We Say Fight Back!

Review: ‘Sorry to Bother You,’ but Can I Interest You in a Wild Dystopian Satire? (Boots Makes the Big Time Again)

…Worry Free, founded by Steve Lift, a Silicon Valley libertarian tech-bro visionary dirtbag (played by Armie Hammer, perhaps too perfectly for his own good), offers desperate people guaranteed food and shelter in exchange for lifetime servitude. This system of contractual slavery, which combines mass incarceration with the old plantation regime in a context of free consumer choice, doesn’t much worry Cassius, whose upward mobility accelerates at his new job. His existence may be precarious — he lives in his uncle’s garage and is behind on the rent — but at least he can work alongside his best friend, Salvador (Jermaine Fowler). And Cassius’s girlfriend, Detroit (Tessa Thompson), an artist with a day job twirling signs in front of businesses, is happy that he’s gainfully employed… www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/movies/sorry-to-bother-you-review-lakeith-stanfield.html

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White America’s Age-Old, Misguided Obsession With Civility

In the spring of 2014, the city, as part of a cost-cutting plan devised under emergency management, switched its water source from Lake Huron to the notorious Flint River, once so polluted it was said to have caught fire. America’s infrastructure is old; corrosion control is federally mandated to prevent pipes from crumbling into the water, but none was instituted in this case.

That summer General Motors, based in the city, noticed that the new water seemed to be corroding engines. The company swiftly shifted to a new water supply. But the city strenuously argued that the water was safe for human consumption, even as residents protested and got sicker and sicker.

Two new books approach this disaster from different angles….Both books make it clear that what’s happening in Flint is not an aberration or a parable. A history of austerity policies and a long legacy of racial apartheid allowed a government to poison its residents — the majority of them black and poor — and then lie, suppress evidence and attempt to smear and intimidate anyone, from scientists to specialists to citizens, who came forward to expose the scandal….

“If you were going to put something in a population to keep people down for generations to come, it would be lead,” Hanna-Attisha writes. It is possibly the most studied neurotoxin. But Clark describes how it was embraced by America anyway, as a “key to prosperity,” added to brass fixtures and paint — “built into the infrastructure.” Children are especially vulnerable; their bodies absorb up to five times as much lead as adults, and it leads to aggression and antisocial behavior, learning difficulties, organ damage, seizures, coma, death. There is even an epigenetic impact — it changes a child’s DNA. “It’s really science-fiction comic-book stuff,” Hanna-Attisha writes. “Like the X-Men, except the victims aren’t getting superpowers. Their powers are being taken away.”  www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/books/review-poisoned-city-anna-clark-what-eyes-dont-see-mona-hanna-attisha-flint-water-crisis.html

How GM saved itself from Flint water crisis (well, saved the engines, but the hell with the workers) What would these workers have done?

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Betrayed: Chicago schools fail to protect students from sexual abuse and assault, leaving lasting damage

At Simeon Career Academy, a young track star was raped 40 times by a coach.

At Black Magnet Elementary, a substitute teacher sent a 14-year-old girl obscene texts and kissed her.

At Taft High School, a student reported that a security guard and track coach groped her during practice.

Over a decade, police investigated more than 520 cases of juvenile sexual assault and abuse in Chicago’s public schools….

they became prey, among the many students raped or sexually abused during the last decade by trusted adults working in the Chicago Public Schools as district officials repeated obvious child-protection mistakes.

Their lives were upended, their futures clouded and their pain unacknowledged as a districtwide problem was kept under wraps. A Tribune analysis indicates that hundreds of students were harmed.

Drawing on police data, public and confidential records, and interviews with teens and young adults who spoke out, a Tribune investigation broke through the silence and secrecy surrounding these cases and found that:

When students summoned the courage to disclose abuse, teachers and principals failed to alert child welfare investigators or police despite the state’s mandated reporter law.  graphics.chicagotribune.com/chicago-public-schools-sexual-abuse/index.html

Hard News. Angry Administration. Teenage Journalists Know What It’s Like.

High school educators across the country have been clamping down on students who publish articles on protests, sexuality and other hot-button issues.

High schools across the country have pushed back this year against student journalists who have reported on sensitive subjects, like the reaction to school shootings and adolescent sexuality.

In Orange County, Calif., a principal condemned a school publication for a special issue that focused on teenage relationships, calling it “disrespectful and sensationalistic.”

In a town roughly 20 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, the administration deactivated a school’s news website after student journalists posted an investigative article examining the mysterious dismissal of a history teacher.

And in a suburb of Dallas, a principal forbade the publication of an opinion piece critical of the administration for scheduling events during the National School Walkout protest. www.nytimes.com/2018/07/01/business/media/student-journalism-school-newspaper.html

More States Opting To ‘Robo-Grade’ Student Essays By Computer

Here’s a little pop quiz.

Multiple-choice tests are useful because:

A: They’re cheap to score.

B: They can be scored quickly.

C: They score without human bias.

D: All of the above.

