Why Are Things As They Are?

But something humane must be preparing for birth, and a grand strategy must exist for earth and life.

We Say Fight Back!

With Paulo Freire’s Farcical Education System in Brazil Collapsing, Teachers Vote to Extend Strike into 3rd Month A teachers union in Sao Paulo voted Friday to continue a strike into its third month, reinforcing demands on Brazil’s state governments that a recession cost-cutting drive not fall on educators.
lStriking teachers filled the city’s main Paulista Avenue after the vote. Members of the Official Teaching Professors Union of Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest state, insisted that state government officials negotiate with them as they seek higher salaries and relief from overcrowding.
Educators recently have canceled classes or clashed with police in several states. In Sao Paulo, the strike started in March, the union said.

“We were promised that we would be paid as much as other public employees, and it just hasn’t happened,” Val Teresa Maria Alves, an elementary school teacher, said as union representatives boomed their commitment to the strike before the vote Friday. “And overcrowding has become unbearable. They have to invest in us, and the children.” After nearly a decade of solid economic growth, Brazil is suffering from the effects of a recession, and as the government pushes to balance its budget, living standards are being rolled back for the first time in a generation. Public teachers have staged strikes of some form in more than a third of Brazil’s states. In the southern state of Parana last month, more than 200 were injured as police cracked down on a teachers’ protest with tear gas and rubber bullets.  www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-ff-brazil-teachers-strike-20150515-story.html

The Little Red Schoolhouse

above, fascist emperor Hirohito and kiddies

US Education Agenda (a class and empire’s war agenda) looks like Imperial Japan’s What is not as widely known is that, after the end of World War II, the United States helped Japan create a new K-12 education system. The Report of the United States Education Mission to Japan, published by the U.S. State Department in 1946, explicates the flaws of Imperial Japan’s system of education and outlines a detailed plan for the future “based on the recognition of the worth and dignity of the individual.”

In the foreword to the book, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the commander of allied forces in the Pacific and then directing the reconstruction of Japan, states that the report is “a document of ideals high in the democratic tradition.” In particular, its American authors excoriate the old Japanese regime for its mistaken beliefs about education. The system the Japanese built, they write, was conceptually flawed:

• It presumed “a fixed quantum of knowledge to be absorbed, and tended to disregard differences of ability and interest among students.”

• It established that “the measure of efficiency was the degree to which standardization and uniformity was secured.”

• And it “lessened the opportunities for teachers to exercise their professional freedom.”

What is most surprising about the 1946 Mission Report is that the educational practices of Imperial Japan, which the report’s American authors characterized as “malicious,” are strikingly similar to recent reforms enacted in the United States.  www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/05/20/our-k-12-policies-resemble-those-of-imperial.html

How Easy it is for reactionaries to join the counterfeit left on Common Core New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may have won points with conservatives when he announced Thursday he was pulling his state out of the federal Common Core education standards, but his concerns about the program don’t appear consistent with his two-term record on the program, according to an examination of his past statements and actions.

“It’s now been five years since Common Core was adopted. And the truth is that it’s simply not working,” Christie, a likely Republican presidential candidate, said during a speech Thursday at Burlington County College in Pemberton, N.J.

But Christie praised the program for years after voluntarily adopting it in 2010. “We’re doing Common Core in New Jersey and we’re going to continue. And this is one of those areas where I’ve agreed more with the president than not,” he told a Las Vegas school summit in August 2013.

During that speech, he derided members of Congress who were distancing themselves from Common Core, which was becoming increasingly unpopular with conservative activists, saying they were bowing to political pressure.  abcnews.go.com/Politics/gov-chris-christie-common-core/story?id=31399752

Former NEA Prezzie was paid $686,949 for his last year in office. Current Prezzie, Eskelsen, signed the check. Above, he announces “The Most Important event in the history of the labor movement–which never happened.

NEA Steps up to Lead Anti-testing Movement and marches it right into the ballot box–next step– Swallow Hillbillary. With congressional efforts underway to reauthorize No Child Left Behind, a burgeoning movement of educators, school administrators, parents and students has blossomed in the fight against high-stakes standardized testing. They have taken action across the country as part of NEA’s Time to Learn, Time to Teach campaign. The message has been heard loud and clear as school trustees, state and local policymakers are finally deciding to let students learn and let teachers teach.

