Russian meddling, but to call it bold and sophisticated and to that that we now know index lee had an influence on the outcome of the election is absurd. Amy all that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. The head of the National Rifle association, or nra, Wayne Lapierre has broken his silence after last weeks Florida School shooting that left 17 people dead and sparked a studentled National Conversation on gun legislation. On thursday, lapierre attacked his opponents as communist sympathizers hellbent on undermining individual freedoms. The elites dont care, not one wit, about Americas School system and school children. If they truly cared, what they would do is they would protect them. For them, it is not a safety issue, it is a political issue. They care more about control and more of it. Their goal is to eliminate the Second Amendment. So theyfirearms freedom can eradicate all individual freedoms. Amy Wayne Lapierre was speaking at cpac, the annual convention of the conservative Political Action conference. He was joined by nra spokesperson dana loesch, who singled out camera crews and reporters in the back of the cpac conference room. Many in legacy media love mass shootings. You guys love it. Now i am not saying that you love the tragedy. But i am saying that you love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold to you and many the legacy media in the back. Amy President Trump will address the cpac convention today. President trump on thursday repeated his call to arm u. S. Teachers with concealed firearms, saying he was prepared to seek funds for a program that would see as many as 40 of u. S. School staffers trained to carry weapons. Pres. Trump the people that do carry, we give them a bonus. We give them a little bit of a bonus. Amy trumps proposal drew swift condemnation from teachers and their unions. Randi weingarten, president of the American Federation of teachers, called President Trumps idea terrible. This is the man who cut 9 billion out of the federal budget for schools, who cut every single Summer School program, who cut every single afterschool program, who has cut programs for art and for music. And frankly, two days before parkland, cut Safety Measures and cut Mental Health measures. The only people that are helped by Arming Teachers are the gun manufacturers and the nra, who want to see more sales of guns. Amy President Trumps proposal to arm teachers came as Broward County sheriff scott israel said revealed thursday there was an armed officer present at Stoneman Douglas high school during the massacre on valentines day, but he took cover outside the building, failed to enter the school to engage the shooter. The deputy, scot peterson, resigned after the sheriff said Surveillance Video showed him doing nothing during the assault. Meanwhile, a Texas School District has threatened to suspend any student taking part in a walkout or holding a protest in solidarity with nationwide student demonstrations. Writing on the Facebook Page of the needville independent School District near houston, superintendent Curtis Rhodes warned please be advised that the Needville Isd will not allow a student demonstration during school hours for any type of protest or awareness this contrasts with many local officials whove backed high school protesters. In new york with bill de blasio, and in minneapolis, mayor jacob frey joined students and teachers who walked out of classes wednesday in a protest against gun violence. Their protest occurred as students and staff at schools in the oron School District in suburban minneapolis barricaded their classroom doors after social media posts threatened a school shooting. The lockdown was lifted after Police Arrested a male student on felony charges of making terroristic threats. In syria, warplanes bombarded the besieged rebelheld enclave of Eastern Ghouta near damascus for the fifth straight day, as human Rights Groups warned the civilian death toll has topped 400 for the week, with doctors unable to tend to the wounded in bombedout hospitals. The violence came as russia tabled a debate at the Un Security Council thursday on a measure calling for a 30 days hes fire to allow for evacuations ceasefire to allow for the vaccinations of the sick and wounded and convoys of humanitarian aid to reach needy residents. A vote of the year and they said was likely to occur later today. For discussion of syria, you can go to democracynow. Org for yesterdays discussion on the broadcast as well as our part to discussion in web exclusives. A top official at the United NationsChildrens Fund or unicef, resigned thursday amidst reports he sexually harassed women at his previous workplace, the British Charity save the children. Justin forsyths resignation from unicef came after bbc radio reported he faced three complaints of inappropriate behavior, including sending inappropriate messages and commenting on the appearance of female workers. In haiti, the country has suspended the British Charity oxfam as it investigat reports that it tried to cover up sex crimes by senior aid workers in haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake. An internal oxfam review concluded senior aid workers at the charity hired prostitutes at oxfam properties in haiti and then tried to cover it up. Haitis minister of planning and