It would take a computer about a nano-second to mark “D” as the correct answer. That’s easy.

But now, machines are also grading students’ essays. Computers are scoring long form answers on anything from the fall of the Roman Empire, to the pros and cons of government regulations.

Developers of so-called “robo-graders” say they understand why many students and teachers would be skeptical of the idea. But they insist, with computers already doing jobs as complicated and as fraught as driving cars, detecting cancer, and carrying on conversations, they can certainly handle grading students’ essays.

I’ve been working on this now for about 25 years, and I feel that … the time is right and it’s really starting to be used now,” says Peter Foltz, a research professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He’s also vice president for research for Pearson, the company whose automated scoring program graded some 34 million student essays on state and national high-stakes tests last year. “There will always be people who don’t trust it … but we’re seeing a lot more breakthroughs in areas like content understanding, and AI is now able to do things which they couldn’t do really well before.”

Foltz says computers “learn” what’s considered good writing by analyzing essays graded by humans. Then, the automated programs score essays themselves by scanning for those same features.

“We have artificial intelligence techniques which can judge anywhere from 50 to 100 features,” Foltz says. That includes not only basics like spelling and grammar, but also whether a student is on topic, the coherence or the flow of an argument, and the complexity of word choice and sentence structure. “We’ve done a number of studies to show that the scoring can be highly accurate,” he says.  www.npr.org/2018/06/30/624373367/more-states-opting-to-robo-grade-student-essays-by-computer?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social

Capitalist School district told to level with taxpayers about bond projects

It’s time for the Broward school district to tell taxpayers exactly how it plans to fix decaying schools by 2021 or admit it can’t be done on time, warns a new report from the watchdog hired to monitor the work’s progress.

The report from Florida TaxWatch, a Tallahassee group hired by the district, found that about 10 percent of the more than 1,500 projects at 232 schools have been completed and only 12 percent are under construction.

Most of Broward’s plans are getting stuck in the planning or design phase and the projects aren’t making it to construction, TaxWatch wrote.

The report said district officials should have “candid conversations” with their Bond Oversight Committee about whether they honestly believe they can finish the work by 2021, the deadline promised when voters in 2014 passed the $800 million bond referendum.  www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/fl-broward-school-bond-delays-costs-20180629-story.html

Thousands of grade school children in Detroit go without recess (well, without literacy, history, honest administrators, etc)

Above, Detroit book warehouse.

A generation of Detroit children raised in a state-run school district has missed out on classes in art, gym, and music. They attended classrooms without certified teachers inside un-airconditioned, crumbling school buildings as emergency managers looked for cost savings.

More than 6,000 children were even denied something as essential as daily recess, according to records obtained by Chalkbeat.

Recess did not appear at all on the master schedules of nine elementary schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District last year. Another eight district schools set aside recess time for students in only a few grades.

Even in schools with no scheduled recess, some students are allowed to go outside for some of their half-hour lunch period. Other schools send students outside three days a week, students and parents told Chalkbeat. And when recess isn’t on the schedule, teachers are empowered to cancel free time if students misbehave.  www.freep.com/story/news/education/2018/07/07/no-recess-detroit-schools/756451002/

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

Trump’s “Infrastructure” Plan
Pump Up the Pentagon
By William D. Hartung

Other than shouting about building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, one of Donald Trump’s most frequently proclaimed promises on the 2016 campaign trail was the launching of a half-trillion-dollar plan to repair America’s crumbling infrastructure (employing large numbers of workers in the process). Eighteen months into his administration, no credible proposal for anything near that scale has been made. To the extent that the Trump administration has a plan at all for public investment, it involves pumping up Pentagon spending, not investing in roads, bridges, transportation, better Internet access, or other pressing needs of the civilian economy.

Not that President Trump hasn’t talked about investing in infrastructure. Last February, he even proposed a scheme that, he claimed, would boost the country’s infrastructure with $1.5 trillion in spending over the next decade. With a typical dose of hyperbole, he described it as “the biggest and boldest infrastructure investment in American history.”

Analysts from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania — Trump’s alma mater — beg to differ. They note that the plan actually involves only $200 billion in direct federal investment, less than one-seventh of the total promised. According to Wharton’s experts, much of the extra spending, supposedly leveraged from the private sector as well as state and local governments, will never materialize. In addition, were such a plan launched, it would, they suggest, fall short of its goal by a cool trillion dollars. In the end, the spending levels Trump is proposing would have “little to no impact” on the nation’s gross domestic product. To add insult to injury, the president has exerted next to no effort to get even this anemic proposal through Congress, where it’s now dead in the water.

There is, however, one area of federal investment on which Trump and the Congress have worked overtime with remarkable unanimity to increase spending: the Pentagon, which is slated to receive more than $6 trillion over the next decade.This year alone increases will bring total spending on the Pentagon and related agencies (like the Department of Energy where work on nuclear warheads takes place) to $716 billion. That $6-trillion, 10-year figure represents more than 30 times as much direct spending as the president’s $200 billion infrastructure plan.  www.tomdispatch.com/post/176443/tomgram%3A_william_hartung%2C_weaponized_keynesianism_in_washington/

Army Is Spending Half a Billion to Train Soldiers to Fight Underground

U.S. Army leaders say the next war will be fought in mega-cities, but the service has embarked on an ambitious effort to prepare most of its combat brigades to fight, not inside, but beneath them.

