No Time for Political Posturing

Commentary

                                       

By Reginald Johnson

       

    BRIDGEPORT ---- It was about 12 hours after the horrific act of violence on Thursday morning, in which nine people were shot, one fatally, at the Trumbull Gardens low-income housing project.

   I had heard about the shooting after I got up on Thursday, and was watching Channel 12 for updates. I saw Mayor Bill Finch at the scene expressing his sympathy for the victims and their families and talking about what steps he was taking to curb crime.  Police Chief Joseph Gaudett was also on hand to give a statement, and housing officials gave comments as well.

   This is all entirely understandable that the chief elected official of the city, his police chief and other key officials would show up on the scene after such a terrible incident had occurred.

   This is one of the worst cases of violence in Bridgeport in a while, and the mayor in particular had to reassure people about what was happening to stop further violence. I thought Finch was good, although he went on a bit too long about the value of one of the the violence prevention programs he set up, the “Street-Safe” program whereby older men, some reformed convicts, work with young men in the neighborhood, counsel them, and steer them away from crime. I thought, if this program is so good, it sure as heck didn’t work in this case.

The Trumbull Gardens housing project in Bridgeport. One person was killed and eight people wounded in a mass shooting last week outside one of the buildings.

   But what really threw me off was what I saw when I decided to ride up to Trumbull Gardens a couple of hours later and take a look around.

  Driving down Trumbull Avenue through the center the complex, I saw a crowd with TV cameras all around. There was a guy in the middle, white shirt and tie, waving his hands and talking as if he was holding a press conference. Then I felt sick to my stomach. It was Joe Ganim, former mayor Bridgeport.

   This is the same Joe Ganim who about 15 years ago was engaging in a variety of corrupt schemes, making deals with friendly developers at the expense of people in the neighborhoods, tearing down acres of affordable housing and running a very secretive administration throughout.

   Fortunately, the feds were onto Ganim’s antics, he was nailed for his crimes, and went to prison. Served a good long term, I think about eight years.

  Now, a la Buddy Cianci down in Providence, Ganim wants to make a comeback. He’s running for mayor again. A disbarred lawyer, he tried to get his law license back after leaving prison, and was most appropriately turned down. (The idea of a lawyer turned felon being given his license back after serving time is truly absurd).

 But now lots of years have gone by, and I suppose Ganim is counting on the people of Bridgeport forgetting his bad deeds, and remembering some of the successes --- including the construction of the baseball stadium and the arena -- and also on a certain amount of anti-Finch sentiment out there.

  Ganim certainly has a right to run. He has paid for his crimes, and by all accounts, serving time in prison is a miserable experience. I’m not questioning his right to run or to have a decent livelihood. But I am questioning whether he has changed.

  I didn’t like what I saw yesterday. It seemed like classic Ganim, while the cameras are rolling, you make a splash. The mayor of the city had just been there, the crime was still only 12 hours old, and all the press was there.

   It wasn’t as if Ganim said, ‘after this has settled down, maybe in a couple of days, I’ll come out and talk to people about possible ideas for combating crime.’ I would have respected that. The problem is, there would have been no cameras.

  Ganim told the Connecticut Post he knew some of the victims, and wanted to set up a vigil that day. Really. Two hours after the mayor was there.

  There were vigils at St. Vincent’s Hospital and Bridgeport Hospital, and I don’t have a problem with Ganim attending them.

  But for candidate Ganim to set up a vigil at Trumbull Gardens not long after his rival the mayor had been there --- only 12 hours after a terrible tragedy --- struck me as not sincere, politically expedient and inappropriate.

  I’m particularly skeptical about Ganim’s intentions, since he did so precious little for low-income neighborhoods like Trumbull Gardens when he was mayor. I know it’s said some black leaders liked him, but I knew some community activists who didn’t like him and felt he didn’t listen to them. As said, he razed hundreds of low-income units to build projects that quite frankly, the public had little say in.

  But now he’s got religion.

 I’ll conclude by saying I am not a great fan of Bill Finch as mayor, although he’s a decent guy in person. I am open about who to like for mayor, and could support an independent or even a Republican.