external cooperation, aviol fleurant, said thursday his government was leading its own investigation into oxfam. The two month long investigation i find out there is a link between the eight funds that oxfam or seemed on behalf of haiti and the crime that has been committed, we will find oxfam persona non grata in the country. Amy in the occupied west bank city of jericho, a palestinian man died thursday after he was arrested and severely beaten by Israeli Soldiers. Israels military initially said they subdued 33yearold yasin alsaradih after he attacked soldiers with a knife and attended to steal a gun. The attempted to steal a gun. The military later said they fired bullets to stop alsaradih after he attacked soldiers with an iron bar. But Surveillance Video later emerged showing Israeli Soldiers kicking and beating the man before dragging his limp body away. The newspaper haaretz reports an autopsy showed no Bullet Wounds were found on his body, contradicting the militarys statement. Back in florida, state prison officials administered a lethal cocktail of drugs to prisoners got branch thursday, stopping his heart. Witnesses to the execution say branch screamed and repeatedly shouted murderers as the drugs were administered. Prison officials would later deny that the scream was caused by the execution drugs. Meanwhile, alabama has postponed the execution of death row prisoner doyle he him after they could not find a viable vein where they could inject lethal drugs. The postponement came after the u. S. Supreme court rejected his argument is compromised veins from cancer and drug use that would have made lethal injection unconstitutionally cruel. Meanwhile, in texas, Governor Greg Abbott halted what would have been thursdays third u. S. Execution, granting clemency to condemned prisoner Bart Whitaker and commuting his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors say that in 2003, Bart Whitaker arranged to have a hitman kill his family members. He was convicted of masterminding the attack, which left his mother and brother dead. Bart whitakers father, kent, survived the attack and later spoke out against his sons death sentence. In virginia, a federal grand jury handed down fresh indictments against Donald Trumps former Campaign ChairPaul Manafort and his business associate rick gates, accusing them of financial and tax crimes. The 32count indictment came as part of special counsel Robert Muellers probe into alleged russian meddling in the 2016 election. The charges add to Money Laundering and conspiracy charges already filed against manafort and gates. And in missouri, Police Arrested republican governor Eric Greitens thursday after a grand jury indicted him on charges of felony invasion of privacy stemming from an extramarital affair in 2015. The indictment accuses greitens of blindfolding and tying up a woman with whom he was having a consensual affair and then taking her picture without her consent and threatening to release the naked photograph if she ever spoke publicly about the affair. Governor greitens was arraigned thursday and later released on his own recognizance. He has acknowledged the affair but denies any criminal behavior. Greitens is a former u. S. Navy seal who was elected in 2016 after he ran on a progun, antiobama platform. He had been a democrat who then changed to become a republican. This is an excerpt of a campaign commercial in which greitens is seen firing hundreds of rounds from a highcaliber machine gun. Governor whoens, a will set his sight on politics as usual, reduce spending, create jobs, protect life, protect the second a moment, and fight obamas democratic machine. Amy missouris Republican House speaker said thursday that lawmakers will investigate the governor, the first step toward possible impeachment proceedings. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. We begin todays show looking at the justice departnts recent indictment of 13 russians and three companies in connection with efforts to influence the 2016 president ial election. The indicted are accused of orchestrating an online propaganda effort to undermine the us election system. It claims the russian spread negative Information Online about Hillary Clinton and supportive information about donald, as well as bernie sanders. On friday,ndictments some analysts compare the russian interference to japans 1941 attack on the u. S. Level base at pearl harbor. But others have warned not to overstate what russia accomplished. On thursday, i sat down with the prize winning russianamerican journalist masha gessen, a longtime critic of russian president vladimir putin. Her recent book, the future is history how totalitarianism reclaimed russia, won the National Book award in 2017. She recently wrote a piece for the new yorker titled the fundamental uncertainty of muellers russia indictments. I began by asking her about last weeks indictments. For somebody who actually has read the indictment in its entirety and actually the russian reporting that is a must entirely repeated in the indictment, it is really hard to square that with the way it has been per trade as sophisticated, bold efforts. I think h. R. Mcmaster is correct in saying, yes, there is incontrovertible evidence of russian meddling, but to call it bold, to call it sophisticated, and to imply that we