In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott signed legislation in April to eliminate at least one exam and delay the release of school grades until other exams are deemed valid. The Florida Education Association (FEA) and United Teachers of Dade (UTD) had rallied members, lobbied legislators, and worked with parent groups to limit the use of standardized tests.

“It’s time for a new accountability system,” says UTD President Federick Ingram. “One that reduces high stakes testing and uses multiple measures to gauge student progress.”  neatoday.org/2015/05/26/educators-and-parents-demand-less-testing-and-lawmakers-listen/

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_ls-aFSpCY

CFR: The risk of conflict in the South China Sea is significant. China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines have competing territorial and jurisdictional claims, particularly over rights to exploit the region’s possibly extensive reserves of oil and gas. Freedom of navigation in the region is also a contentious issue, especially between the United States and China over the right of U.S. military vessels to operate in China’s two-hundred-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ). These tensions are shaping—and being shaped by—rising apprehensions about the growth of China’s military power and its regional intentions. China has embarked on a substantial modernization of its maritime paramilitary forces as well as naval capabilities to enforce its sovereignty and jurisdiction claims by force if necessary. At the same time, it is developing capabilities that would put U.S. forces in the region at risk in a conflict, thus potentially denying access to the U.S. Navy in the western Pacific. www.cfr.org/world/armed-clash-south-china-sea/p27883

Empire on the Hunt: Afghanistan’s Resources of Minerals and Natural Gas The legal argument used by Washington and NATO to invade and occupy Afghanistan under “the doctrine of collective security” was that the September 11 2001 attacks constituted an undeclared “armed attack” “from abroad” by an unnamed foreign power, namely Afghanistan.

Under the proposed Afghan-US security pact,  which is an integral part of Obama’s Asian pivot, Washington and its NATO partners are preparing to ensure a permanent military presence in Afghanistan, with military facilities located in proximity of China’s Western frontier.  The pact would allow the US to maintain their nine permanent military bases, strategically located on the borders of  China, Pakistan and Iran as well as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

In addition to its vast mineral and gas reserves, Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the World’s supply of opium which is used to produce grade 4 heroin.

US military bases in Afghanistan are also intent upon protecting the multibillion narcotics trade.  Narcotics, at present, constitutes the centerpiece of Afghanistan’s export economy.  www.globalresearch.ca/the-war-is-worth-waging-afghanistan-s-vast-reserves-of-minerals-and-natural-gas/19769

www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5zAPV6c_Dw

That $2 Trillion Iraq Army that won’t fight Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Iraqi forces “showed no will to fight” as the Islamic State militant group captured the city of Ramadi, and he rejected calls by Republican lawmakers to commit ground troops to the conflict.

“What apparently happened was that the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight,” Carter said in a CNN interview that aired Sunday. “They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force, and yet they failed to fight. They withdrew from the site, and that says to me, and I think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL and defend themselves.”  www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/05/24/defense-secretary-carter-iraqs-forces-showed-no-will-to-fight-islamic-state/?hpid=z1

Brits say, Iraqi army lacks the moral cohesion to fight (send the Shiites!)

The Iraqi army is struggling to deal with attacks from Islamic State fighters, despite heavily outnumbering them, because it lacks “moral cohesion” and effective leadership, according to the most senior British officer to be involved in postwar planning in Iraq.

Maj Gen Tim Cross echoed comments by the US defence secretary that successive gains by Isis militants in the region werebecause the Iraqi army did not have the “will to fight”.

Speaking to the BBC’s Today programme, Cross said: “It’s interesting that the secretary used that [will to fight] expression because we use that expression in the British army and our argument is that it’s about a moral cohesion in your army.

“It’s about the motivation to achieve what it is you’re setting out to achieve and it’s about effective leadership … and it’s this will to fight that I think is fundamentally at the heart of the issue with the Iraqi military.

“There’s no cohesion, there’s no strong leadership,” he said. “They’re really struggling and I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.”

