At least 49 people are dead in Christ Church, New Zealand after a gunman opened fire on two mosques on Thursday. New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern labeled it a “terrorist attack,” and said it was, “one of New Zealand’s darkest days.”   Hours later Police Commissioner Mike Bush shared the latest number of fatalities in Christ Church on Thursday when a gunman opened fire on two mosques during Friday prayers.

A portion of the New Zealand massacre was live streamed on Facebook as the shooter apparently wore a video recording device on his head. According to the New York Times, “Before the shooting, someone appearing to be the gunman posted links to a white-nationalist manifesto on Twitter and 8chan, an online forum known for extremist right-wing discussions. The 8chan post included a link to what appeared to be the gunman’s Facebook page, where he said he would also broadcast live video of the attack.”  President Donald Trump, who enjoys a lot of support on forums like 8chan posted a tweet on Friday morning saying, “My warmest sympathy and best wishes goes out to the people of New Zealand after the horrible massacre in the Mosques.” A total of 4 people – three men and one woman – have been taken into custody. At least one of them is Australian. One man in his 20s, has been charged with murder and will appear in court on Saturday.

Elsewhere in the world the US has also apparently influenced violence and gun culture. In Brazil where a school shooting shocked the nation earlier this week, it has now been revealed that the two young men responsible for the massacre were inspired by the 1999 Columbine shooting in Colorado. According to AP, “Friends and former classmates told investigators that 17-year-old Guilherme Taucci Monteiro and 25-year-old Henrique de Castro were obsessed with the attack on Columbine High School.” They had apparently been planning the attack at the high school for months.

Here in the US, parents of those killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre celebrated a victory after the Connecticut Supreme Court opened an avenue for them to sue gun manufacturers. The victims’ parents had filed a suit challenging the immunity that Congress has given gun makers against being held liable for how their weapons are used. The manufacturer of the Bushmaster rifle used by the Sandy Hook shooter had been advertised with the slogan, “Consider your man card reissued.” A 4-3 ruling by the state’s supreme court upheld a lower court ruling that, “it falls to a jury to decide whether the promotional schemes alleged in the present case rise to the level of illegal trade practices and whether fault for the tragedy can be laid at their feet.” Nicole Hockley, the mother of a 6-year old boy who was among those killed said, “No one has blanket immunity. There are consequences. We want our day in court to see why they do this this way, and what needs to change.”

In other news, the US Senate issued its second rebuke to President Trump in two days with the passage of ...

FEATURING KHURY PETERSEN-SMITH – The Senate on Wednesday passed a resolution to end the US’s involvement in Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen. The measure passed 54-47 and heads to the House where it appears likely to pass. The bill marks a rare show of partisan unity against the President. It passed the Senate last December but not the Republican-controlled House, so it was revived again in the Senate this year.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who pushed for the bill, said in a statement, “U.S. participation in this war has not been authorized by Congress and is therefore unconstitutional. For the first time in 45 years, Congress must exercise its power under the War Powers Resolution and remove the U.S. from this war in Yemen.” Trump has already said he will veto the bill if it passes both chambers.

Khury Petersen-Smith, Middle East Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.

The US has joined a growing moratorium on Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft in an abrupt about face on Wednesday. The US’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), after announcing that the planes were safe, obtained newly available satellite tracking data which apparently showed enough similarities to last year’s Lion Air crash of the same type of aircraft that it warranted a grounding of all planes. The US had been among the last nations to insist on the aircraft’s safety until President Donald Trump on Wednesday afternoon  reversed his earlier decision on Boeing aircraft after the second major crash in a less than 6 months.

Meanwhile the New York Times on Wednesday published an op-ed by James E. Hall, who served as chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board from 1994 to 2001. Mr. Hall blasted the FAA’s 2005 decision to turn over regulation of the airline industry to aircraft manufacturers. “Rather than naming and supervising its own ‘designated airworthiness representatives’ the agency decided to allow Boeing and other manufacturers who qualified under the revised procedures to select their own employees to certify the safety of their aircraft,” he wrote. “In justifying this change, the agency said at the time that it would save the aviation industry about $25 billion from 2006 to 2015. Therefore, the manufacturer is providing safety oversight of itself. This is a worrying move toward industry self-certification,” said Hall.

The black box from the fatal Ethiopian Airlines crash arrived in France on Thursday for analysis. The French Air Investigation authority – known by its French Acronym BEA, is known for its expertise in analyzing crash data. According to AP, “The BEA isn’t saying how long it will take to analyze the recorders… Analysis typically takes days or weeks, depending on whether the recorders were damaged in the crash.”

