Record number of journalists worldwide are behind bars for just doing their jobs
From The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Republicans on Capitol Hill have a new sense of urgency to pass their tax plan now that the slim GOP Senate majority will get even slimmer with Democrat Doug Jones’ election in Alabama. They appear to have negotiated all the main points of contention, and a deal is imminent. Even aside from the balance-tipping potential of Jones’ election, the question remains: Why hurry something so important?
Tuesday’s GOP defeat in Alabama should be warning enough that mainstream Americans aren’t happy with the country’s direction. The latest Quinnipiac poll, taken before the Alabama election, found that only 29 percent of respondents support the GOP tax plan.
Almost two-thirds believe the tax bill benefits the wealthy, and only a quarter see it as a plus for the middle class. President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans can’t hide the unfairness of this bill, yet they insist on barreling forward.
Part of their rationale for the rush is the concocted notion that the economy needs a boost. It doesn’t. The nation effectively is at full employment. Corporations are flush with cash. The Federal Reserve is so concerned about inflation it has elected three times this year to increase interest rates, including a hike on Wednesday.
Fed governors have reason to worry that the short-term effect of a tax cut on an already healthy economy would be to overheat it, so they’re deliberately moving to slow down the pace of growth. But it’s the accelerated growth rate that congressional Republicans are forecasting to replenish government coffers from the tax cut. They were unlikely to reach their growth goals, anyway, particularly if the Fed stands in their way, which it will.
President Donald Trump, whose approval rating is now down to 32 percent in a new poll, is driving the rushed pace of getting this tax bill approved before Christmas. The contract that Trump presented to his supporters in 2016 is spelled out in the GOP platform. Yes, it calls for tax cuts. But the platform places a higher priority on fiscal discipline and balancing the budget.
“The federal fiscal burden threatens the security, liberty and independence of our nation,” the platform warns, citing the $19 trillion national debt that existed in November 2016. Expanding government spending and benefits for “preferred groups,” the platform says, “is the path to bankrupting the next generation.”
This tax plan would add another $1 trillion to the debt and reward the GOP’s preferred group of wealthy individuals and corporations. It directly violates the GOP’s contract with its voters.
Polls show that Americans are growing more, not less, skeptical of Republican leadership. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is biased on the matter. But his warnings are prescient: “There will be many more Alabamas in 2018” if the GOP proceeds on this reckless path. “Many more.”
This last year has been a dangerous one for journalists around the globe — a record 262 men and women are imprisoned because of the nature of the work they do, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. It’s part of a disturbing trend of attacking and undermining institutions that exist to hold public officials accountable and to bring light into some of the darkest corners of the world.
Turkey and Egypt — two U.S. allies — and China account for about half of the detained journalists, but the problem extends widely. Here’s what happened just this week: Two Reuters staffers who had been working on stories about the Myanmar government’s violent ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Rakhine State were arrested under that country’s Official Secrets Act; a journalist writing about corruption was jailed in Tajikistan; and a French documentary filmmaker was detained in Kashmir by Indian authorities.
Most appalling is that the list of 262 includes some journalists who were nabbed a decade ago or longer by governments that have refused to divulge their whereabouts or even whether they are alive; some are likely dead. In fact, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 37 journalists were killed this year; 13 of them were murdered and the rest were killed covering combat or working in other risky conditions.
President Trump doesn’t bear the responsibility for these deaths and internments, of course. Over the last decade, the annual number of jailed journalists averaged 183, with a low of 125 in 2008. But Trump’s rhetoric has given cover to regimes that not only have oppressed journalists, but seek to discredit their work.
Trump has spent more than a year attacking critical coverage as “fake news”; taking his cue, authoritarian regimes have used similar language to dismiss coverage that exposes scandals, highlights egregious behavior or simply displeases them. The Chinese Communist Party newspaper, the People’s Daily, ran an op-ed recently citing Trump’s “fake news” screeds as cause to distrust all U.S. coverage of China and its policies. Arguing that China has been the victim of distorted Western coverage for years, the paper wrote: “If the president of the United States claims that his nation’s leading media are a stain on America, then negative news about China and other countries should be taken with a grain of salt since it is likely that bias and political agendas are distorting the real picture.” Syrian President Bashar Assad and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro similarly dismissed negative coverage of their repressive regimes’ actions as “fake news.”
Since before he won the election, Trump has worked like no other mainstream U.S. political figure to undermine national institutions, from Congress and the courts to the media. Addicted to the spotlight, Trump is incapable of accepting coverage that legitimately exposes errors and shortcomings of his administration, and seems to awaken every morning with a chip on his shoulder bearing the logo of whatever news outlet he happens to be picking a fight with at the time.
Pushback against negative coverage is both reasonable and expected, but Trump’s efforts to sow doubt about the essential nature and mission of news organizations veers into dangerous territory. Although press freedoms in the United States remain robust, Trump’s acerbic tweets make one wonder whether the president feels a twinge of envy when he sees Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shuttering news outlets critical of his repressive policies, or jailing hundreds of journalists with impunity. (The crackdown began after a failed coup in 2016; the Committee to Protect Journalists lists 76 reporters, whom Erdogan describes as spies or terrorists, still in jail.)
It would be quixotic to think that Trump will change his rhetoric or even care about the damage he causes when, as the leader of the free world, he openly undercuts the notion of a free and independent media. But his disregard for a free press fits in with his administration’s dangerous abdication of America’s traditional role as defender of human rights around the world. eggy got out and went to her father and talked to him a few minutes. He put the shotgun on the porch and motioned for us to get out. As we got out he shook hands with us, thanking us for helping his girl. He assured us that after tomorrow Herman would not bother Peggy or any of her friends. He motioned for us to have a seat on the porch. Peggy told him that we were interested in ghosts. A funny look appeared on his face and he began to talk.
His story went this way. His grandfather had built a big house on land he won through a land lottery. Grandfather had married a local girl and raised a family. It was said that he had the best farming land in the county. As time passed, farming got to where you could barely get by. Most of the family moved to town and went to work in plants. Peggy’s dad, Ralph, got married to a girl, name Fay. He brought her to live in the big house with Grand Paw and Grand Ma. He and Fay had two children, Peggy and a boy named Floyd.
He paused, wiping his eyes. He worked at a cotton mill and worked the farm with his grandfather. The job and the farm kept him away from the house most of the time. The day that it happened, Peggy was in school and he and his grandfather were out working the farm. Grandmother, Fay and baby Floyd was at home. No one never knew what happened. By the time the fire was noticed the back part of the house had caved in. Caught beneath the burning cavein was Grandmother, Fay and baby Floyd. The bodies were burned beyond recognition.
Ralph had built a house close to the burned one. He said he could not tear down the remains of the house, for he often visited his people at night. I looked at him and could tell that he was telling the truth. He looked at us and said, “If you will come up tomorrow night at about eight I will take you and let you see.”
He stood up and picked up his shotgun and said “Good night boys. Tomorrow night at eight.”
Email letters to the editor to romenewstribune@RN-T.com or submit them to the Rome News-Tribune, 305 E. Sixth Ave., Rome, GA 30162. LONIE ADCOCK