now know that it actually had an influence on the outcome of the election is absurd. It was not bold or sophisticated. We dont know and probably never will know whether it had any impact. Amy lets go to the Deputy Attorney general, which surprised many, that he was a person who spoke on friday, rod rosenstein, the man very much under attack by President Trump, who said there is no evidence this there is no evidence the alleged interference influenced the outcome of the election. The indictment charges 13 russian nationals and three Russian Companies for committing federal crimes while seeking to interfere in the United States medical system. Including the 2016 president ial election. The defendants allegedly conducted what they called Information Warfare against the United States. With the stated goal of spreading distrust toward the candidates and the political system in general. Amy so, masha gessen, talk about what you found in reading the indictment, looking at how people are responding in russia and here. What itfascinated with tells us about our imagination about the russian imagination. Russia imagines america in the american political system like this unassailable monolith, that they are throwing stuff at just to try to make a dent. Where as the United States is starting to increasingly to imagine russia as allpowerful, incredibly sophisticated, as capable of sending out some absurd tweets in this obliterate english and somehow changing the outcome of the election. That projects such a believe in the fragility of the system and basic instability of it and the gullibility of voters who read something that is not even comparable english and suddenly change their vote. The rookie theory of the investigation is that russians influence the election by influencing american opinion. So we are asked to believe that a Significant Impact on American Public opinion could be produced by the superman coloring book tweet. Amy explain. Ads, a lote facebook of them were truly absurd. They were like caricatures of. Merican political propaganda for example, there was a coloring book, sort of bugg bernie, with tweaks going out saying it was suitable for all ages and that it was supposed to sort of advance the sanders candidacy to detract from Hillary Clintons candidacy. There was the satan arm sataning jesus ad where was supposed to be hillary and jesus is supposed to be trump, and you have to vote the right way. Hadre asked to believe that a measurable impact on a billiondollar campaign . Amy you write about all of the different reactions from the Vice President of facebook rob goldman, what he said, what trump said, and take it from there. Rob goldman wrote that he has seen all of the russian ads and tweets, which at and posts, which we havent. We know that facebook turn them over to the investigators, but weve only seen a small selection. Seeingct the ones were are ones that make any sense at all. Because theres also just this giant amount of panic produced. ,ob goldman posted or tweeted ive seen all of the russian ads. Their goal was not to elect trump. I think of quitting this currently. Amy let me go to what rob goldman said as he took to twitter writing very excited to see the mueller indictment today im a we shared russian ads with congress. A letter and the american people, to help the merrick and public understand how the russians abused our system. Still, there are key facts about the russian actions that are still not well understood. In a subsequent tweet he wrote most of the russian coverage of russian meddling the attempt i can say definitively swaying the election was not the main goal. President trump quoted the latt state in a tweeter. This is conjecture on my part, but also based on what i know about what the russian trolls themselves are saying because they have been interviewed at this point by russian journalist, and their goal was to create a mass, to screw with us, right . What rob goldman is probably looking at is a huge mess of incomprehensible sort of messaging. Very impoant rt of ruian propaganda. This is not an imaginary phenomon. Creang amy not here, either. Creating cacophony, creating confusion, creating the sense that nothing means anything anymore is definitely important, but that is dierent from saying that their goal was to sway the outcome of the election and that we can say with any amount of certainty that that work and that is how we got trump. Also servedhas another purpose, for example, when it comes to these large megacorporations like facebook and twitter, they have been hauled before congress, before the british parliament, and their thing, how could you have allow th to appear . In the end, theyre being pressured, basically, these corporations, to censor what is out there. That the agenda of Holding Facebook accountable publicly is such a bad agenda will stop i think a conversation about what facebook is, a publicly sourced or even though it is a privately owned corporation, is a Media Company come it is certainly not just a as facebook has claimed repeatedly. That is an important question. I think it has been asked in the wrong way. When we saw senator al franken badgering the facebook lawyer and screaming, they were russians lost up how could you not see these as were bought for rubles . Where we started in a place that advertising fo