Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say Fight Back!

Mexico: Community Armed resistance  Armed vigilante groups who have risen up to combat the vicious Knights Templar drug cartel in the Mexican state of Michoacan were surrounding the city of Apatzingan, a main cartel stronghold, Monday morning and were threatening to invade the city, as Mexican government officials scrambled to defuse the situation.
“We have already circled Apatzingan,” one of the self-defense leaders, Hipolito Mora, said in a radio interview Monday morning. “I don’t know if we have the capacity [to take it] or not, but we are obligated to do it, and we are going to do it.”  http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-vigilantes-mexico-michoacan-20140113,0,4957752.story#ixzz2qLq8L9J2

Some Roots of Mexican Militias in US  The two dozen men standing guard on a rutted road that cuts through these lime groves and cornfields are just one small part of a citizen militia movement spreading over the lowlands of western Mexico. But as they told their stories, common threads emerged: Los Angeles gang members. Deported Texas construction workers. Dismissed Washington state apple pickers.
Many were U.S. immigrants who came back, some voluntarily but most often not, to the desiccated job market in the state of Michoacan and found life under the Knights Templar drug cartel that controls the area almost unlivable. They took up arms because they were financially abused by the extortion rackets run by the Templars. Because they had family killed or wounded by their enemies. Because carrying a silver-plated handgun and collecting defeated narcos’ designer cellphones as war booty is more invigorating than packing cucumbers. Because they get to feel, for once, the sensation of being in charge.  “Everybody’s with us, all the people,” said Edgar Orozco, a 27-year-old American citizen who left his job at a Sacramento body shop nine months ago to join the fight after the Knights Templar killed his uncle and cousin. “We’re not going to disarm. Never.”  http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/a-mexican-militia-battling-michoacan-drug-cartel-has-american-roots/2014/01/18/30f96894-7f92-11e3-97d3-b9925ce2c57b_story.html?wprss=rss_world

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Luz9oxhzpsE

Puerto Rico Teachers 2 Day Strike  Thousands of striking school teachers gathered Wednesday in Puerto Rico’s capital and their leaders met with government officials to talk about recent changes to the retirement system that sparked a two-day walkout.
Many teachers traveled from as far as the western cities of Mayaguez and Aguadilla, some arriving in school buses at the island’s Department of Labor, where the meeting took place on the final day of the strike.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/puerto-rico-teachers-launch-two-day-strike/2014/01/14/a7914374-7d89-11e3-97d3-b9925ce2c57b_story.html

Book Coming From one of the Grenada 17   “We Move Tonight” is the name of a book written by one of the famous Grenada 17, and the author says it contains “never-before revealed material’’ about the 1979 overthrow of former Grenada Prime Minister Eric Gairy’s government.
The author is Joseph Ewart Layne, who was among the group that participated in the assault on the army barracks that signalled the start of action that led to the removal of Gairy’s regime almost 35 years ago.
“I am hoping to have an e-version of the book available as soon as 15 January’’ Layne said. “Hard copies would hopefully be available in limited amounts in Grenada from February. Thereafter, commencing from March, copies would be made available in other countries in the Caribbean and beyond.’’  http://nowgrenada.com/2013/12/ewart-layne-launch-book-grenadas-revolution/

100 Years ago

Michigan College Students Fight Demands of Donors Names are intimate things. They belong to individuals to distinguish them from outsiders, and the extension of personal names to encompass other things suggests ownership of or affiliation with those other things.
So when private names extend to encompass public property, it concerns us.
At Grand Valley State University, it’s hard to be ignorant of the people and companies who “sponsor” our education. The names are plastered everywhere. From the DTE Energy Innovation Zone to the Mary Idema Pew Library, you know exactly who is behind our learning efforts.
It may not be accurate to describe the naming as a “sale,” but what else do you call an exchange of money for a good or service? GVSU is selling out. And what precedent is the sale of our buildings setting?  http://www.lanthorn.com/article/2013/12/sell-outs

90 Years ago

www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/

The Little Red Schoolhouse

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz5XOCD1wzU

Susan Ohanian “I am working at posting fewer items and providing more depth. We can all rail at an outrage every 18 seconds, and I don’t deny that these outrages are stark, outrageous, and devastating. But they are presented to wear as down and blur our vision from WHY all this is happening.
This is why I don’t post much about Michelle Rhee, charter schools, Randi Weingarten, the Gulan movement, and on an on and on. Yes, I worry about them and support people documenting their nefarious exploits. But I’m trying to push people–and myself–toward seeing the root cause of the attack on public schools: Capitalism.”