Iraqi forces outnumbered their opposition in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, last weekend but withdrew, leaving behind large numbers of US-supplied vehicles, including several tanks. The fall of the city, which lies to the west of Baghdad, to Isis came hours after Iraq’s prime minister called for the area’s defences to be reinforced.  www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/25/iraqi-army-lacks-moral-cohesion-to-fight-isis-says-uk-military-chief

They’re Back! The Taliban are Coming! Facing a fierce Taliban offensive across a corridor of northern Afghanistan, the government in Kabul is turning to a strategy fraught with risk: forming local militias and beseeching old warlords for military assistance, according to Afghan and Western officials.

The effort is expected to eventually mobilize several thousand Afghans from the north to fight against the Taliban in areas where the Afghan military and police forces are losing ground or have had little presence. The action is being seen as directly undermining assurances by officials that the security forces were holding their own against the Taliban.

Further, the plan to turn to irregular forces is stoking anxieties of factional rivalries and civil strife in a nation still haunted by a civil war in the 1990s in which feuding militia commanders tore the country apart. Some of the commanders involved in that bloodletting a generation ago now hold senior government positions and are encouraging the current effort to mobilize and rearm militias.

“We have experienced this failed experiment of militia-making before,” said Fawzia Koofi, a member of Parliament from Badakhshan, one of the provinces where the government is planning to form the militias. “This will spread the war from house to house, starting rivalries as everyone begins arming their own groups.”

The establishment of the Afghan military and police forces, which are said by officials to number more than 320,000 members as of late last year, has been held up as one of the signal accomplishments of the United States-led presence here. By many accounts, the forces have continued to fight effectively in a number of areas across the country, even with far less of the air support and logistical assistance that the United States had been providing in past years.

But the Afghans are taking casualties at an alarming rate. In the first four months of 2015, more than 1,800 soldiers and police officers were killed in action, and another 3,400 were wounded, according to a Western military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss figures not being officially released by the Afghan government. Those casualties are more than 65 percent higher than the amount during the same period last year, the official said.

Now, the militia plan suggests diminished confidence in the Afghan Army and police forces — important national institutions in a country with few of them. Indeed, the stated intent in creating nationalized forces was to replace the patchwork of militias around the country with a unified, better-trained body that was more accountable to the government.  www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/world/asia/as-taliban-advance-afghanistan-reluctantly-recruits-militias.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nPJgeg6hpA

Take time to watch Sir no Sir, if you have not

May Counterpunch Article the Historians “Against” the War (for capital and empire) were afraid to circulate Following the victory of the Vietnamese people over the U.S. empire and its allies on April 29/30, 1975, elites in the U.S. those who operate within the armed weapon and executive committee of the ruling class that is government, moved quickly to (1) recapture the economy, wrecked by years of warfare; (2) exercise authority over the schools, often up in flames of fire and critique; (3) dominate the military, riddled with desertions, refusals, and shot-up, fragged, officers; (4) retake the culture–to eradicate the Vietnam Syndrome, the memory of the loss as well as the why, who, when, where, and what of the war: especially the Why? The “How’s” are gone too.

In the past month, the Pentagon, PBS, and the for-profit press took a three pronged approach to the Vietnam Wars: (1) praise the returned troops and promote the notion of a home-country stab in the back, (2) highlight the evacuees and the US heroes of the April ‘75 evacuations, and (3) focus on the post-war babylift and the Vietnamese babies now grown up.

In my searches, the journalists’ “W’s” are missing or frothed over. More on that later. Let’s turn to the high-water mark of liberal critique.

Tom Hayden, in his, “The Forgotten Power of the Vietnam Protests,” (Counterpunch, May 3, 2015) does a fine job recreating many of the details of the wars on Vietnam–from the point of view of a liberal Democrat who spent years in the California legislature and who must have grown rich as well from his marriage to Jane Fonda, once anti-war prima donna, later Ted Turner’s wife and religious-“feminist” later still.

Hayden’s standpoint does not serve his broader analysis well. Perhaps that explains why the words “capitalism,” and “imperialism,” never appear in his piece. Nor does Marx, so powerfully influential to the Vietnamese movement as well as the world’s anti-war movements.