   But unless Joe Ganim starts making people walk on water, I know that’s one person I won’t cast a ballot for.

 

Himes Faulted for Stance on Fast Track

By Reginald Johnson

            As a vote in Congress on “Fast Track” legislation draws near,  Rep. Jim Himes’ decision to back the controversial trade bill is being criticized by union officials and progressive activists.

           After months of sitting on the fence about which way he would vote,  Himes, a Democrat representing much of Fairfield County, came out last week and said he will vote yes on a bill granting Trade Promotion Authority to President Obama. The bill, nicknamed Fast Track because it speeds up the process for approving trade treaties, empowers the president to force Congress to vote on a trade treaty within 60-90 days, limit debate and prohibit any amendments.

    If Fast Track passes --- and a vote could come as soon as Friday --- it will set the stage for approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement between the U.S. and 11 other Pacific Rim countries. The agreement is supported strongly by big corporations, most Republicans, and Obama.

   After meeting with supporters of TPP and critics, including labor and environmental groups, the Fourth District congressman said he came down on the side of supporting Fast Track in good part because of Connecticut’s export-driven economy.

   “TPP offers the potential for rich export opportunities, and many high-paying export-oriented jobs,” Himes said.

   “Make no mistake, Connecticut is an export economy, and growing global trade and markets will help strengthen our middle class,” he said. “In 2013, there were $16.4 billion in Connecticut exports. $11.9 billion, or 67.5% of that, came from the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk metro area. To say that trade is important to our district is an understatement.”

  Himes, who said he had read the whole TPP agreement, said that so far, it appears Obama is making sure that the trade agreement is addressing environmental, labor and consumer concerns.

   But opponents of the trade bills took the congressman to task on a number of counts.

  Lori Pelletier, executive secretary treasurer of the Connecticut State AFL-CIO said Himes has come down on the side of corporations and not workers.

  “Rep. Himes decision …to support Wall Street profits over Main Street jobs will live long in the memory of 4^th District working men and women,” she said.

   “If Rep. Himes is sincere about creating jobs and revitalizing manufacturing, he needs to use his leverage as a member of Congress to reshape the Trans-Pacific Partnership to help rather than hurt workers in his district. Unfortunately, by supporting Fast Track, Himes is surrendering his ability to offer any amendments to improve this trade agreement or any other future agreements up for six years,” Pelletier said.

   One of the leaders of a grassroots group fighting against Fast Track and TPP said she was skeptical about Himes’ claim that he had read and understood the full text of the TPP.

  Margaret Flowers, from the group Popular Resistance, said that “the text is filled with legalese that could not possibly be fully understood by going into a room and reading it without the ability to analyze its impacts. If Himes is so supportive after reading it, I would urge him to write out the specific areas that he agrees with and the areas of concern that he has. I doubt that he could.”

  Flowers emphasized what other critics have charged, that the whole process for negotiating the TPP has been secretive and behind closed doors, with members of Congress only being given limited access to reading the text. The public has been given no access, despite the huge impact the treaty will have on the U.S. economy and all levels of government here. But corporate lawyers --- hundreds of them --- have been involved in negotiations on the wording of the treaty.

   “If Himes thinks TPP is so great, why does he support a secret and undemocratic process of passing it? Why doesn’t he allow the public to have full review of what is in the text and a debate about how it will impact our economy and our communities,” she asked.

Opponents of Fast Track rally recently in Bridgeport.

   Himes said in a letter to constituents explaining his decision on Fast Track that he did not think the closed-door negotiations were a problem and pointed out that when the TPP agreement is finalized, the text will be accessible to the public.

   “Most sensitive negotiations --- collective bargaining by unions or the purchase of a home for example --- happen behind closed doors.  In the case of TPP, after negotiators reach agreement, the deal will be made fully public online for 60 days before the President can sign it, followed by several months of review and consideration before Congress votes on it,” he said.

  In general, critics claim that the TPP is a corporate giveaway, giving corporations both in the U.S. and overseas the legal ability to thwart national and state laws set up to protect consumers, workers and the environment.