NYC’s Notorious School of NO  This principal runs a school of “no.”
Students at PS 106 in Far Rockaway, Queens, have gotten no math or reading and writing books for the rigorous Common Core curriculum, whistleblowers say.
The 234 kids get no gym or art classes. Instead, they watch movies every day.
“The kids have seen more movies than Siskel and Ebert,” a source said.
The school nurse has no office equipped with a sink, refrigerator or cot.
The library is a mess: “Nothing’s in order,” said a source. “It’s a junk room.”
No substitutes are hired when a teacher is absent — students are divvied up among other classes.
A classroom that includes learning-disabled kids doesn’t have the required special-ed co-teacher.
About 40 kindergartners have no room in the three-story brick building. They sit all day in dilapidated trailers that reek of “animal urine,” a parent said; rats and squirrels noisily scamper in the walls and ceiling.
NO GYM OR ART: With no phys-ed or art classes, students are left to watch movies, including “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and “Fat Albert.”
NO SPACE: Without enough space in the main brick building, kindergartners are taught in what sources say are rat-infested trailers.
Principal Marcella Sills is a frequent no-show; The Post found she missed every day of school last week but one.
And the principal — Marcella Sills, who joined PS 106 nine years ago — is a frequent no-show, sources say.
Sills did not come to school last Monday. On Tuesday, she showed up at 3:30 p.m.
On Wednesday, The Post found her at home in Westbury, LI, all day before emerging at 2:50 p.m. — school dismissal time. Wearing a fur coat, she took her BMW for a spin.
She showed up at school Thursday, but not Friday.   nypost.com/2014/01/12/no-space-no-books-no-leader-no-clue-at-citys-worst-elementary/

Their school provides them no textbooks, no supplies or art classes.
But here are the underprivileged pupils of Far Rockaway’s PS 106 — dressed to the nines in tuxes and gowns for an elaborate, wedding-themed bash they must pay to attend at the insistence of their do-nothing principal.
Hardworking parents of kids at the notorious Queens “School of No” — many of whom live below the poverty line — are compelled to pay $150 to rent tuxes at Men’s Wearhouse and buy gowns at David’s Bridal, plus kick in $110 for the prom-like charade.
Video from last June’s function shows Principal Marcella Sills, on a dais, in a shoulderless white dress that could pass for a wedding gown, smiling  http://nypost.com/2014/01/15/video-shows-do-nothing-principals-bizarre-bash/  (a video is embedded in the article) 

NEA: Adjust, Adjust, Adjust to Our Common Core Regimentation  Sometimes it takes a little magic to get kids interested in math. That’s why Master Teacher Melissa Romano uses magic tricks in lessons for her fourth grade classroom in Helena, Montana.
“It brings out their natural curiosity,” she says.
Her magic math lessons align with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and to help other teachers benefit from them, she’s posted them all on a new online network that was launched today by the National Education Association and BetterLesson, an education technology company.
The web site, CC.BetterLesson, features Romano’s and more than 3,000 classroom-ready lessons that are easily accessible, can be integrated into any curriculum, and are totally aligned with the CCSS. The lessons were developed and posted by more than 130 Master Teachers from every K-12 grade level for math and English Language Arts & Literacy  http://neatoday.org/2014/01/15/lesson-sharing-network-launched-by-nea-and-betterlesson/?utm_source=nea_today_express&utm_medium=email&utm_content=betterlesson&utm_campaign=140115neatodayexpress

5 Newark School Principals Suspended At Newark’s Hawthorne Avenue School, the test scores are up, higher than state-imposed goals—and certainly better than those of the highly touted “Renew” schools favored by the administration. The hallways are quiet. Teachers and administrators get along. And this was all done despite central office’s stripping away of faculty resources and shameful neglect of the building. So, in the crazy, bullying logic of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration of city schools, it was time to suspend the school’s successful principal, H. Grady James. He was just too good to be allowed to stay.
Time to suspend him—and to try to smear his reputation by saying he was involved in some sort of “incident” now under “investigation.” The “incident” was a community meeting at the Hopewell Baptist Church last Wednesday where he spoke, praising the efforts of his students, teachers and parents.
James was one of five principals indefinitely suspended in one day by Cami Anderson, Christie’s agent in Newark. The others were Tony Motley, Bragaw Avenue School; Dorothy Handfield, Belmont-Runyon School; Deneen Washington, Maple Avenue School, and Lisa Brown, Ivy Hill School.  Four of the principals—James, Motley, Handfield, and Washington—had spoken at the community meeting two days earlier. They tried to answer questions from local residents worried about what would happen to their children as Anderson moves toward a wholesale transfer of public school assets to the KIPP Schools, a charter organization that operates TEAM Academy Charter Schools.  http://bobbraunsledger.com/newark-school-boss-anderson-cracks-down-on-critics-suspends-five-principals-in-one-day/