Late last year, the Army launched an accelerated effort that funnels some $572 million into training and equipping 26 of its 31 active combat brigades to fight in large-scale subterranean facilities that exist beneath dense urban areas around the world.

For this new type of warfare, infantry units will need to know how to effectively navigate, communicate, breach heavy obstacles and attack enemy forces in underground mazes ranging from confined corridors to tunnels as wide as residential streets. Soldiers will need new equipment and training to operate in conditions such as complete darkness, bad air and lack of cover from enemy fire in areas that challenge standard Army communications equipment.

Senior leaders have mentioned small parts of the effort in public speeches, but Army officials at Fort Benning, Georgia’s Maneuver Center of Excellence — the organization leading the subterranean effort — have been reluctant to discuss the scale of the endeavor.

“We did recognize, in a megacity that has underground facilities — sewers and subways and some of the things we would encounter … we have to look at ourselves and say ‘ok, how does our current set of equipment and our tactics stack up?'” Col. Townley Hedrick, commandant of the Infantry School at the Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Georgia, told Military.com in an interview. “What are the aspects of megacities that we have paid the least attention to lately, and every megacity has got sewers and subways and stuff that you can encounter, so let’s brush it up a little bit.”…

Before the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mission for taking large, underground military complexes was given to tier-one special operations units such as Army Delta Force and the Navy‘s SEAL Team 6, as well as the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment.

But the Pentagon’s new focus on preparing to fight peer militaries such as North Korea, Russia and China changed all that. www.military.com/daily-news/2018/06/24/army-spending-half-billion-train-troops-fight-underground.html

UN: 10,000 children killed, maimed in conflicts worldwide

More than 10,000 children were killed or maimed amid armed conflicts worldwide last year, while others were raped, forced to serve as armed soldiers or caught in attacks on schools and hospitals, a United Nations report said Wednesday.

A total of more than 21,000 violations of children’s right were reported in 2017 — a sharp increase from the previous year, according to the annual “Children and Armed Conflict” report.

The U.N. blames a U.S.-backed Arab coalition fighting in Yemen for at least half of the more than 1,300 child deaths or injuries recorded in that poor nation. They were victims of aerial and ground attacks by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Houthi rebels opposed to Yemen’s internationally recognized government.

Among the casualties tallied in the report were child soldiers as young as 11 fighting in Yemen’s civil war and in other countries, the U.N. said.

“The point is, these kids should not be treated like children of a lesser God; they deserve the same rights as every kid to live their lives at least meaningfully and to be given a chance at recovery,” said Virginia Gamba, the U.N. special representative for children and armed conflict.

She said the report left U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres feeling “outraged.”

The 21,000 violations of children’s rights included 10,000 who were slain or maimed, especially in Iraq, Myanmar, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen, the report said.

The total was a dramatic increase from 15,500 such cases counted in 2016. “The secretary-general is outraged at this number, a significant increase compared to previous years,” said his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.  apnews.com/e5a6cbef756f4ddcbc5602339ce16948

www.facebook.com/dana.w.fortinberry/videos/10155881032549576/?t=1

Blue Angels war team entertains on Grand Traverse Bay.

Bolton says the US has a plan to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program within a year (wink wink)

A U.S. Army crew chief flying on board a CH-47F Chinook helicopter observes the successful test of flares during a training flight in Afghanistan ( Reuters )

A U.S. Army crew chief flying on board a CH-47F Chinook helicopter observes the successful test of flares during a training flight in Afghanistan ( Reuters )

An American service member has been killed and two others wounded in an apparent insider attack in southern Afghanistan.

In a statement, the Taliban said a member of the Afghan security forces opened fire on US troops in the southern province of Uruzgan, killing four people and wounding several others.

Saturday’s incident comes just over a year after three US soldiers were killed by an Afghan soldier in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

Insider attacks, often known as “green on blue” attacks in which Afghan service members or attackers wearing Afghan uniforms fire on US or coalition troops, have been a regular feature of the conflict in Afghanistan, although their frequency has diminished in recent years.

Coalition forces have also tightened security and added extra force protection measures including special “Guardian Angel” units to accompany training units.  www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/afghanistan-war-us-troops-killed-injured-insider-attack-green-blue-taliban-a8436836.html

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Americans Are Having Fewer Babies. They Told Us Why.

Women have more options, for one. But a new poll also shows that financial insecurity is altering a generation’s choices.

