Starvation in Gaza? Congress yawns

 

     By Reginald Johnson

                                                  Commentary

  

 It doesn’t appear that members of Congress, including those from Connecticut, are very upset about the desperate conditions in Gaza.

The nation of Israel imposed a blockade on all shipments of humanitarian supplies including food and medicine into Gaza for nearly 3 months, creating starvation conditions. In the last two days Israel decided to lift the blockade, but only partially --- allowing a small number of trucks to come in with food.  UN officials said that while they were pleased that the full blockade had been lifted, what has been delivered represents only a drop in the ocean in terms of need.

Gaza health officials recently reported that there have been dozens of cases of starvation and hundreds if not thousands of young children are being treated for malnutrition in the few hospitals that are left in the territory.

Despite these dire conditions, members of Congress from Connecticut are not saying anything. They are not condemning Israel for the illegal blockade that went on for so long and now has only been partially lifted, and they’ve done nothing to urge President Trump to take action against Israel for this embargo of desperately needed food.

I placed calls to Congressman Jim Himes, who represents the Fourth Congressional District in Connecticut, urging him to make a statement condemning the blockade and calling for urgent action to deliver food. But his office indicated twice now in the last two weeks that he has not made such a statement criticizing Israel. I indicated that I was extremely upset over this and would not vote for him as a result in the future.

 I also called Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s office twice and on one call his office indicated that the senator as well had not made a statement criticizing Israel nor indicated any concern about the desperate situation in Gaza. I don’t know whether this has anything to do with the substantial donations that Blumenthal gets from the Israeli lobby called AIPAC. I hope that there is no connection, but I suspect that there might be.

 When I called Blumenthal’s office on Tuesday there was a three minute hold with nice classical music playing. Nobody picked up. After three minutes. I got disgusted and dropped the call. Last week I called Sen. Chris Murphy’s office. I was met with a taped greeting and no human being to speak with. I left a message stating my concern about Gaza and urged the office to get back to me. That never happened.

It is shameful that these representatives of ours in Congress are not showing more compassion for the people of Gaza and recognize their desperate plight. In addition to facing starvation conditions, thousands of Gazans are being forced to move once again by the Israeli army which has mounted a new offensive in the northern part of the strip. This is really a barbaric situation and it has been condemned by many world leaders, officials in the UN and human rights organizations.

 Unfortunately, most members of Congress are staying quiet. Again, I have to think that the widespread contributions by AIPAC to members of our national legislature have something to do with this. It appears that our elected representatives are putting their political needs ahead of the needs of starving people overseas. How low is that?

 It should be noted as well, that my former profession, the press, has not stood tall in regard to the terrible situation in Gaza. I’m hardly seeing anybody in television news or in the newspapers denouncing Israel for the genocide taking place. There's also little hard news coverage of Israel's brutal bombing or reporting on the famine conditions. And newspapers turn away opinion pieces that criticize Israel. I know this first-hand, since the Connecticut Post failed to run my op-ed calling for an end to the blockade.

  It’s going to be up to regular people on the ground to speak out on the catastrophe going on now in the Middle East --- to condemn Israel, to condemn the Trump administration for failure to stop Israel’s barbaric campaign and to push members of Congress into taking action.

 Only through grassroots pressure will the horror of Gaza be brought to an end.

 

 

 

 

The New York Times: journalism or public relations?

 

By Reginald Johnson

 

    Commentary

 

   The last few days I’ve headed over to the news stand (there are still a few left) to pick up a New York Times.

  I don’t normally do this, as I’ve grown increasingly disappointed with the quality of the Times’ reporting, both on the domestic side and the foreign policy side.

  But the Times is still considered the standard bearer for American journalism and in the interest of fairness, I wanted to be absolutely sure that the paper was in fact not covering  --- as critics charge --- one of the biggest potential corruption scandals in recent history.

   That story centers on the allegation made by an FBI informant that President Biden, when he was serving as vice president, and his son Hunter, took a total of $10 million worth of bribes from a Ukrainian businessman to get help from the US government in stopping a criminal investigation of his oil and gas firm.

   This story broke last week after the House Oversight committee, which has been investigating wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, was finally able to get the FBI to release a statement by the informant called  a “1023” which, while partially redacted, indicated that the two Bidens had received payments.

  The story exploded further on Monday when U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, got up on the Senate floor and said that he had received information that the Ukrainian businessman had audiotapes of his discussions with the two Bidens about the bribes.

  “According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden,” Grassley said. “According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then Vice President Joe Biden,” said a report on Fox News.

  The allegations obviously are shocking and are widely deserving of coverage. Anytime a President or top official in an administration is implicated in potential bribery that is a huge story.

 Yet, except for conservative outlets like Fox News and Newsmax, the electronic media has ignored the claims. That includes CBS News NBC News, ABC News, CNN and MSNBC.

 On the print side, outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post have given the claims strong coverage.