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

Cost of War in Iraq and Afghanistan? Here: nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/?redirect=cow

MonarchoFascists of Qatar: Syria rebels’ tiny ally in the background he tiny emirate of Qatar, home to the world’s third-largest natural gas reserves and its highest per capita wealth, was once the opposition’s staunchest and most vocal supporter. In a conflict largely fueled by the financial and military support of outside patrons, Qatar’s deep pockets were a formidable asset.
Even now, although it has been eclipsed in influence by neighboring Saudi Arabia, Qatar plays an outsized role in the Syrian conflict.
“Yes, Saudi Arabia has played a more prominent role recently,” said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center, a spinoff of the Brookings Institution in Washington. “But Qatar’s role, although in volume it perhaps has been a little bit less, is certainly … significant.”
Buoyed by its successful intervention in Libya — where it delivered arms, cash and other aid to rebels fighting to oust Moammar Kadafi — the Qatari government in 2011 turned its attention to Syria  http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-syria-funding-20140112,0,5673903.story#ixzz2qLqnJ6hW

Iraq’s annual death toll highest in five years – UN  The United Nations says at least 7,818 civilians and 1,050 members of the security forces were killed in violent attacks across Iraq in 2013.
December alone saw at least 759 people killed, 661 of them civilians.
The annual toll is the highest in five years,  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25568687

TmZ Photos of War’s Barbarity TMZ obtained 41 pictures that we’re told were shot in Fallujah in 2004. Two pictures show a Marine appearing to pour gasoline or some other flammable on the remains of what officials believe are 2 insurgents. Two other photos show the bodies on fire. You then see charred remains.
Another photo shows a Marine crouched down next to a dead body and mugging for the camera.
Still another pic shows a Marine rifling through the pocket of the pants on a corpse.
We have not included all of the photos. Many are just too gruesome. There are well over a dozen bodies in the pics and some are covered with flies and one is being eaten by a dog.
We turned them all over to the Pentagon last week, and a Pentagon official tells us the pics have triggered a Marine Corps investigation.
Read more: www.tmz.com/2014/01/15/iraq-soldier-bodies-on-fire-marines-investigation-military-photos/#ixzz2qWPEAnVw       www.tmz.com/2014/01/15/iraq-soldier-bodies-on-fire-marines-investigation-military-photos/

MIT study of Ghouta chemical attack challenges US intelligence  A new MIT report is challenging the US claim that Assad forces used chemical weapons in an attack last August, highlighting that the range of the improvised rocket was way too short to have been launched from govt controlled areas.
In the report titled “Possible Implications of Faulty US Technical Intelligence,” Richard Lloyd, a former UN weapons inspector, and Theodore Postol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), examined the delivery rocket’s design and calculated possible trajectories based on the payload of the cargo.
The authors concluded that sarin gas “could not possibly have been fired at East Ghouta from the ‘heart’, or from the Eastern edge, of the Syrian government controlled area shown in the intelligence map published by the White House on August 30, 2013.”
Based on mathematical calculations, Lloyd and Postol estimate the rocket with such aerodynamics could not travel more than 2 kilometers. To illustrate their conclusion, the authors included the original White House map that depicted areas under Assad control and those held by the opposition. Based on the firing range and troop locations on August 21, the authors conclude that all possible launching points within the 2 km radius were in rebel-held areas.  http://rt.com/news/study-challenges-syria-chemical-attack-681/?fb_action_ids=10201293337281527&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_ref=.Utqc88mV1uU.like&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B578562868889652%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.likes%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%22.Utqc88mV1uU.like%22%5D

Navy: Another one bites the dust  The Navy’s acting number two civilian has resigned over allegations inappropriate conduct with a female subordinate on Wednesday, defense officials told USNI News.
Robert C. Martinage, the service’s deputy under secretary of navy policy, plans, oversight and integration, had also been filling in as under secretary of the navy since the departure of former under secretary Bob Work in May.
“Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus asked for the resignation following a loss of confidence in Martinage’s abilities to effectively perform his duties,” according to a Wednesday statement from the service.  news.usni.org/2014/01/15/acting-secretary-navy-martinage-resigns?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=acting-secretary-navy-martinage-resigns