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement and The War on Reason

All-American Nazis

How a senseless double murder in Florida exposed the rise of an organized fascist youth movement in the United States

Andrew Oneschuk and Jeremy Himmelman had been living in Tampa, Florida, for two weeks when, on Friday, May 19th, 2017, their roommate Devon Arthurs picked up an AK-47 rifle and shot them at close range. Oneschuk had just turned 18. Himmelman was 22. They’d been staying in a lush gated community near the University of South Florida, in a two-bedroom, terra-cotta condo rented by their fourth roommate, 21-year-old Brandon Russell, a rich kid from the Bahamas who worked at a gun shop and served in the Florida National Guard. Oneschuk, a prep-school dropout, was hoping to become a Navy SEAL. Himmelman also considered the military, though he was more of a drifter. Eighteen-year-old Arthurs, a pale, freckled kid who sometimes called himself “Khalid,” was unemployed and spent most of his time playing video games. All four had met one another online, in forums and chat rooms popular with the more extreme segment of the so-called alt-right.

It was about 5:20 p.m. when Arthurs, dressed in jeans and a green polo shirt, casually strolled into the community’s leasing office and announced he’d just committed murder. “He was extremely calm,” one witness recalled, and he gave “a little speech” about U.S. war crimes in the Middle East. Then he wandered across the street and into a strip-mall smoke shop, where, brandishing a Glock semiautomatic pistol, he took three people hostage. The cops arrived within minutes. “I was never going to shoot anyone,” Arthurs said as he surrendered. They drove back to the condo, arriving just as Russell, in his military fatigues, ran out the door “hysterical and screaming,” as one cop put it. Arthurs seemed unmoved. “He doesn’t know what’s going on,” he said about his roommate, “and he just found them like you guys just did.”  www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/all-american-nazis-fascist-youth-united-states-w519651

Solidarity for Never

The core issue of our time is the reality of color-coded inequality and the promise of perpetual war met by the potential of a mass, integrated, Class Conscious, social movement for equality.

Many interpreted the recent teacher wildcats as a form of class consciousness–at least imputed class consciousness. We shall see how that played out within the largest union in the United States

The 3 million member National Education Association, the largest union in the U.S., met in Minneapolis in 2018. The vast majority of delegates are rank and file school workers.

The NEA is a multi-million dollar operation with a $300 million-plus-treasury.

ra.nea.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Financial-Reports_2016.pdf

On July 1, the NEA Rep Assembly’s hysteric delegates marched  for “Children and Families” (That would be Reagan’s ‘Family Values’) on the heels of a massive wildcat strike wave-quickly diverted.

Trump’s border issues saved the NEA bosses, but the rank and file was easily gulled.

NEA Bosses had real problems as they headed to the NEA RA on July 1.

A. Lily Garcia, president, was exposed for rigging NEA’s internal processes for war-criminal Hillary Clinton and wasting millions on that failed campaign.

Then a Sanders backer won against a top N.Y. Dem, making Garcia look like a fool. Garcia made more than $512,000 in 2016.

B. School worker wildcats had roiled the US, nearly every one in states where NEA is weak–had the least control over the ranks. Garcia and AFT’s Weingarten opposed, then sabotaged, the wildcats which exposed them as sellout “partners with the big bosses.”

Here below is a long take on the mindless March for the Children

This manipulated March for the Children movement is poisoned on one hand by nationalism, and on the other hand by racism. The simple fact is that Obama, Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power, and Susan Rice started seven wars. They are responsible for destroying much of the Middle East.

They are responsible for the death of about 1 million people, tens of thousands of them children. In addition, another 1.5 million were driven from their homes. They went to refugee camps, Europe, or they drowned. Tens of thousands of them are children.

Where were these misguided protestors? Those children were every bit as split from their families—and more so. The Family Values clarion call is reactionary to the core. In fact, Reagan and Nixon both helped coin the phrase.

Yes, of course, Trump is scurvy, but he is only a personification of a rapidly decaying social system. So, in sum, this is another piece of mass hysteria, people who have no idea why things are as they are, nor what to do about it all, but they spin in circles, make noise, and evaporate.

Everything went well for Garcia and the other NEA hacks, but for the Constitutional Convention. The delegates voted that down.

How is it that 6,000 well-educated (or mis-educated) school workers can be so easily fooled into following the millionaires, Garcia and Weingarten, up so many blind alleys–into the dead end of voting booths?

• Religion
• Witless Nationalism-worship of the empire which, not incidentally, pays.
  
• Pressure working down through a vast, well greased, hierarchy with offers of internal promotions, bribes–that is, corruption and sheer opportunism.
• Habit/Custom and racism.
  
• Many Teachers were the “obedient ones.”
• Spectacles
• Cowardice or indifference
• Adoration of those who dominate (“I’m good for you”)
• Education is the key to class rule. As self-declared agents of the state, they’re semi-intellectuals in service to rulers, everywhere. (But some, starting with a few, rebel).

Identity Politics play well in NEA. Realities of class war and empire, the basis for real solidarity, don’t.

NEA’s Human and Civil Rights Heroes Honored at Annual Awards Ceremony offer a tick list of identity politics, also know as inter-sectionality–or bullshit–the politics of the Democratic Party of Capital and Empire.