  That raises the issue of sovereignty, and whether the TPP and other trade treaties that are planned, don’t undermine the role of nations in making their own laws, and in the process, transfer power to multi-national corporations.

  Instead of sovereign nations making their own laws, people will be under a form of “corporate governance.”

   A majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives are opposed to Fast Track. Most Republicans favor the bill as well as the TPP, but some GOP members are opposed, due to concerns over the threat to sovereignty.

  Most analysts see the House vote on Fast Track as too close to call. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. --- who publicly has not taken stand on which way she will vote --- is reportedly behind the scenes trying to line up “yes” votes for President Obama and Fast Track.

  

  

Pressuring Himes on Trade Deal

By Reginald Johnson

                      BRIDGEPORT --- As the vote draws near on legislation establishing a Transpacific Trade Partnership, activists are increasing the pressure on Fairfield County Congressman Jim Himes to take a stand against the controversial trade treaty and a companion bill called “Fast Track.”.

                   Members of a coalition of groups working to defeat the trade measures gathered on McLevy Green last weekend to denounce the legislation as a corporate giveaway and urge Himes to join the rest of his colleagues in the Connecticut congressional delegation in opposing both Fast Track and TPP, as now written.

      The fast track bill would give President Obama the authority to demand that Congress vote on the trade treaty within 60-90 days, and with only limited debate and with no allowance for amendments.

          Doug Sutherland, chairman of the Fairfield County chapter of Democracy for America, a liberal advocacy group, said the granting of trade promotion authority would speed the passage of TPP, an agreement which he said “could be very bad for American workers, workers around the world, bad for the environment and bad for the sovereignty of our democracy.”

   Sutherland added that “Our mission today is a very simple one. We’re asking our elected representative in Congress, Jim Himes, to vote ‘no’ on fast track.”

   Himes, a centrist Democrat who lives in Stamford and has served six years in Congress after working on Wall Street,  has been under pressure from both sides in the trade treaty battle. Obama, whose election victory in Connecticut in 2008 certainly helped Himes win the congressional seat in the 4^th District --- which has often sent Republicans to Congress --- has been pressing Himes to vote yes. But people from labor, environmental and consumer groups have been urging him to oppose the bills.

  The U.S. Senate recently approved fast track. Now it comes down to the House, where the vote is expected to be close.

  Some of the same people who gathered in Bridgeport last Saturday had rallied against TPP and fast track last February. That rally drew about 50 people. Last weekend’s press conference, however, only drew a handful of people, and no one showed up from the local paper, the Connnecticut Post, to cover it. Sutherland said the sunny weather might have been the reason for the low turnout.

  Nonetheless, members of the coalition got up and made their case against the trade bills.

  Several of the speakers said the TPP, as now written, will broadly expand the power of corporations to get around regulations designed to protect workers rights, the environment, consumer rights and food safety. The trade treaty is being negotiated in secret with 11 other nations bordering the Pacific Ocean.

Activists opposing the Transpacific Trade Partnership and the fast track bills make their case in Bridgeport.

 

  Provisions dealing with investor rights are being written into the trade bill which will give the power to corporations to challenge a nation’s regulations, if the companies believe that the laws are hurting their profits. Those legal challenges would be heard by special tribunals --- separate from a national court system. Decisions by the tribunals would not be reviewable.

  This means regulations set forth in the U.S. on the federal and state level covering environmental safeguards, workplace safety guidelines, food safety, could all be challenged by foreign investors as damaging to their profits. If the tribunal rules in their favor, there would be no room for appeal. Case closed.

  Pam Lupfer, a representative of the Presbyterian Church in New York, which has been working on trade issues, said laws aimed at controlling climate change would be threatened. “Multi-national fossil fuel companies could sue member countries who take action on climate change,” she said, mentioning rules restricting natural gas or coal extraction.

   Jennifer Siskind, Connecticut Coordinator of the organization Food and Water Watch, said food safety rules could be undermined if TPP is passed.

  “If the TPP is fast tracked, even GMO food labels are illegal trade barriers….There is a national grassroots effort pushing for GMO labeling laws, and Connecticut’s law grew out of efforts started by Congressman Himes’ constituents. But this trade deal just throws the movement for GMO labels under the TPP bus,” she said.