Class and empire’s wars define our times, as they did then. richgibson.com/warsonvietnam.htm

That $2 Trillion Iraqi Army at Ramadi won’t include US trained troops The 7,000 Iraqi army troops who have recently completed American-led training programs are not involved in the massive counteroffensive that Iraq launched this week against Islamic State militants in Anbar province, U.S. and coalition officials said.

Instead, the Iraqi campaign will involve several thousand fighters from the Iraqi army as well as some Shiite militias and Sunni tribal forces now under command and control of the Iraqi government in Baghdad. The Iraqis launched the new campaign just days after abandoning Ramadi in a humiliating defeat May 17.

A spokesman for the American-led coalition declined to identify the deployment locations of the Iraqi troops who have received training from the U.S. coalition, citing operational security concerns. www.militarytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2015/05/28/no-us-trained-troops-in-iraqs-new-fight-for-ramadi/28083677/

How About A Nice War with China over the US’ Ownership of the South China Sea? China has accused the US of making “absurd remarks” after the US defence secretary, Ash Carter, warned that Beijing’s island-building in the South China Sea was undermining security in the Asia Pacific.

Carter called for a diplomatic push to solve the territorial dispute that is driving China’s effort, while Japan’s government also warned such projects risk plunging the region into disorder.

But China vigorously defended the construction and criticised the US for interfering. Hua Chunying, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, said the US was “making absurd remarks about China’s long-established sovereignty and rights, stirring up trouble and slinging accusations regarding China’s appropriate and rational construction activities on its islands. China resolutely opposes this”.

David Shear, the assistant US defence secretary for Asian issues, told reporters: “There aren’t any silver bullets to resolving this. It’s going to take time, and it’s going to take some determined diplomacy by us and with our partners.”

Carter’s comments came as he spoke to top defence officials from across the Asia Pacific on Saturday. He acknowledged that several countries had created outposts in the region’s disputed islands, but he said the scope of China’s activity created uncertainty about its future plans.

“China has reclaimed over 2,000 acres, more than all other claimants combined … and China did so in only the last 18 months,” Carter told the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in remarks prepared for delivery. “It is unclear how much farther China will go.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/30/us-defense-chief-ash-carter-says-chinas-island-building-erodes-security

USA: Biggest Holder of WMD’s in the world–oopsie on our anthrax The Pentagon said Friday that the Army’s mistaken shipments of live anthrax to research laboratories were more widespread than it initially reported, prompting the Defense Department’s second-ranking official to order a thorough review.

In a statement issued Friday evening, the department said 24 laboratories in 11 states and two foreign countries — South Korea and Australia — are believed to have received suspect anthrax samples.

The broadening scope of the problem suggests more extensive flaws in procedures used by the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah to ensure that anthrax samples were made fully inert before shipping them to labs. Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work on Friday ordered a comprehensive review of laboratory procedures associated with inactivating anthrax.

Dugway, in a desolate stretch of the Utah desert, has been testing chemical weapons since it opened in 1942.  www.militarytimes.com/story/military/2015/05/30/pentagon-anthrax-shipments-broader-than-first-thought/28208319/

Wanted: Navy Ship Aimers The incident occurred Wednesday when two tugboats were maneuvering the USNS Mercy hospital ship out of Pearl Harbor.

The Navy said waves generated by the Mercy’s propeller pushed the dock about 10 feet toward the memorial. The Navy says the Mercy may have also hit the dock.

An attachment point between the floating dock and its anchors came loose in the incident. Anchors will need to be reset and chains retightened. The dock’s ramp and handrails were also mangled.

Tours on the memorial have been suspended until the dock is repaired. The Navy aims to fix the dock by Wednesday so tours may resume on Thursday.

The Arizona memorial usually receives up to 4,350 visitors a day who take short boat rides from shore. The Navy and National Park Service are taking visitors by boat to “Battleship Row” to see the memorial from afar while dock repairs continue.