“Advancing Opportunities for Women and Girls”

“Michelle Obama was honored for transforming and redefining the role of First Lady of the United States by intentionally focusing her attention on advancing opportunities for women and girls with the Mary Hatwood Futrell Human and Civil Rights Award.”

(Nobody noted the mass murder her husband led, not even “Drone Tuesday,” which may have killed thousands of women and girls as collateral damage).

Standing Against Oppression By Taking a Knee”

“Colin Kaepernick sparked a nationwide movement when he sat during the National Anthem at a San Francisco 49ers pre-season football game in 2016.”

(What about all those segregated suburban schools NEA represents?).

“Immigrant and Worker Rights”

“NEA recognized the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO, for removing barriers and inspiring communities as they fight for worker rights, human rights, educational equity, and advanced labor and Asian community partnerships, with the Ellison S. Onizuka Memorial Award.”

(The AFL-CIO IS the CIA–see Kim Scipes’ work) and IS a key cause of the crises of human rights in the third world).

“Dedicated North Carolina Activist Honored Posthumously”

“North Carolina educator Rodney Ellis, Sr., believed that a great education opens doors for students. Throughout his life, he worked tirelessly to ensure that students and educators across North Carolina, especially in underserved communities, received the resources they needed to provide an excellent education no matter their ZIP code. As a teacher, union leader and champion for students and educators, Ellis embodied the César Chávez Acción y Compromiso Human and Civil Rights Awards, which this year NEA recognized posthumously.”

(Chavez was a religious fanatic, a sellout, and a bitter opponent of immigrant labor–see the book, Trampling out the Vintage).

“Celebrating the African-American Story”

“As the founding director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African History and Culture (NMAAHC), Dr. L.G. Bunch, III has transformed the understanding of African-American history for generations to come. Dr. Bunch has not only created a place for America to honor and celebrate the African-American story, but a place that encourages reflection, dialogue, and understanding. NEA honored Dr. Bunch with the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Award.”

(Think Detroit, Flint, Compton, etc. NEA is responsible for the crises in those cities–as the only organized force that could have helped. NEA just walked away).

Note the faux clenched fist.

“Affirmative Action Advocate”

Patriotic LGBTQ

“The lone voice calling for the creation of an Affirmative Action Committee to address race, ethnic, disability, and LGBTQ inequities in the California Faculty Association, Dr. Cecil Canton developed and leveraged committees within the system to transform the union into a powerful engine for racial and social justice. He successfully organized the creation of the committee and then worked to elevate it to a council, putting it on par structurally with the presidents and lecturers councils.”

(The real affirmative action has been the imprisonment of about 1.5 million black and brown people. The other side of affirmative action created a class of completely sold out opportunist “African” Americans who run the cities, and recently, the nation, in making class and empire’s war on all).

Garcia was always a fan of Arne Duncan. She featured him at NEA’s RAs. His Race to the Top deepened US school segregation.

“Muslim Girls Making Waves and Change”

“Four brave Muslin girls are combatting (sic) bigotry, racism, and prejudice in today’s hyper-charged political climate with their powerful voices and slam poetry. For that, NEA is honoring Muslim Girls Making Change (MGMC) with the Rosena J. Willis Memorial Award.”

(What can be more bigoted than religion–the TRUE god?  Educated people should know people make gods. Gods don’t make people).

“Fighting for LGBTQ Rights”

“Chris Sgro has long been a champion for equal rights for the LGBTQ community. As the Executive Director of Equality North Carolina, he fiercely led the opposition to HB 2, once known as the most anti-LGBTQ legislation in the country.”

Union Yes!

Unions in Wisconsin weathered some of the most relentless political attacks in the country. In spite of these unprovoked efforts to silence the voices of workers and educators, the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association persisted in its commitment to make sure students thrive. For this, the NEA bestowed upon MTEA the Rosena J. Willis Memorial Award.

(Reg Weaver is a former NEA president. In his last year in office, he made $686,949. He was so dull, he couldn’t even read a press release that was written for him. In eight years as NEA president, he accomplished nothing, but he did declare that he was key to “The Most Important Thing in the History of the Labor Movement Since the Merger of the AFL-CIO!”  That came to nothing as well.— richgibson.com/SubstanceMarch2006.htm)

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Former NEA Prez Reg Weaver (left and see above) made the party rounds. He couldn’t even read the press releases written for him. He made $686,949 for his last year in office. Current NEA prez Garcia signed the check as Secretary-Treasurer. Weaver retired, then went to work at Education International, a landing point for all NEA and AFT bosses when they step aside. It’s a CIA front.

NEA elections are marked with plenty of enthusiastic hoopla

www.facebook.com/angeladerramos/videos/10213583883886086/?t=21

NEA Boss Lily Eskelsen Garcia, with the opening speech, ticked off every imaginable form of identity politics, then claimed credit for wildcat strikes she opposed, and subsequently betrayed.