Suicide Rates for Young Vets Jump The number of male veterans under the age of 30 who commit suicide jumped by 44 percent between 2009 and 2011, the most recent year for which data was available, according to numbers released Thursday by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Roughly two young veterans a day commit suicide.
Suicide rates for female vets also increased by 11 percent between 2009 and 2011. The suicide rate among veterans remains well above that for the general population, with roughly 22 former servicemen and women committing suicide every day.
The troubling spike in suicide rates among younger vets comes as overall suicide rates for people using the Veterans Health Administration have held relatively steady in recent years. Suicide rates among older veterans decreased 16.1 percent between 1999 and 2010, while the overall population of older U.S. males ages saw a 27.3 percent increase in the rate of suicide over the same period. Read more: Suicide Rate Soars For Young Vets | TIME.com swampland.time.com/2014/01/10/report-suicide-rate-soars-among-young-vets/#ixzz2qWSYyiej

Gates’ “Doody” or How I lost all those wars The former defense secretary is naming names. Vice President Joe Biden? A comical “motormouth” who, though he is “simply impossible not to like,” presumes to know more about counterterrorism than an experienced Special Operations general. He is “relentless . . . in attacking the integrity of the senior military leadership” and, for good measure, “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” The former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is “hell on wheels, . . . a whirling dervish with ­attention-deficit disorder.” Tom Donilon, President Obama’s second national security adviser, is suspicious and distrustful of the uniformed military leadership to the point of stating in a meeting that it was “insubordinate” and “in revolt” against the White House. At one point in an Oval Office meeting, Donilon was so querulous about military operations that Gates contemplated walking out in anger. “It took every bit of my self-discipline to stay seated on the sofa.”  …I was constantly amazed and infuriated at the hypocrisy of those who most stridently attacked the Defense Department for being inefficient and wasteful but would fight tooth and nail to prevent any reduction in defense activities in their home state or district no matter how inefficient or wasteful.” The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, is depicted as a small-time hack who telephones Gates to lobby, at one point, for Defense Department funding for research on irritable bowel syndrome. With wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gates recalls, “I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.” When Gates tried over a breakfast to describe to Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the House, what he saw as the facts on the ground in Iraq, “she politely made clear she wasn’t interested” in reaching a bipartisan agreement. He describes Pelosi close to exploding at a White House meeting on an early decision of Obama’s to keep troops in Iraq until near the end of 2011: “She drummed her fingers on the table and had a white-knuckled grip on her pencil.” She looked, he says, “like she had swallowed an entire lemon.” He also recalls a hearing at which Senator Patty Murray of Washington (where Boeing is a major employer) was reading from prepared notes, and says with disdain that “no one had bothered to remove the Boeing letterhead from her talking points.”  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/books/review/duty-a-memoir-by-robert-m-gates.html?nl=books&emc=edit_bk_20140117&_r=0

US Airstrike Kills Mom and 7 Kids Another US air strike against an Afghan village has ended in tragedy last night, with reports that the attack destroyed a home, killing a woman and seven children, and injuring at least one other civilian.  http://news.antiwar.com/2014/01/15/us-air-strike-killed-woman-seven-kids-in-central-afghanistan/

Taliban Retaliates for US Murder of Mom and Kids  As country director for the International Monetary Fund, Wabel Abdallah spent years navigating the shoals of scandal in Afghanistan’s financial sector. Vadim Nazarov, a top political officer at the United Nations, dedicated himself over the past nine years to looking for a peaceful solution to the Afghan war. Dhamender Singh Phangurha, a British candidate in the coming elections for the European Parliament, was here on a consulting contract.
All three happened to be dining Friday at a popular Lebanese restaurant in downtown Kabul, where they were among 21 people killed in an attack for which the Taliban has claimed responsibility. Among the foreigners here, now roughly a few thousand, the attack underscored a shifting reality as the war winds down: life for international workers may be becoming more dangerous and circumscribed.
For years, foreigners have enjoyed relatively unrestricted activity in the capital, including access to a handful of Western-style restaurants and weekly parties brimming with music and alcohol. Though attacks were common enough, they rarely targeted Western civilians, and the danger could be ignored as the presence of the Western military coalition persevered and even expanded.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/world/asia/afghanistan-restaurant-attack.html?hp&_r=0