The memorial sits atop the rusting hull of the battleship Arizona, which sank in the 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. It honors the 1,177 sailors and Marines killed in the attack. More than 900 servicemen are entombed in the ship.  www.navytimes.com/story/military/2015/05/30/navy-coast-guard-investigate-arizona-memorial-dock-mishap/28209725/

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Jail the soccer cheats and bail out the banksters!

America is a ‘Leader’ in Child PovertyThe U.S. has one of the highest relative child poverty rates in the developed world. As UNICEF reports, “[Children’s] material well-being is highest in the Netherlands and in the four Nordic countries and lowest in Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and the United States.”

Over half of public school students are poor enough to qualify for lunch subsidies, and almost half of black children under the age of six are living in poverty.

$5 a Day for Food, But Congress Thought it was Too Much.

Nearly half of all food stamp recipients are children, and they averaged about $5 a day for their meals before the 2014 farm bill cut $8.6 billion (over the next ten years) from the food stamp program.

In 2007 about 12 of every 100 kids were on food stamps. Today it’s 20 of every 100.

For Every 2 Homeless Children in 2006, There Are Now 3   www.rawstory.com/2015/04/the-numbers-are-staggering-us-is-world-leader-in-child-poverty/#.VWSt-zfxOT4.facebook

The High Costs of Obamagogue’s Fake “Care” act–caring for insurers, big pharma and not the people

Last year we, and many others, drew attention to the chaotic and costly roll out of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) exchanges. The chaos is mostly over (unless King prevails over Burwell), but the costs will linger on. The roughly $6 billion in exchange start-up costs pale in comparison to the ongoing insurance overhead that the ACA has added to our health care system — more than a quarter of a trillion dollars through 2022.

Bloated Administrative Costs

We calculated these new overhead costs from the official National Health Expenditure Projections for 2012-2022 released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)’ Office of the Actuary in July 2014. The projections included separate tables projecting costs with, and without, the effects of the ACA, allowing calculation of the incremental insurance overhead costs directly attributable to the reform.  healthaffairs.org/blog/2015/05/27/the-post-launch-problem-the-affordable-care-acts-persistently-high-administrative-costs/

On the heels of Jamie Dimon’s $20 million raise, JPMorgan to layoff 5000 J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is cutting more than 5,000 jobs in an effort to trim costs and become more efficient.

The cuts already have begun, according to people familiar with the decision, and are part of a broader industry move toward Internet and mobile banking. The bank will cut at least 2% of its current workforce in the next year.

The moves come as the nation’s largest bank overhauls its 5,570 branches to rely more on technology and less on human tellers. Chairman and Chief Executive James Dimon said Wednesday that the average J.P. Morgan Chase branch would lose one employee over the next two years, mostly through attrition.

The layoffs are broader, however, affecting all four of the bank’s major business units: corporate and investment banking, consumer and community banking, asset management and commercial banking. Some employees in the “controls” part of the bank, such as those in legal or compliance, also will be affected as the bank trims departments that have grown markedly over the past few years, people familiar with the matter said. www.wsj.com/articles/j-p-morgan-expected-to-lay-off-more-than-5-000-by-next-year-1432834029

Dimon’s Raise www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2014/05/20/shareholders-approve-jamie-dimons-74-percent-raise/

Dennis Hastert, grown corpulent at the public trough, indicted Federal prosecutors indicted former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert Thursday on charges he allegedly hid payments he made to an apparent blackmailer in order to compensate for and conceal “prior misconduct.”

The 73-year-old Illinois Republican is accused of structuring the withdrawal of $925,000 in cash in order to evade the requirement that banks report cash transactions over $10,000. He is also accused of lying to the FBI about the withdrawals.

Hastert was indicted on two counts, both carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Hastert, who served as speaker of the House for eight years until his retirement in 2007, is alleged to have met with a person only identified as “Individual A” in 2010. The indictment alleges that during one of those meetings, they discussed alleged prior misconduct that had been committed years earlier.

The indictment says that Hastert then agreed to provide $3.5 million “in order to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against Individual A.”  www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/29/feds-indict-former-speaker-house-dennis-hastert-on-bank-related-charges/

How Hastert (high school wrestling coach) got his millions When he left office in 2007, he was worth between $4 million and $17 million, according to financial disclosure filings. Although most of his wealth was tied to real estate holdings, he had a steady flow of cash from different sources as well.