  A number of speakers blasted the secret manner in which the TPP is being worked out. The text of the draft agreements is not being released, and even members of Congress have limited access to see the text. Lobbyists for corporations, meanwhile, are directly participating in the trade talks with different nations.

Diane McKenna of Stratford states her oppostion to TPP

  Jim Dean, the national chairman of Democracy for America --- an organization begun by his brother, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean --- implored Himes to vote no on fast track and TPP.

   “Support the will of the people of the United States of America, not the United States of Morgan Stanley, not the United States of Goldman Sachs, Exxon, or any sovereign wealth fund of the eleven countries we’re negotiating with,” he said. 

  Other speakers said past trade treaties, such as NAFTA, have really hurt workers, and they don’t want a repeat.  Some 96,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in Connecticut since 1994, when NAFTA (standing for the North American Free Trade Agreement) and the World Trade Organization agreements were passed, according to a graph passed out at the press conference.

   “So many of us, Democrats in the labor movement, have been burned so many times in the past by these agreements, we’ve finally said, enough is enough. O.K.,” said Tom Moore of the Carpenters Union.

 

             

Urgently Needed: A Public Jobs Program

By Reginald Johnson

    BRIDGEPORT --- Recent murders in this city are a reminder that Bridgeport can still be a violent place, and it’s going to take a lot more than beefed-up law enforcement and a few jobs provided by new retail development to change that fact.

  People were shocked when a popular storeowner in the city’s Hollow section was shot for no apparent reason after he turned over cash to two gunmen who entered his store in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday, April 11.

  Jose Salgado, 57, who ran the store “Sapiao’s Grocery” on Lexington Avenue with his wife Maria for 24 years, was shot after complying with the demands of the robbers. The assailants ran out of the store, jumped into a waiting car and fled.

   Days later, police caught up with one man in New Haven and charged him with felony murder. The other suspect was recently caught and is expected to be charged with felony murder as well.

  The shooting at Sapiao’s follows by weeks another killing of a store worker in the city’s North End. Hakeem Joseph, 32, a clerk at the T Market on Reservoir Avenue, was shot around 8 a.m. by a gunman dressed in camouflage and wearing a hood. Police have not yet apprehended the man.

   The murders jolted local officials who had been feeling good about the city’s progress in slowing violent crime. It is true that the homicide rate for Bridgeport in recent years is sharply lower than what it was 20 and 25 years ago, when drug gangs often turned the city into a daily shooting gallery.

  In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, the city frequently experienced 4-5 homicides a month; the fatal shooting of Jose Salgado represented the city’s fifth homicide this year.

  Nonetheless, the recent killings demonstrate that Bridgeport is still a dangerous place sometimes, and is likely to remain that way, even if the overall rate of crime is reduced. That’s because Bridgeport --- though having some success in redeveloping --- is still largely a poor city, and poverty often breeds crime.

Pushing Congress on TPP

By Reginald Johnson

                  BRIDGEPORT ---- A coalition of activist groups is pressuring Congress to stop the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership, which critics claim would allow corporations to thwart state and local regulations covering health, safety, the environment and labor rights.

     Recently-leaked documents from the TPP secretly negotiated by the Obama administration and 11 other nations on the Pacific Rim, disclosed that new power could be given to companies based in foreign countries to sue states like Connnecticut or cities like Bridgeport to block legal requirements they believed were cutting into their profits. The cases would be decided before special tribunals, and not the traditional court system.

   Not only could local laws be challenged, but companies could be awarded financial damages.

   The proposed rules, in the investment chapter of TPP, are being characterized as a threat to democracy.

   The treaty would have a “very chilling effect on democracy in action,” said Patrick Woodall, from the group Food and Water Watch, speaking recently on the Counterpoint Radio show on WPKN in Bridgeport. (http://www.btlonline.org/2015/seg/150410af-btl-woodall.html)  Woodall said regulations passed by local city councils or state legislatures dealing with say, hydraulic fracking or GMO labeling on foods, could be affected.