Mexico: Troops Attack Self Defense Groups Fighting Cartels Twelve people are reportedly dead in the southern Mexican state of Michoacan after federal troops clashed with vigilante “self-defense” groups late Monday, following government demands that the groups stand down in their fight against the Knights Templar drug cartel.
The newspaper Reforma, citing “preliminary reports from state sources,” reported that seven civilians were killed in the municipality of Mugica, and that two civilians and three soldiers were killed in the municipality of Paracuaro.
The self-defense groups had taken up positions recently in these and other communities surrounding the city of Apatzingan, considered a stronghold of the Knights Templar, their sworn enemies.  http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-mexico-violence-20140114,0,139208.story#ixzz2qjEb7ddl

Another Kid Marine Murdered by Camp Pendleton A Marine died on his first day of training at Camp Pendleton while performing a treading water test in a pool.
Pfc. Joshua Islam, 18, of Union County, N.C., died Monday, according to Col. Sean Gibson, spokesman for Camp Pendleton.
The test was scheduled to last 30 minutes. It is unknown at which point during the test Islam died. A cause of death has not yet been determined.
Col. Gibson said the “safety standards are extremely high” at Camp Pendleton and that “incredible care is taken by those in the pool.”  http://www.10news.com/news/camp-pendleton-marine-dies-during-treading-water-test

Benghazi Lies (2) Senate report: Attacks on U.S. compounds in Benghazi could have been prevented  A long-delayed Senate Intelligence Committee report released Wednesday faulted both the State Department and the intelligence community for not preventing attacks on two outposts in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, in 2012.
The bipartisan report laid out more than a dozen findings regarding the assaults on a diplomatic compound and a CIA annex in the city. It said the State Department failed to increase security at its mission despite warnings, and blamed intelligence agencies for not sharing information about the existence of the CIA outpost with the U.S. military.  The committee determined that the U.S. military command in Africa didn’t know about the CIA annex and that the Pentagon didn’t have the resources in place to defend the State Department compound in an emergency.
“The attacks were preventable, based on extensive intelligence reporting on the terrorist activity in Libya — to include prior threats and attacks against Western targets — and given the known security shortfalls at the U.S. Mission,” the panel said in a statement.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/senate-report-attack-on-us-compound-in-benghazi-could-have-been-prevented/2014/01/15/5e197224-7de9-11e3-95c6-0a7aa80874bc_story.html?hpid=z1

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

In the absence of a real understanding of the
interaction between politics and economics a war
against the whole economic system, to say nothing of
its reorganisation, is quite out of the question (Georg Lukacs)

UnderDemagogue Biden: No Bailout for Detroit but Plenty for banksters, auto bosses, Karzai, Egyptian Coup Fascists, Israel, AQ in Syria, etc….Asked by The Detroit News if the Obama administration would provide assistance to help exit Chapter 9 or if the city needed to do it, Biden said the city had to do it.
“The city will do it on its own, but there’s no reason why the federal government can’t do what we’re already doing,” Biden told reporters after wrapping up a dinner at Roma Cafe with Detroit Mayor Michael Duggan. “There are things that the city was entitled to, to begin with, that aren’t new monies but they are monies that have been reorganized and brought back in at the mayor’s disposal.”
Biden said Duggan didn’t seek federal funds during the dinner and didn’t ask for a check: “No. Matter of fact that was the one thing he didn’t ask for,” Biden said.
“We didn’t talk about money at all,” Duggan said. “We talked about strategy.”  From The Detroit News: www.detroitnews.com/article/20140115/METRO01/301150136#ixzz2qdW393rv

Detroit’s Deal So Bad, Judge Rejects it   A judge overseeing Detroit’s bankruptcy again rejected a deal Thursday to end a crippling financial agreement with major banks, dealing a blow to officials who want to put the issue behind them as they work on a broader plan to get the city out of Chapter 9 in the largest public filing in U.S. history.
Judge Steven Rhodes turned down a $169 million compromise, saying “it’s just too much money.” He had rejected a $230 million deal on the same grounds in December.  http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/detroit-bankruptcy-judge-rejects-deal-banks-21562714

Banks embracing a housing-bubble favorite: interest-only loans  one housing-bubble favorite — the interest-only loan — will remain a common offering to well-heeled home buyers, despite new rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The rules, which took effect last week, exclude interest-only loans from “qualified mortgage” status, which protects lenders from liability over defaults.
Bankers don’t seem worried about affluent clients missing payments. With high-end home prices on the rise, they have recently embraced jumbo mortgage lending, including interest-only mortgages. That trend continued this week as the banks reported earnings, with Bank of America Corp. saying 36% of its fourth-quarter mortgages were jumbo loans, up from 23% of originations in the first quarter.
In a conference call with analysts Wednesday, BofA Chief Executive Brian Moynihan said the bank is making non-qualified mortgages to the rich and holding the loans as investments rather than selling them. www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-interest-only-loans-20140118,0,2906726.story#ixzz2qp0MVrW9