In other news, the Senate on Wednesday passed a major resolution to end the US’s involvement in Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen. The measure passed 54-47 and heads to the House where it appears likely to pass. It relies on the 1973 War Powers Act giving Congress the authority to remove troops in places, “without a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization.” The bill marks a rare show of partisan unity against the President. It passed the Senate last December but not the Republican-controlled House, so it was revived again in the Senate this year. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who pushed for the bill, said in a statement, “U.S. participation in this war has not been authorized by Congress and is therefore unconstitutional. For the first time in 45 years, Congress must exercise its power under the War Powers Resolution and remove the U.S. from this war in Yemen.” Trump has already said he will veto the bill if it passes both chambers.

The state of New York has charged the President’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort with 16 charges including mortgage fraud, just hours after he was sentenced to an additional 4 years in prison. Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. issued a press release after Manafort’s federal sentencing hearing saying, “No one is beyond the law in New York,

FEATURING DIANE RAVITCH – Nearly 50 people have been charged and several arrested earlier this week by federal authorities in connection to a massive bribery scheme that involved an educational consultant named William Singer and wealthy parents paying to get their children into top schools. Among those arrested were actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin and fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli as well as several athletic coaches and admissions officials.

Federal authorities dubbed the case “Operation Varsity Blues.” It is the biggest college admissions scandal that the Justice Department has ever taken on. According to Associated Press, “Prosecutors said parents paid an admissions consultant from 2011 through last month to bribe coaches and administrators to label their children as recruited athletes, to alter test scores and to have others take online classes to boost their children’s chances of getting into schools. Parents spent anywhere from $200,000 to $6.5 million to guarantee their children’s admission.”

Andrew Lelling, US Attorney for the District court of Massachusetts announced the charges against dozens of parents in a massive college admissions scandal on Tuesday. The investigation is apparently ongoing and could result in more charges.

Read Diane Ravitch’s article ‘The College Admissions Scandal: Why Am I Not Surprised?’, HERE.

Diane Ravitch, award-winning leader in education and the author of ten books, including The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education and Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. She is a research professor of education at New York University and served as Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to the Secretary of Education from 1991-1993 under the George H. W. Bush administration. She is also the co-founder of The Network for Public Education.

FEATURING NOLIWE ROOKS – Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy Devos is finding it hard to attend public events without being the target of protests. The virulently strong supporter of school privatization and charter schools has become a lynchpin for mass dismay of the state of our public school system. But privatization did not begin with Devos. It has a long history embedded within the early days of racial desegregation and the Brown Vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision.

In a new book, Noliwe Rooks writes about how private investment in public education has sky-rocketed – and the result is worse achievement outcomes, more segregation, more privatization.

Noliwe Rooks, Director of American Studies at Cornell University, former associate director of African American studies at Princeton University. She has written four books including White Money/Black Power and Hair Raising. Her newest book is Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education.

**This segment was originally broadcast on October 19, 2017.

More details have emerged in the college admissions scandal that led to the charging and arrest of about 50 people on Tuesday. A college prep consultant named William Singer is at the heart of a scheme to use large bribes from parents made to athletic coaches and others who have admissions oversight at elite colleges. Singer ran a business called Edge College & Career Network, also known as The Key, in Newport Beach, California. In addition to facilitating bribes Singer helped students to cheat on standardized tests like the SAT. Andrew Lelling, US Attorney for the District court of Massachusetts described the charges on Tuesday against dozens of parents including well-known actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin. Mr. Singer, the educational consultant at the heart of the charges, had turned into a federal informant and secretly recorded conversations with his clients to help prosecutors. The investigation is ongoing and more charges may be coming.

In the wake of the Ethiopia Airlines crash last weekend, most countries around the world including the European Union have decided to ground their Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft which is the type of plane that crashed in Addis Ababa and also crashed last year in Indonesia. Chief among those nations refusing to ground its planes is the US where Boeing holds political influence in government (Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan worked for Boeing for over 30 years). On Tuesday President Donald Trump tweeted, “Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly. Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT.” But soon after he posted the tweet, according to the New York Times, “Boeing’s chief executive, Dennis A. Muilenburg, called from Chicago and expressed to Mr. Trump his confidence in the safety of the 737 Max 8 jets, according to two people briefed on the conversation.”

Reports show that there were 11 complaints logged by Federal Aviation authorities from professional pilots between April through December of 2018. According to a USA Today report, “The captain of a November 2018 flight called part of the aircraft’s flight manual “inadequate and almost criminally insufficient.” Meanwhile Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and her staff flew on a Boeing 737 Max 8 plane operated by Southwest Airlines on Tuesday in a bid to illustrate the plane’s safety.

President Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort was sentenced on Wednesday for the second time in 2 weeks in another set of charges stemming from the Special Counsel’s investigation into election wrongdoing. Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Manafort to an additional 3.5 years in prison on top of the 47 months he was sentenced to last week. Many critics denounced that 47-month sentence for being far too light. During her sentencing hearing Judge Berman said of Manafort, “It is hard to overstate the number of lies and the amount of fraud and the amount of money involved.., A significant portion of his career has been spent gaming the system.”