  I wasn’t totally sure whether all the print outlets were ignoring the story, so that’s why I went to check on the Times. Surely, I thought, the Gray Lady, which throughout the decades covered governmental corruption quite well, would give some attention to these new claims, even if they haven’t been verified yet.

                                  

The New York Times building. (Photo, Wikimedia Commons)

 I mean, we’re talking about the President of the United States. What could be more important than that? Bribery is listed as one of the reasons why a President can be impeached, so certainly if a President is implicated in taking illegal payments, it’s paramount that any allegations related to that be checked out by the proper authorities in the government. But they should also be the subject of vigorous inquiry by the press.

 When mayors and governors are implicated in bribery or corruption schemes, that kind of thing is covered avidly by local papers and TV outlets, as it should be.

 Why should a President be any different?

 I must say I was disappointed after my review of the Times. I read three days of the Times, and I found not one reference to the Biden bribery claims.  

   Obviously, the last few days have been dominated by the Trump indictment and all outlets are giving this blanket coverage --- as they should be. This is a massive story --- the first time in US history that a former president has been indicted on federal charges ( he’s already been indicted on state charges in New York) so it deserves a huge amount of coverage. I have no problem with that.

  But the Biden story is big, too. Joe Biden is the current president, not former, and he’s the person who is overseeing the conduct of domestic and foreign policy affecting hundreds of millions of people and public expenditures worth trillions of dollars. If claims about criminality are made against him, that should be the subject of a laser focus by the media, and not just shunted aside.

  The fact that the New York Times --- probably the most widely known media outlet in the world and still one of the most respected --- does not give the story about the Bidens and potential bribery even a mention or a small story in the back pages, is a complete outrage. This is NOT reporting and it is NOT journalism. The Times is shirking its duties as a member of and the leader of the media.

  The press or what is known as the Fourth Estate is supposed to play a critical function in our society. The press traditionally is supposed to act as a “watchdog” against government wrongdoing. Right now, the New York Times and many other media outlets are not acting as that watchdog. Instead, they’re acting more like a guard who’s drunk on duty.

  We don’t know whether the Biden allegations are true. Maybe the informant is not to be trusted. But the point is, this needs to be checked out. The FBI has sat on this story for several years and it took a lot of cajoling and threats of a contempt citation by the House Oversight committee to finally get FBI Director Christopher Ray to release the document prepared by the informant. Then parts of it, apparently those dealing with the audiotapes, were redacted.

  So there’s been some prevarications by the FBI in terms of investigating this issue and that’s also part of the wider story. It’s not just about whether the President and his son took bribes but also whether the agency that is supposed to be ferreting out information about possible criminal misconduct is doing its job. Right now, it doesn’t look like they are.

  The New York Times and much of the rest of the media have to get back on track and report on the basics of news. When officeholders are involved in possible corruption that’s one of those basics and they must report on it. They cannot put something aside simply because somebody is a favored political person and covering that particular person in a negative way might hurt their electoral chances. I hope the Times has not been thinking like this but it kind of looks like they have been.

  If you’re a reporter or journalist with a daily news operation, you MUST cover corruption. If you’re not, you’re not a reporter and you’re not a journalist. It’s really that simple.

  The New York Times has to decide whether they’re still in the news business or whether they’re in public relations. Shame on them if it’s the latter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those Lying Russians

                                                    

By Reginald Johnson

Hey, did you hear? RT TV is biased!

It parrots the government line! Its Ukraine coverage is shameful!

Thank god we have a free, open and objective press here. Our reporters never kowtow to the government!

Remember the lead-up to the Iraq War, the press was tough and skeptical about Bush administration claims! None of the reporters swallowed hook, line and sinker claims about Iraqi WMDs! Thank goodness for that, because, because....

OK, a pause on the sarcasm. I want to say this. Russia Today--- which has been in the news this week due to two employees complaining about bias at the network ---  is in fact, slanted. It is funded by the Russian government; the stories often go easy on Vladimir Putin and government officials. But the network also produces some good stories which are well researched and present a perspective that’s tough to find here. You have to separate the wheat from the chaff.

  I am tired of the self-righteous preachings of people in the U.S. media, about how RT is nothing but a propaganda machine, while the American press is some kind of paragon of virtue, bravely revealing all the vital news of the day, without fear or favor. What blather.

  Corporations that own newspapers and TV here often censor stories when corporate interests are threatened. Stories that should see the light of day do not. In other cases, the government --- yes, the government --- puts pressure on press outlets to kill stories, or hold stories, and the government usually gets its way. And finally, reporters often engage in self-censorship, when they avoid doing certain stories that might cast a negative light on public or private officials, because they don’t want to lose future access to sources and endanger their careers.

  Please, American media, enough of the sanctimony. And by the way, maybe it’s time to do a real story about what’s going on in the Ukraine. The coverage stinks. It seems a bit slanted to the side of the, uh, U.S. government.