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement

Greenwald on Obamagogue’s Fascist Surveillance State: Stasi 2.o The president should end – not mend – the government’s collection and retention of all law-abiding Americans’ data. When the government collects and stores every American’s phone call data, it is engaging in a textbook example of an ‘unreasonable search’ that violates the constitution.
That, in general, has long been Obama’s primary role in our political system and his premiere, defining value to the permanent power factions that run Washington. He prettifies the ugly; he drapes the banner of change over systematic status quo perpetuation; he makes Americans feel better about policies they find repellent without the need to change any of them in meaningful ways. He’s not an agent of change but the soothing branding packaging for it.  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/17/obama-nsa-reforms-bulk-surveillance-remains

Secret surveillance court judges oppose reform ideas  Judges on the federal government’s secret surveillance court have strongly rejected any proposed changes to their review process, putting unexpected pressure on the White House on Tuesday as President Barack Obama prepares a speech aimed at bolstering public confidence in how the government collects intelligence.
In a blunt letter to the House and Senate intelligence and judiciary committees, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates made it clear that the 11 judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court are united in opposition to key recommendations by a presidential task force last month aimed at increasing transparency and judicial oversight, including at least one that Obama has tentatively endorsed.  Read more here: www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/01/15/214524/secret-surveillance-court-judges.html#emlnl=Morning_Newsletter#storylink=cpy

Solidarity for Never

Michigan Education Association, having abandoned strikes, heartily defends convicted child molester the MEA has recently been involved in another controversy as they have taken the stance to seek restitution for convicted child molester Neal Erickson, who was found guilty of raping a young boy and has been sentenced to 15-30 years in prison. The strong support of many of Erickson’s teacher’s as well as the MEA has resulted in parents removing nearly 90 students in West Branch-Rose City School District from the schools in fear for their safety. The MEA continues to stand its ground and has vowed to support any convicted felon who is part of the union, arguing they have a right to receive their pension, regardless of the crimes they commit, in this case rape of a child. This position supporting convicted felons who rape chidren in schools has resulted in strong public outcry from the community  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Education_Association#Steven_B._Cook

San Diego EA Run by Pro-boss clique On Friday, January 10th, the SDEA Board of Directors held a day-long retreat to reflect on and evaluate our progress, discuss goals, set priorities, and map the direction of our union. The retreat was then followed by an SDEA Board meeting. Over the course of the day it became abundantly clear that a small group of people run our union and they would like to keep it that way.  http://thebreakfastclubsandiego.wordpress.com/2014/01/18/sdea-board-retreat-resistance-to-accountability/

The Boeing/IAM Sellout  What makes this case all the more galling is that the takebacks worth billions to Boeing came at the same time the company was extorting $8.7 billion in handouts from Washington’s governor and state legislature. This, too, was accomplished with threats of relocation and follows a long tradition of state welfare to Boeing worth tens of billions of dollars. It is one more of countless examples that underscore how the philosophy the Super Rich and their government and media flacks espouse of “free markets” and “market discipline” is a colossal sham. The Super Rich love welfare as long as it’s exclusively for themselves and they abhor markets except when applied to the 99.9 percent.
The disgraceful conduct of the IAM national office cries out for Boeing workers and the working class as a whole to confront serious questions regarding collective bargaining and the union bureaucracy. Bureaucrats like IAM president Tom Buffenbarger who earn in excess of $300,000 per year have interests that conflict with those of the workers they purport to represent and often mesh nicely with those of corporate elites. In addition, the fulcrum of the union bureaucracy’s political strategy remains, even after so many beatdowns, supporting the Democrats http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/15/why-the-boeing-deal-is-a-defeat-for-us-all/

Boeing machinists allege unfair labor practices, seek revote  Angry Boeing machinists have filed eight unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board alleging their union’s top leaders manipulated a recent contract vote, and demanding that ballots be recast.
The NLRB has launched an investigation into the charges, filed by individual members against the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said Anne Pomerantz, an attorney with the NLRB regional office in Seattle.
The charges stem from a January 3 vote that approved Boeing’s contract offer by just 600 votes, ensuring its latest jetliner, the 777X, will be built in the Seattle area.
The vote divided the union because, to gain the work, machinists had to agree to eliminate their pension after 2016.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/09/us-boeing-machinists-nlrb-idUSBREA0801J20140109