   “All these things are liable to be challenged by foreign companies for damages as barriers to trade,” Woodall said.

   The opponents are targeting both the TPP and companion legislation, called trade promotion authority, or “fast track.”  As the name implies, fast track would mandate that Congress vote on the trade treaty within 60-90 days.  Also, only limited debate could take place on the treaty as negotiated and no amendments would be allowed.

     A vote on fast track could come soon after Congress returns from their Easter recess on April 13.

     A number of Democrats in the House and some Republicans have come out against fast track. In Connecticut, where there are five members of the House --- all Democrats --- four of the five are opposing fast track. U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, of the 4^th congressional district, however, is still sitting on the fence.

   Groups like Moveon.org are lobbying Himes to join his House colleagues and oppose the trade promotion authority, as well as the TPP, especially in the light of the newly-revealed provisions dealing with the power of foreign companies.

   Mary Levine, of Danbury, a coordinator for Moveon.org in Fairfield County, showed up at Himes’ office in Bridgeport recently to speak with Himes’ staff to urge the congressman to oppose the legislation. She and others have been there before.

   “Whenever we’ve spoken to him, he’s very gracious, and said he’d look into it,” she said. “Everytime we come, we give them more documents.”

   Levine said she thinks many of Himes' constituents feel positive about his work, and that he represents their interests.

   "We expect he will come around on this," she said.

   Himes said in a statement that “as a rule” he doesn’t take positions on legislation that he hasn’t read yet, and the fast track bill has still not been submitted.  “If and when a new Trade Promotion Authority bill is introduced, I will review it and see whether the labor and environmental negotiating objectives are worthy of my support and what level of input congress is afforded in considering trade agreements.”

  “Regarding TPP, I have begun to review the text, and I have emphasized to the Administration the need to raise labor, environmental and IP standards in other countries,” Himes said. “I will review the final text and see whether the deal will benefit American workers by expanding access to key markets and eliminating barriers, supporting job creation, our values and our standard of living.”

   Critics have charged that TPP will cause job losses, similar to a previous trade treaty, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Officials of the AFL-CIO, the federation of labor unions, contend that the elimination of trade barriers for imports, specifically tariffs, caused the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.S., when manufacturing plants decided to relocate to Mexico, where labor rates are much lower.

  But the administration argues that TPP will boost U.S. exports and lower tariffs for American goods in the fast growing Asia-Pacific region, where the U.S. is facing strong competition from China.

  “Those who oppose these trade deals ironically are accepting a status quo that is more damaging to American workers,” President Obama said at a meeting of the Business Roundtable in December, according to a story in The Washington Post.

  Obama said people shouldn’t view the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the same way as NAFTA. The president said the TPP aims to boost workers’ rights and environmental standards in some Asian nations, the Post story said.

  “Don’t fight the last war,” Obama said.

   

A Travesty of Reporting

                                       

By Reginald Johnson

               I’ve always felt The New York Times is a schizophrenic paper --- alternately very good or very bad.

             The “paper of record” has won a myriad of Pulitzer Prizes over the years for coverage of a variety issues, such as environmental problems and questionable business practices abroad by U.S. corporations.

            Reporters like Charlie Savage and James Risen have turned out some great stories on civil liberties and national security issues.

            But the Times has fallen down badly on other occasions, particularly with respect to foreign policy and war coverage.  The paper’s reporting in late 2002 and 2003 on Iraq, which presented thinly-sourced stories claiming that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, helped the Bush administration build its public case that Iraq had to be invaded and Saddam Hussein removed.

   Months later, the stories were discredited when inspection teams could find no WMD.  But the damage had already been done --- an invasion of Iraq took place in March, 2003. That set off a brutal ten-year war which cost over 5,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives.

   It emerged later that the Times’ stories before the war had relied heavily on the claims of one Iraqi expatriate leader, Ahmed Chalabi, who wanted to return to power and stood to benefit from Saddam’s removal.

  Now the Times is failing again in its reporting on another overseas issue: Ukraine.