In addition to establishing his own consultancy, Hastert & Associates, Hastert began lobbying on behalf of various major clients for Washington-based lobbying firm Dickstein Shapiro in 2009.

His biggest client – tobacco giant Lorillard – alone paid Dickstein Shapiro a total of nearly $8 million from 2011 until the third quarter of 2014, when it terminated its contract. The company didn’t disclose how much Hastert earned from the arrangement.

Hastert’s other major clients were Peabody Energy, Covanta Energy Corp., FirstLine Transportation Security, Inc. and The ServiceMaster Company. He also signed Fuels America earlier this year.

On Thursday, Hastert’s bio was removed from the Dickstein Shapiro website, and a spokesman for the firm said Hastert had resigned.

The former speaker supplemented his lobbying income with a position on the board of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Hastert, who has been a director since 2008, earned more than $205,000 in total compensation from the CME in 2014 alone, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Hastert has resigned from that position as well.

In addition to his post-Congress jobs as a lobbyist and board director, Hastert received state and federal pensions.

In his last personal financial disclosure report, which was filed in 2008, he reported receiving $34,000 in pension from from the State of Illinois (the report doesn’t specify if it’s for his time as a state legislator or public school employee or both). And in 2012, watchdog group National Taxpayers Union estimated Hastert was receiving around $66,000 in federal pension per year.: www.politico.com/story/2015/05/dennis-hastert-how-he-made-income-118414.html#ixzz3bewMZJaJ

Daughter of Cuckoldette Clinton buys $10.5 million apartment across the street from her newlywed’s “starter pad” (4 million) Chelsea Clinton, 33, and husband Marc Mezvinsky, 35, are about to swap their $4 million pad for a huge new $10.5 million one nearby.

The former first daughter and Mr Mezvinksy – who married in 2010 – are believed to have spotted the 5,000 sq ft property while out walking in the area.

According to a Douglas Ellisman listing, the couple’s ‘starter pad’ has a powder room, an open chef’s kitchen with beautiful bluestone countertops, oak floors, Italian marble bathrooms, huge windows and scores of other luxury finishes.

Assuming a 4 per cent interest rate and 20 per cent downpayment, Ms Clinton and Mr Mezvinsky’s already-hefty mortgage payments total around $18,460 a month.
But they’re set to skyrocket.

According to StreetEasy.com, if the pair put down a $2.1 million – or 20 per cent – deposit on their new $10.5 million home, their monthly mortgage bill will be in the region of $52,000 and closer to $60,000 if the couple handed over a 10 per cent downpayment instead. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2293195/Chelsea-Clinton-buys-new-10-5-million-apartment-street-husbands-4-million-starter-pad-bought-just-married.html#ixzz3bJaF4UVh

We Are ‘One Nation’, Says Woman On Gold Throne Wearing Diamond-Encrusted Crown As She Announces Further Austerity Measures  A woman has unveiled the government’s ‘one nation’ policies while sitting on a gold throne and wearing a crown encrusted with over 2,800 diamonds.

The woman – who is worth £340 million – announced measures which include freezing benefits, clamping down on strike action, seizing migrants’ wages and removing automatic housing support for young people.

“My government will adopt a one-nation approach,” she said. “And one is totally behind any approach that protects one.”

She then left Parliament and returned to her £1 billion house. Her crown left shortly afterwards in its own horse-drawn carriage.  www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/05/27/queens-speech-austerity_n_7451008.html?1432738161

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement

A federal appeals court on Friday decided not to block the release of controversial videotapes of a prisoner being force fed at Guantánamo Bay, as the U.S. government had requested. But it’s still not clear when the public might actually see the videos.

Sixteen media organizations, including The Intercept’s publisher First Look Media, are seeking footage of Abu Wa’el Dhiab, who was repeatedly restrained and force fed while on hunger strike.