After Cutting Worker Wages by Half, and signing No Strike Pledge, UAW Wants to Raise Dues by 25% (see the comments too)   United Auto Workers President Bob King confirmed the union’s international committee will propose to increase dues by 25 percent — an extra half hour from the current two hours of pay per month     From The Detroit News: www.detroitnews.com/article/20140115/AUTO04/301150119#ixzz2qWQdgWK7

Spy versus Spy

CONFIRMED: The DEA Struck A Deal With Mexico’s Most Notorious Drug Cartel  An investigation by El Universal found that between the years 2000 and 2012, the U.S. government had an arrangement with Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed the organization to smuggle billions of dollars of drugs while Sinaloa provided information on rival cartels.Sinaloa, led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, supplies 80% of the drugs entering the Chicago area and has a presence in cities across the U.S.There have long been allegations that Guzman, considered to be “the world’s most powerful drug trafficker,” coordinates with American authorities.But the El Universal investigation is the first to publish court documents that include corroborating testimony from a DEA agent and a Justice Department official.The written statements were made to the U.S. District Court in Chicago in relation to the arrest of Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, the son of Sinaloa leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and allegedly the Sinaloa cartel’s “logistics coordinator.” Here’s what DEA agent Manuel Castanon told the Chicago court:

“On March 17, 2009, I met for approximately 30 minutes in a hotel room in Mexico City with Vincente Zambada-Niebla and two other individuals — DEA agent David Herrod and a cooperating source [Sinaloa lawyer Loya Castro] with whom I had worked since 2005. … I did all of the talking on behalf of [the] DEA.”
A few hours later, Mexican Marines arrested Zambada-Niebla (a.k.a. “El Vicentillo”) on charges of trafficking more than a billion dollars in cocaine and heroin. Castanon and three other agents then visited Zambada-Niebla in prison, where the Sinaloa officer “reiterated his desire to cooperate,” according to Castanon.
El Universal, citing court documents, reports that DEA agents met with high-level Sinaloa officials such as Castro more than 50 times since 2000.
Then-Justice Department prosecutor Patrick Hearn told the Chicago court that, according to DEA special agent Steve Fraga, Castro “provided information leading to a 23-ton cocaine seizure, other seizures related to” various drug trafficking organizations, and that “El Mayo” Zambada wanted his son to cooperate with the U.S.  Read more: www.businessinsider.com/the-us-government-and-the-sinaloa-cartel-2014-1#ixzz2qWagv5YD

US Spies Want to Kill Snowden  “I would love to put a bullet in his head,” one Pentagon official told BuzzFeed. The NSA leaker is enemy No. 1 among those inside the intelligence world.  …“In a world where I would not be restricted from killing an American, I personally would go and kill him myself,” a current NSA analyst told BuzzFeed. “A lot of people share this sentiment.”  http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/americas-spies-want-edward-snowden-dead

NSA Surveillance State Not So Good vs “Terror”  An analysis of 225 terrorism cases inside the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has concluded that the bulk collection of phone records by the National Security Agency “has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism.”
In the majority of cases, traditional law enforcement and investigative methods provided the tip or evidence to initiate the case, according to the study by the New America Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit group.  The study, to be released Monday, corroborates the findings of a White House-appointed review group, which said last month that the NSA counterterrorism program “was not essential to preventing attacks” and that much of the evidence it did turn up “could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional [court] orders.”  http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-phone-record-collection-does-little-to-prevent-terrorist-attacks-group-says/2014/01/12/8aa860aa-77dd-11e3-8963-b4b654bcc9b2_story.html?hpid=z5

They are Watching, Listening, and probably touching, tasting, smelling   The National Security Agency has implanted software in nearly 100,000 computers around the world that allows the United States to conduct surveillance on those machines and can also create a digital highway for launching cyberattacks.
While most of the software is inserted by gaining access to computer networks, the N.S.A. has increasingly made use of a secret technology that enables it to enter and alter data in computers even if they are not connected to the Internet, according to N.S.A. documents, computer experts and American officials.
The technology, which the agency has used since at least 2008, relies on a covert channel of radio waves that can be transmitted from tiny circuit boards and USB cards inserted surreptitiously into the computers. In some cases, they are sent to a briefcase-size relay station that intelligence agencies can set up miles away from the target.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/us/nsa-effort-pries-open-computers-not-connected-to-internet.html?_r=1

