeswoman Charlotte Smith. “But we believe the balance we have struck … is the right one.”

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AP Technology Writer Rachel Lerman in San Francisco contributed to this report.

Unlikely D.A. Chesa Boudin Wants to End Mass Incarceration

It made sense that Chesa Boudin became a public defender. His grandfather, Leonard Boudin, was a longtime civil rights lawyer who defended Paul Robeson, Dr. Benjamin Spock and Daniel Ellsberg, among others. Chesa Boudin also has seen the horrors of the criminal justice system up close: he was just a toddler when his parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, members of the anti-war group the Weather Underground, went to prison for driving the getaway car in an armed robbery that resulted in three deaths.

What was less likely for Boudin, a man that spent his career sparring with prosecutors, is that he would one day become one. And not just any prosecutor, but the top one for a major American city, with his election as district attorney in San Francisco in November.

“For most of my life, it was impossible to imagine that the district attorney’s office could be focused on undoing some of the damage done by over-policing and mass incarceration,” Boudin told The Washington Post in 2018. He added, “I think it’s up to people who care about the system and have been impacted by it to make sure this movement continues to build.”

Despite San Francisco’s reputation as a bastion of liberal politics, there are harsh inequalities in the criminal justice system. According to Boudin, “There’s no other major city in the country as bad.”

Per the Post:

San Francisco has the nation’s highest racial disparities in incarceration and the most extreme overrepresentation of people of color in its jails: African Americans make up 5 percent of the city’s population but more than 50 percent of those behind bars.

Approximately 17,000 people are booked into the city’s jail per year. Of them, 75 percent are drug-addicted, mentally ill or both, and more than half will be there for a week or less before leaving.

Boudin ran on a platform of criminal justice reform, establishing alternatives to incarceration for multiple offenses (including first-time DUIs), ending cash bail and implementing restorative justice programs. Instead of making incarceration a “revolving door” for those in the system, as he put it to the Post, Boudin says, “We need to make sure they’re getting the kinds of services that are more cost effective, more humane and ultimately going to prevent crime from being committed down the road.”

He’s part of a wave of progressive prosecutors, including Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Wesley Bell in St. Louis and Rachel Rollins in Boston, who are actively fighting mass incarceration and holding law enforcement accountable.

He also received endorsements from Black Lives Matter founders Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Alicia Garza, Democratic presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders and Krasner, and national headlines in The New York Times and The Washington Post. However, Boudin still faced an uphill battle in his pursuit of the D.A. job.

Boudin had never actually prosecuted a case. San Francisco’s police union spent $600,000 on an ad campaign against Boudin, calling him the “No. 1 choice of criminals and gang members.” Other candidates in the race, including Interim District Attorney Suzy Loftus (endorsed by San Francisco Mayor London Breed and both of California’s senators), tried to portray themselves as progressive too. Loftus said she supported ending cash bail and increasing alternatives to incarceration. As The Appeal points out, however, “as Interim DA, Loftus ended a diversion program for those charged with a first-time DUI offense.”

Despite such opposition, Boudin won. As he told The Appeal, “The people of San Francisco have sent a powerful and clear message: It’s time for radical change to how we envision justice.”

For his tireless advocacy, his willingness to challenge a broken system and commitment to social justice, Chesa Boudin is our Truthdigger of the Month.

 

Jeremy Corbyn Denies Chief Rabbi’s Charge of Anti-Semitism

LONDON — Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn sought Tuesday to defuse harsh criticism about anti-Semitism leveled at the party by Britain’s chief rabbi.

Corbyn addressed Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis’ remarks in The Times newspaper while taking questions at a campaign event just over two weeks before Britain’s Dec. 12 election.

He denied Mirvis’ claim that Labour and its leader have been deeply tarnished by pervasive anti-Semitic attitudes.

The influential rabbi’s suggestion that Corbyn was unfit for high office represented a break from his traditional position of not commenting on party politics. He said Britain’s Jews are “gripped by anxiety” about Corbyn’s possible election.

Corbyn said that if he becomes prime minister, he wants to lead a government that has an “open door” to all faith leaders.

He said he would invite Mirvis and other religious leaders “to come talk to us about what their concerns are” and said no community would feel at risk because of their faith.

The rabbi’s damaging column was published on the day Labour was launching its “race and faith” platform as part of its campaign to win voters with its views on tolerance and equality.

The left-wing party pledged in its platform to teach children about the legacy of the British empire, including slavery and colonialism, and also says it will treat attacks on places of worship as a specific aggravated offense.

Outside the launch event, protesters put up anti-Labour posters including one that read, “a vote for Labour is a vote for racism.”

In his speech, Corbyn said anti-Semitism was “vile and wrong” and insisted that Labour has a speedy, effective way of dealing with complaints.

But he has been repeatedly criticized for tolerating anti-Jewish comments from party members. The ongoing questions about anti-Semitism have damaged traditionally strong ties between Britain’s Jews and the Labour Party.

Louise Ellman, a former Labour legislator who quit the party over the issue, said the chief rabbi’s column reflects “widespread concern and anxiety” across the mainstream Jewish community.

“The reason I have left the Labour Party is because I cannot ask people to vote for Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister while we have a Labour Party that is institutionally anti-Semitic,” she told BBC.

The situation, she added, was “unprecedented.”

Mirvis, who hasn’t intervened in politics before, said the Jewish community has watched with “incredulity” as Labour supporters have hounded Labour legislators who have challenged anti-Jewish racism. Some have been driven out of the party.

He said “the very soul of our nation is at stake,” pointing out that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is investigating whether the party’s discrimination against Jews is now institutionalized.

Corbyn, 70, has long been a champion of Palestinian rights and critical of the Israeli government. He has at times appeared to be sympathetic to the grievances of groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said in a tweet that the chief rabbi’s comments should make clear to the country that many British Jews feel uneasy.

He said Mirvis’s statement “ought to alert us to the deep sense of insecurity and fear felt by many British Jews.”

Earlier this month, the influential Jewish Chronicle newspaper had warned about the dangers of Corbyn becoming prime minister.

The Muslim Council of Britain praised the rabbi for speaking out and said it agreed with his conclusion that too many politicians have been silent while racism has spread.

The council said Muslims face hostility, particularly within the governing party led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

“This an issue that is particularly acute in the Conservative Party, who have approached Islamophobia with denial, dismissal and deceit,” the group said.

All 650 seats in the House of Commons will be decided in the election, which was called by Johnson with the goal of getting a new Parliament that would back his Brexit policy.