Now, how to herd the ranks back to the ballot box? Add some crocodile tears for students marching for their lives. It’s not demagoguery at its finest, but it is hysteria rising.

Following her introductory remarks, NEA President Garcia hauled in a student from Stoneman Douglas (any issue but class war). And he’s a real patriot! Plus, he LOVES the NRA.

Watch for the classic, “America, hear our prayer!” chant at around 10:30. Let’s hear it again for FAMILY VALUES! And go out and VOTE! We are “united! We are Americans!” Audience–standing O.

Hyperbole plays well at NEA RA’s (as does exaggerating the number of 6000 delegates)

The liberal Bullshit Association of Teachers, whose founding member was expelled in a broad purge, endorsed Robert Rodriguez for the executive committee. Robert made a speech backing FAMILY VALUES.  Then he went on to list every conceivable form of identity politics but class war and imperialism.

AFT’s Randi Weingarten ($1/2 million a year and a multi-millionaire–third from left), long an enemy of NEA, spoke at the RA, falsely praising the wildcats (She testified at the Supreme Court in Janus that “collective bargaining, meaning dues check off, is necessary to prevent wildcats as the trade off is dues income for a contractual promise for no strikes or job actions).

She went on to say”teachers became the human shield for our students”–so lets chant’ “I’m sticking with my union” …”‘They’ want to suppress the right to vote and destroy unions”…”Betsy Devoss is the worst Secretary of Ed ever…”..’They are cruel to children!”..

“We have had our disagreements (yes, they were called the teacher wars)but we are together today!” “We are part of movement building, like #METOO against the avalanche of hate and intolerance! For Civil Rights we stand! Unions secure the wages we live on. The boss tries to put us down. Americans are rising up in a New Movement that we are building. People support teacher unions more than ever (if that is true, it’s due to the wildcats).

“Support for unions grew to the highest level in fifteen years. We are the only organized force that will challenge the right wing.

Janus is a challenge and opportunity. With Lily, with NEA, AFT and SEIU—we are an indomitable force–for the ballot box in November…This is a which side are you on moment…are we going to be a check and balance.? For good middle class jobs (might say ‘working class but that might annoy white people), democracy that works for everyone…

Yes it is a scary time, Our democracy hangs in the balance, if we act with solidarity—are you ready to rise, to take our country back–applause!)

Just a reminder: What Weingarten and Garcia did was unite with state and national bosses, against their members and the entire working class of the world.

John Stocks, the executive director of NEA, gave a tub-thumper, perhaps as a veneer that during his nearly ten years in office, NEA did nothing but lose members and sell out those who remain.

NEA’s Rep Assembly, this year with only 6016 attending, usually addresses about

100 New Business Items (NBIs). This year, there were 129, despite the size of the body being one-half what it was five years ago. As is custom, most of the NBIs came from California.

Most NBIs are simply nuisance, either not relevant, or pablum.

Typically, a few are key to the leadership, if not the rank and file.

NEA still has some shards of democracy left within the union, as represented by the continuation of secret balloting, but not many now.

For example, in 1999, the NEA top leadership desperately wanted to merge with the smaller, and authoritarian American Federation of Teachers. NEA would, if the motion passed, adopt the undemocratic rules and procedures of the AFT.

The leadership had planned a huge merger party right after the vote–top acts, a laser show, and more.

But the delegates, wisely, voted the merger down–a resounding “Not Just No, But HELL No!”

This year, a similar move was afoot. President Lily Garcia wanted to call a Constitutional Convention which would have reversed much of the democracy in NEA, and set up a format for a merger. In this assembly, the delegates voted down the motion, NBI 1, again.

In addition, Garcia wanted to collect money through an “allied” group that would allow non-education personnel to join NEA–an obvious offset to Janus (NEA cut $50 million from its budget and at least 40 national staff.)

That required a Constitutional Amendment and atwo-thirds vote. One delegate rose to point out that if this passed, Bill Gates could join NEA and “control follows his dollar.” It was close, but the secret ballot prevailed and the delegates, again, voted NO.

As noted above, in this RA, I am an elected delegate. When I made a critical comment on the delegate Facebook page, I was immediately removed and blocked. Old time NEA would have never done that.

Rather than flounder through 129 New Business Items, By-laws, and Constitutional Amendments, I selected several to highlight the identity politics maneuvers, so useful to NEA top mis-leaders.

As above, in 2018, there was no NBI addressing the most significant thing any nation can do–go to war.

Bylaw Amendment 1
Deemed to Have Failed
To create a new membership category of “Community Ally” and charge the NEA Board of Directors with establishing the dues, benefits, and services for such members, while preserving NEA governance positions for education professionals and active equivalents.

Constitutional Amendment 1
Defeated

To open NEA membership to public education allies while preserving NEA governance positions for education professionals and active equivalents.

Constitutional Amendment 5
Defeated
To establish the Representative Assembly as the only body to recommend or endorse presidential candidates for both the primary and general election.