  From the onset of this crisis in early 2014 --- when street demonstrations led to a coup in Kiev and a  pro-western faction ousted the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovcyh  --- to the civil war pitting the regime’s military against pro-Russian separatists in the east, the Times coverage of Ukraine has been atrocious.

   The reporting has been decidedly slanted against the Russian separatists and Russia, and has mirrored the U.S.government view on Ukraine. It’s been heavily tilted in favor of the new Ukrainian government, despite the questionable background of some members of that regime, fascist elements in their armed forces and the fact that the regime itself is illegal, having come about through a violent coup. There’s been one-sided reporting, misuse of photos and unprofessional editing.

  In one example, which recalled the Times’ stories in the lead-up to the Iraq War, an article was done which purported to show the presence of Russian military personnel in Ukraine fighting alongside the separatists. The story, featuring photos of Russian officers, bolstered the claim of the U.S. government that Russia is directly involved in the Ukraine civil war, and committing “aggression.”

   But later the story fell apart, when it turned out the identifications of the soldiers in the photos were incorrect, and there was no proof in fact that Russian fighters were in  Ukraine. The Times later published a back-page correction.

   Another example of the Times’ unprofessional coverage in Ukraine has been the paper’s virtual whitewashing of the role neo-Nazis and fascists have played both in the regime and in the military campaign against the separatists.

   The Ukrainian government forces and right-wing militias in the past year have waged brutal assaults against cities in eastern Ukraine, with hundreds being killed. In several of these attacks, young neo-Nazi fighters, with Nazi insignias on their shirts or helmets, have been involved in some of the fiercest fighting. In an attack on a trade union building last year in Odessa, dozens of separatists were trapped inside as militias fired on the building and threw stun grenades and tear gas cannisters. The building caught on fire, and when people jumped out, fascist militants from the Right Sector beat them with bats and chains, according to one person who survived. 

  All total, 39 people perished in the attack, either from injuries sustained after jumping from higher floors, suffocating from smoke inhalation or burning alive.

   In September of last year, members of the “Azov Battalion” --- fighters who have the wolfsangel, a Nazi symbol, emblazoned on their group banner --- played a central role in the fighting with separatists at Mariupol. The Azov Battalion is under the direction of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry.

   Papers such as the London Telegraph have documented the presence of Nazi elements fighting with the Ukrainian government forces, with articles and photos, but major press in the U.S., like the Times, have not. You would think that a paper like the Times that frequently has done stories in other parts of Europe detailing the rise of neo-Nazis and fascists --- such as in Germany or Greece --- would eagerly report on the substantial role that far-right extremists are playing in the Ukrainian conflict, but that hasn’t been the case.

     The Times has also avoided doing a major investigative piece on just how the coup in Ukraine took place in February of last year.  Abundant evidence has emerged showing how the taxpayer-funded National Endowment for Democracy worked to undermine the Yanukovych regime, and how State Department officials like Victoria Nuland and U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. openly fanned the flames of rebellion by meeting with and encouraging the demonstrators during the Maidan protests. When those demonstrations turned violent, right-wing militias took over government buildings, and Yanukovych fled for his life.

  

    But the Times has taken the position that the government overthrow in Kiev last year wasn’t really a coup. According to Robert Parry, the editor of Consortiumnews.com and a journalist who has done an outstanding job covering the Ukraine crisis, the Times in early January of this year wrote a long piece which claimed that the Yanukovych regime wasn’t really overthrown. Instead, the government just collapsed as allies deserted Yanukovych amid the rising tide of violence in the streets.

    The Times said that the idea that the government was overthrown in a coup as a result of attacks by fascist militants and western intrigue, was a propaganda line put out by Russia.

   As Parry pointed out, even the global intelligence firm Stratfor disagrees. The overthrow of Yanukovcyh was “the most blatant coup in history” according to Stratfor’s founder George Friedman.

   It appears during this whole process of reporting on Ukraine, The New York Times has swallowed the U.S. State Department line about events in Ukraine: Russia is a rogue nation bent on expansion; its dictatorial leader, Vladimir Putin, can’t be trusted; the Russian separatists are a ruthless group who were responsible for the shootdown of the MH-17 airliner over Ukraine last year, which killed over 283 people on board (although no investigation has confirmed who was responsible).