Meanwhile

FEATURING MATT GERTZ – The media watchdog group Media Matters for America has released audio recordings of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson speaking on a radio show between 2006 and 2011 and spewing horribly racist, misogynist, and homophobic rhetoric. Carlson used to be a regular guest on a right-wing shock radio show called Bubba the Love Sponge. Media Matters is reviewing many hours of tape and have announced that there is more to come.

Carlson has refused to apologize for his horrendous comments and on Monday he opened his show with an angry rant about, “The great American outrage machine,” and how, “One day you’re having dinner with your family imagining everything is fine; the next your phone is exploding with calls from reporters.”

The news comes at the same time as one of Carlson’s biggest fans, President Donald Trump, has labeled Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and the entire Democratic Party anti-Semitic for Omar’s remarks about the power of the pro-Israel lobby.

Matt Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters, where he was the organization’s research director during the 2016 election cycle. He has written extensively on press coverage of politics and elections, as well as on media ethics and regulations.

FEATURING DR. JENNIFER HARVEY – Many Americans are still perplexed when people of color take offence at white Americans darkening their skin to look like non-whites. There is not nearly enough education about the pervasive history of racism and racist phenomena like “black face,” in the US. Far too many white youth in particular are still raised – by well-meaning parents – with the idea that being color-blind means being anti-racist.

Now, a new book attempts to guide the parents of white American children on how to foster a real consciousness of race and racism, and thereby raise anti-racist children.

Dr. Jennifer Harvey, Professor of Religion at Drake University, author of Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing For Racial Reconciliation. Her new book is called Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America. She has contributed to the New York Times and Huffington Post.

**This interview was originally broadcast on February 8, 2019.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders held her first press briefing in a month and a half on Monday during which she honed in on President Donald Trump’s claims that the Democratic Party hates Jews. Sanders jumped on the chance to refer to the controversy surrounding Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s remarks on the power of the pro-Israel lobby and comparing her to Representative Steve King, a known and avowed white supremacist. She defended Trump’s attacks on Democrats as a whole as anti-Semitic. CNN’s Jim Acosta who has often clashed with her and with the President asked her if Trump was going to tone down his rhetoric, to which Sanders responded by pivoting to a story about Democrats’ defense of abortion rights. When a reporter asked her about Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen receiving checks from the President in Fall 2017, she ended the press briefing.

Meanwhile, the media watchdog group Media Matters for America has released two sets of audio recordings of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson speaking on a radio show between 2006 and 2011 and spewing horribly racist, misogynist, and homophobic rhetoric. During an exchange about the US war in Iraq, Carlson repeatedly dehumanizes Iraqi people. (A warning, some of what you’ll hear is pretty disturbing). Carlson is a conservative icon favored by President Trump and his supporters.

The Coast Guard officer arrested for plotting a massive domestic terrorist attack aimed at many of Trump and Fox News’s favorite Democratic Party targets, has pled not guilty to weapons and drug charges. Christopher Hasson appeared in federal court on Monday. Prosecutors have identified his white nationalist and extremist views in making the case against him and cited his own writings where he said he wanted to use “focused violence” to achieve a “white homeland.”

In other news, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave a wide-ranging interview to the Washington Post, which was published on Monday. When asked about whether she would pursue Trump’s impeachment, Pelosi said, “I’m not for impeachment…Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.” Some of Pelosi’s colleagues including Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, are actively pursuing Trump’s impeachment.

A Super PAC that supported former Florida Governor Jeb Bush‘s bid for the Presidency has been fined for taking foreign donations. The Right to Rise super political action committee took more than $1.3 million in campaign donations from Chinese nationals and was just fined $390,000 by the FEC for breaking campaign laws. The Chinese company that made the donation was fined $550,000. The Intercept in 2016 had published a story indicating that the Super PAC might be breaking campaign finance laws. Trevor Potter who is a former FEC chair and a Republican remarked, “Today’s action is a rare and remarkable step by the FEC, and a reminder that safeguarding our elections against foreign interference is in America’s vit...

FEATURING LINDSAY KOSHGARIAN – The Trump administration on Monday has released its 2020 budget – to the tune of a record $4.75 trillion. The budget will be the largest in history and includes a massive increase in border spending for Trump’s wall, a boost to military spending, and harsh slashes to programs actually benefiting Americans. In fact Trump is asking for an across-the-board 5% cut to all non-defense discretionary programs.

On the border spending, the proposal includes an $8.6 billion dollar package to build a border wall. According to Reuters, the request is, “more than six times what Congress allocated for border projects in each of the past two fiscal years, and 6 percent more than Trump has corralled by invoking emergency powers this year.”

Lindsay Koshgarian, Research Director at National Priorities Project.