New Business Item 48
Adopted

NEA will build on the great teachers’ union victories in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and struggles breaking out in Arizona and other states, to support a national campaign of labor action, including strike action where practicable, to:

***save public services
***fight to improve NEA members’ living and work conditions
***fight for union rights.

New Business Item 58
Ruled Out of Order

NEA will:

Collaborate with local border issues organizers to plan at least one action to shut down an immigration detention center, a Customs and Border Patrol office, or an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office;
Recruit at least 500 educators (including retired educators) to participate in the action who are willing to be arrested and not bail out of jail for a week.

New Business Item 66
Defeated

Using existing resources, NEA will educate its members about neoliberalism – what it is an what it does. This would include how “neoliberal reforms” have been applied in many countries with disastrous results for working people. In the public education area, neoliberal reforms promote privatization and create a toxic environment.

New Business Item 68
Defeated

In an alliance with the nurses union and other organizations, NEA will draft a proposal for a universal health care system.

New Business Item 90
Adopted As Amended

Given NEA’s policy of fighting racism, and the current state of racial affairs within this great nation, it is imperative that NEA actively support and promote, using existing resources, such as Teaching Tolerance, Facing History and Ourselves, and Rethinking Schools, that describe and deconstruct the systemic proliferation of a White supremacy culture and its constituent elements of White privilege and institutional racism, in order to create equitable outcomes for people of all colors, languages, and ethnic backgrounds. Additionally, the NEA will encourage its affiliates to do the same.

New Business Item 113
Defeated

NEA will call for members to engage in a national day of action, to be developed collectively by members within each state, on May 1, 2019, to demand the public schools and colleges our communities deserve.

NEA will inform state affiliates, locals and rank and file members of this call and encourage state affiliates to organize around state specific demands that are of most immediate concern to membership.

NEA will promote the action through social media, press releases, and within its publications.

NEA will provide – in the form of toolkits for locals to begin the work of building capacity for the action and, in those places where NEA organizers are already active – they will have building capacity for the National Day of Action as a goal for their 2018/2019 work.

New Business Item 119

New Business Item 122

Corporate sponsors are ubiquitous at NEA RAs

At an earlier RA, 2012

Could the Next Strike in Education Be Against the Teachers’ Union?

More than 80 percent of members of the National Education Association Staff Organization—the union for employees of the National Education Association—voted Wednesday to authorize the NEASO bargaining team and board of directors to call for a strike starting June 12. The staff’s contract expired May 31, and the two sides have yet to come to an agreement over a new contract. The NEA, which is the nation’s largest teachers’ union, employs about 500 people at its headquarters in Washington.

While neither side would speak about the specifics of the contract negotiations, the NEASO is asking for salary raises for employees.

“We do not want to strike, but we will call for one if necessary because this fight is about values—NEA’s values as a union and as a champion of progressive causes,” said NEASO President Susan Nogan in a statement. “We simply are asking NEA to live up to its values as the largest labor union in the country.”

After the strike vote, Nogan said, NEA agreed to return to the bargaining table to continue discussions. Meanwhile, NEA officials say they have never left.  blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2018/06/nea_staff_strike_vote.html

Analysis: California Teachers Association to spend up to $10 million supporting two statewide ballot initiatives — and opposing three others

Every member of the California Teachers Association contributes $36 annually to the union’s ballot initiative fund. Unspent money rolls over and today the fund holds in excess of $23 million.

This month CTA’s State Council, comprised of almost 800 union representatives from across California, approved the expenditure of up to $10 million to fund the union’s position on five statewide ballot initiatives headed for the November 2018 ballot. (For any others, CTA holds no position and has authorized no funding, though this may change when the Council meets again in the fall.)

How much financial support each of the campaigns will receive has yet to be determined. The five initiatives are:

● CTA will support the Children’s Hospital Bond Act, which would issue $1.5 billion in bonds for infrastructure, facilities and technology at children’s hospitals. The initiative is currently awaiting signature verification by the secretary of state’s office.

● CTA will support the Affordable Housing Act, which would repeal rent control limits and allow local jurisdictions to apply stricter rent control regulations. The initiative qualified for the November 2018 ballot.

● CTA will oppose the People’s Initiative to Protect Proposition 13 Savings, which would allow homebuyers aged 55 or older or severely disabled to transfer their current tax assessments to a new home, regardless of the new home’s market value or location. Since this would tend to reduce property tax revenue to the state and thus revenue to public schools, CTA opposes it. The initiative qualified for the November 2018 ballot.

● CTA will oppose the Emergency Ambulance Employee Safety and Preparedness Act, which would allow ambulance providers to require workers to remain on-call (reachable by a portable communications device) during meal and rest breaks. The initiative qualified for the November 2018 ballot.