    Meanwhile, according the American government view, the United States and leaders of the coup regime in Kiev are simply trying to reunite Ukraine, defend it from Russian aggression and create a more prosperous country more closely integrated with Europe.

   Why is this simplistic, black and white narrative --- which is clearly contradicted by the facts --- being presented by the Times?

   

    There can only be two conclusions. Either the reporters and editors working on the Ukraine issue are grossly incompetent, and ignore the facts, or they essentially agree with the neo-con policy being pushed by the U.S., aimed at pulling Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit, neutralizing Russia, and eventually forcing regime change in that nation.

   If the latter is the case, then we have so-called journalists engaging in deliberate propaganda on behalf of the U.S. government.

   Whatever the reason for what’s going on, the result has been the Ukraine reporting has been awful. It has been, as Parry calls it, “journalistic malfeasance.”

 

  

 

 

                   

Demanding Justice for Michael Brown

By Reginald Johnson

   Around the country, people are demanding justice in the Michael Brown case.

  Demonstrations have swept major cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago as well as dozens of smaller cities, with thousands expressing anger that a grand jury decided not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting Brown, an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Missouri last August.

  Hundreds of people are now marching to the Missouri State Capital of Jefferson City to show their concern for what happened to Brown, who was 18 at the time of the shooting.

  Last weekend about 100 people protested in Bridgeport, a city of about 150,000 in Connecticut.

 “Bridgeport could be the next Ferguson,” Rev. Mary McBride Lee told the crowd gathered outside the City Hall Annex, according to the Connecticut Post. “We have to stick together and stand up for what’s right.”

  It’s a good thing that so many people are criticizing the grand jury result in the Michael Brown case, because there’s a lot to be upset about.  The more you look at the facts of the case, it’s hard to understand how the grand jury came to the conclusion that there was no probable cause to indict Wilson.

  There are inconsistencies in the account Wilson gave to the grand jury and some legal experts, including a noted forensic pathologist, say Wilson’s version of how the fatal shooting took place, doesn’t conform with the physical evidence.

  Questions have also been raised about the quality of the local investigation of the Brown shooting and the way St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch handled the grand jury.

  A recent piece in Mother Jones magazine analyzed the testimony given by dozens of witnesses to the shooting, and compared that with Wilson’s testimony, and the statement by McCulloch announcing there was no basis for an indictment.  The article identified a number of discrepancies, relating to different accounts about an initial confrontation between Wilson and Brown, how it escalated into a fight, whether Wilson shot at Brown when he and his friend Dorian Johnson ran away, and whether Brown had his hands up when Wilson shot at him, after Brown had stopped running and turned around.

   Two findings are particularly noteworthy from the article, which drew in part from an analysis by PBS News Hour of 500 pages of witness testimony and Wilson’s statements:

·        While Wilson testified he did not shoot at Brown after he fled, a full 16 witnesses said he did. Only four witnesses supported Wilson on this point;

·        Though Wilson told the grand jury he shot Brown only after the teenager turned around with his hands down and began advancing towards the officer, 16 witnesses said Brown had his hands raised after he turned around. Only two witnesses said Brown did not have his hands up.

  In a recent interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, well-known forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht said Wilson’s testimony that Brown had his hands down and was reaching into his waistband, does not comport with the physical evidence. Wecht, the one-time president of the American Academy of Forensic Science, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and a past consultant on many high profile crime cases, said the location and shape of the wounds sustained by Brown indicate that he could not have had his hands down at the time of the shooting. His hands had to have been raised, Wecht said.

  Wecht also expressed astonishment that a county medical examiner who came to review the Brown shooting scene on the day of the incident failed to take photographs, as required. The official said he couldn’t do so, since his camera was “out of batteries.” The medical examiner also failed to take measurements, another standard step.

   “This is absolutely unacceptable,” said Wecht.

 While no criminal charges will be forthcoming from the local grand jury, there is still the possibility that the federal government could file criminal charges against Officer Wilson. Officials from the Justice Department are conducting a separate investigation of the case.