The WaPo was ALWAYS the voice of the CIA but this is a bit much  the Washington Post refuses to face up to a conflict of interest involving Jeff Bezos — who’s now the sole owner of the powerful newspaper at the same time he remains Amazon’s CEO and main stakeholder.
The Post is supposed to expose CIA secrets. But Amazon is under contract to keep them. Amazon has a new $600 million “cloud” computing deal with the CIA.
The situation is unprecedented. But in an email exchange early this month, Washington Post executive editor Martin Baron told me that the newspaper doesn’t need to routinely inform readers of the CIA-Amazon-Bezos ties when reporting on the CIA. He wrote that such in-story acknowledgment would be “far outside the norm of disclosures about potential conflicts of interest at media organizations.”
But there isn’t anything normal about the new situation. As I wrote to Baron, “few journalists could have anticipated ownership of the paper by a multibillionaire whose outside company would be so closely tied to the CIA.”   www.normansolomon.com/norman_solomon/2014/01/why-the-washington-posts-new-ties-to-the-cia-are-so-ominous.html#more

The Magical Mystery Tour

The Ideology of Death Lives on in Kony Kony is many things — a megalomaniac, a self-proclaimed prophet, a witch doctor, a spiritual medium, a ruthless and paranoid commander. But above all, he is a survivor.  http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140653/peter-eichstaedt/kony-20never?sp_mid=44859064&sp_rid=cmdpYnNvbkBwaXBlbGluZS5jb20S1

New Pope Schmope–UN slams Vatican for ‘efforts to cover up’ pedophile priests in sex abuse scandal  Given the “zero tolerance” policy of the Vatican, she asked, why were there “efforts to cover up and obscure these types of cases?”
Another committee member, psychologist Maria Rita Parsi, added: “If these events continue to be hidden and covered up, to what extent will children be affected?”  …”Priests are not functionaries of the Vatican,” Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s U.N. ambassador in Geneva, said Thursday. “Priests are citizens of their own states, and they fall under the jurisdiction of their own country.”
But victims’ groups and human rights organizations provided the U.N. committee with documents from the Vatican showing it discouraged bishops from reporting abuse, the AP report said. The committee also cited investigations from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Britain, Ireland and Australia.  http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/16/22324032-un-slams-vatican-for-efforts-to-cover-up-pedophile-priests-in-sex-abuse-scandal

CA – Catholic cleric, accused of abuse, still on the job  A Catholic cleric who was accused of abusing a child in the Los Angeles area now works as a chaplain at a Massachusetts mall.
He is Br. Damien Chong, who belongs to a religious order known as the Carmelites.
“We want to warn the public about this potentially dangerous cleric,” said David Clohessy of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “We believe LA Archbishop Jose Gomez, Boston Archbishop Sean O’Malley, and Chong’s direct supervisors should suspend him and aggressively seek out others he may have hurt.”  http://www.snapnetwork.org/ca_catholic_cleric_accused_of_abuse_still_on_the_job

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

So Easy to Ripoff the Pentagon!  A San Diego-based company providing information technology services to the Department of Defense admitted bilking the government of more than $3.6 million, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-company-bilking-pentagon-20140115,0,3118247.story#ixzz2qcO0vmd5

Kalashnikovs for Sale!  The Kalashnikov Group has signed an exclusive contract with the Russian Weapon Company (RWC) to supply up to 200,000 guns to North America annually. It should boost sales in the world’s biggest civil weapons markets, while sales in Russia are shrinking.
According to the five-year agreement, the RWC Group which was appointed Kalashnikov’s exclusive US importer back in 2012, will be selling between 80,000 and 200,000 Russian hunting carbines, sporting rifles and shotguns under the Izhmash and Baikal brands, according to Kalashnikov’s Elena Filatova.  rt.com/business/kalashnikov-group-american-market-764/

So Long

Gary Grimshaw, Famed Rock Poster Artist, Is Dead At 67  –Grimshaw’s vivid fliers and posters for the legendary Grande Ballroom in the late 1960s featured artists such as the MC5, Cream, the Yardbirds and Paul Butterfield. His style went beyond psychedelic, and is instantly recognizable to rock poster fans, and highly collectible.  http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/7921/gary_grimshaw_famed_rock_poster_artist_is_dead_at_67?utm_source=Deadline+Detroit+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e0a46df8b3-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c4d2ad8703-e0a46df8b3-73197837#.UtYi80vh54J