● CTA will oppose the Tax Fairness, Transparency and Accountability Act, which would require a two-thirds vote of the legislature at the state level, and a two-thirds vote of voters at the local level to increase taxes or fees, “no matter how they are labeled.” The initiative is currently awaiting signature verification by the secretary of state’s office.  laschoolreport.com/california-teachers-association-to-spend-up-to-10-million-supporting-two-statewide-ballot-initiatives-and-opposing-three-others/

Sellout CTU President Karen Lewis says she’s stepping down from her post: Corrupt ISO now openly runs CTU

The union president said Friday that she had submitted her retirement papers as an educator to the Chicago Board of Education, weeks after undergoing brain surgery as part of ongoing treatment for a 2014 cancer diagnosis that forced her to abandon a mayoral bid.

“It’s just the health situation,” Lewis told the Tribune. “I can’t do it at my best.”

“I want my members to know first that I’m not abandoning them, I just will be an emerita,” Lewis said. “I will be around to help do things, I’m not disappearing anywhere and I’m going to be here for whatever people want to do with me.”

Lewis said she also planned to be involved with the city’s upcoming mayoral election  www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-karen-lewis-retirement-chicago-teachers-union-20180622-story.html

Feds paint UAW widow as fraudulent tax cheat

A lying-thieving- cheating pair, Monica and Hillbillary

The widow of United Auto Workers Vice President General Holiefield stole $190,000 from honest taxpayers to bankroll a lavish lifestyle and should spend more than two years in federal prison, prosecutors said Friday.

Monica Morgan-Holiefield, 55, of Harrison Township, benefited “handsomely” from illegal payments to her late husband from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and used shell companies to hide the income and criminal activity, according to the government.

The payments are central to an ongoing federal investigation that has led to criminal charges against seven people, caused upheaval at the top ranks of the auto industry and raised questions about the sanctity of labor negotiations.

In pushing for a 27-month prison sentence, prosecutors delivered a scathing counterpunch to her lawyer’s request for leniency and labeled Morgan-Holiefield a jet-setting tax cheat and fraudster, a portrait at odds with the image she projects on social media of an accomplished photographer and society-column fixture.

Spy versus Spy

Judge Rejects CIA’s Absurd Secrecy Claim on Botched Yemen Raid

In a win for government transparency about its lethal actions overseas, a federal judge has told the CIA that it can’t refuse to “confirm or deny” whether it knows anything about a military operation when the agency’s director was present at the White House dinner where the action was approved.

The judge rejected the Trump administration’s extreme secrecy claim in a ruling Wednesday in our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking records on the January 2017 raid in Yemen that killed as many as 25 Yemeni civilians and one Navy SEAL.

Days after President Trump took office, he approved the dead-of-night raid in al Ghayil, Yemen. Although he called the raid “successful,” the strike had actually gone awry. Soon after, the ACLU filed a FOIA request demanding to know who in the government planned and approved the raid, what the legal basis for it was, and who the U.S. government killed.

The Departments of Defense, Justice, and State produced most of their records with heavy redactions, some of which we are challenging in court. But the CIA refused to respond at all  www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/targeted-killing/judge-rejects-cias-absurd-secrecy-claim-botched-yemen-raid

The Magical Mystery Tour

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp7BjppK_fQ

Kentucky Defies Leftists & Atheists, Brings the Bible Back to Schools

The state of Kentucky just defied those who want every remnant of the Christian faith to be removed from public schools.

In a ceremony last week, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin signed a bill that allows public schools in the state to teach the Bible, WDBP reported.

“The idea that we would not want this to be an option for people in school, that would be crazy,” Bevin said at the ceremony. “I don’t know why every state would not embrace this, why we as a nation would not embrace this.”

The bill gives local school boards the option to add Bible literacy classes to their school’s social studies curriculum.

The new classes would be electives, not requirements, CNN reported.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. D.J. Johnson, pointed out what many Americans already know to be true — that the Bible is foundational to the American founding and a reliance on God is vital for our nation to flourish.

After all, the freedom and religious liberties we enjoy are based on the knowledge our Founding Fathers had that our rights and value as human beings come from God, not the government.  www.westernjournal.com/ct/kentucky-defies-leftists-atheists-brings-the-bible-back-to-schools/

www.facebook.com/internettreasures/videos/610320079342839/?t=50

Baby Was Sold at Indian Shelter Tied to Mother Teresa, Police Say

A nun and a charity worker were accused this week of selling a baby at a shelter for unmarried mothers in eastern India run by an organization founded by Mother Teresa.

The police said Thursday that they had arrested the two women, who worked at the Missionaries of Charity-run shelter in Ranchi, the capital of the eastern state of Jharkhand.

The police said the shelter worker told them she had sold three other children at the home in Ranchi in recent months. The two were charged with illegally selling a child and could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.  “Both the women confessed,” Amish Gupta, the police chief of Ranchi, said by telephone, adding that they had been taken into custody.  www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/world/asia/india-baby-mother-teresa.html

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

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www.facebook.com/SnappedInTheWild/videos/1703742683054159/?t=30

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Why smell the roses when you can sniff a tree? A. Rouger Hiker.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD2Om1g3B3o

www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/2146994171998728/?t=20

117 degrees in San Diego. July 6th, 2018. The state is on fire.