Dhiab, a 43-year-old Syrian who was sent to Guantánamo in 2002, protested his treatment in the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., and the footage was introduced as evidence under seal. Lawyers for Dhiab, who have seen the videos, have called them “extremely disturbing.” Dhiab was released to Uruguay in December, but the fight over the videos continues.

The government has argued that releasing the videos would harm national security by, among other things, inflaming “Muslim sensitivities overseas.” Last October, District Judge Gladys Kessler rejected their arguments and ordered the videos made public, with redactions to protect the identity of Guantánamo guards. The government then appealed.

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals in the Washington, D.C., called the government’s appeal “premature,” and declined to weigh in on the merits

Theodore (Making of the President) White on the Electoral World … it is all fraudulent, all of it, everywhere, up and down, East and West. The movies, radio and state and books and TV — all of them are fraudulent; and the foundations and universities and scholars, they are all fraudulent too; and the executives and the financiers … and the Commissars and the Krushchevs and the Mao Tze-tungs, they are fraudulent equally; it is all a great game; and there are two dangers in this great game: first, the fraudulent people come to believe their own lies, they come to have faith in their fraud; and second, underneath it all, because people are fundamentally good, they come to realize that we live in lies and the people get angrier and angrier and they may explode.

The scenery of politics is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. Yet I must report all this as serious. This is the strain on me. That I must be serious, and I must exhaust myself trying to find out what is true and what is fraud and yet, even after I know, I must take them both seriously and write of them both as if I did not know the true distinctions between them.  firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/28/legendary-journalist-private-fraudulent-everywhere/

Above, Nazi War Criminal Von Braun feited by Time

The American government paid $20.2 million in Social Security benefits to more than 130 United States residents linked to Nazi atrocities over the course of more than a half-century, with some of the payments made as recently as this year, according to a federal investigation.

The millions of dollars paid out, a total far higher than officials had previously believed, indicate the ease with which thousands of former Nazis managed to settle into new lives in the United States with little scrutiny after the end of World War II.

A report due to be released this week by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general concludes that virtually all of the payments were proper under policies in place at the time, and that federal officials did not have the legal authority to prohibit benefits until a Nazi suspect was deported, according to officials briefed on the report. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the report has not yet been made public.

In the 1960s and 1970s, as dozens of aging former Nazis in the United States were beginning to collect Social Security benefits, there was little investigation by federal authorities into possible links of immigrants to atrocities committed in wartime Germany.

It was not until the early 1980s, under pressure from Congress, that the Justice Department began investigating hundreds of suspects in the United States and started deportation proceedings against former Nazi officers, concentration camp guards, execution-squad leaders and others.

Solidarity for Never

As the clock ticks to WWIII, the “left” rebuilds the 2nd International

Unionites Oppose Their Own Minimum Wage Hike Union leaders are saying that the $15 minimum wage is a bad idea. Not for everyone, of course; for most businesses and workers, they think it’s splendid. But for union operations, they need an exemption. Rusty Hicks, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said businesses that have collective bargaining agreements with employees should be able to negotiate a wage below the “minimum.”

This has been greeted with jeers from both left and right, though Matt Yglesias does mount a defense: in many countries, collective bargaining is a pretty good substitute for a minimum wage. Point taken, but it’s hard to see how that saves the unions from the charge of rank hypocrisy. That same Rusty Hicks has a pretty clear record:

“Raising the minimum wage in LA County would help lift county workers, contractors and workers in unincorporated areas out of poverty and stimulate the economy.” — LA County Raise the Wage

“Among his highest priorities, Hicks said, will be to push forward a citywide minimum wage in Los Angeles, preferably of $15 an hour. … The statewide minimum wage stands at $9, but L.A. workers need $15 because of the high costs of housing and other necessities, Hicks said.”  www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-28/now-union-opposes-the-minimum-wage

Spy versus Spy

The Magical Mystery Tour

Priest busted, again, for Sex Abuse A former priest, teacher and wrestling coach at a Michigan Catholic school has been charged in connection with reported sexual assaults of several boys more than three decades ago.

State Attorney General Bill Schuette says 75-year-old James Rapp was arraigned Thursday in Jackson District Court on 13 counts of criminal sexual conduct.

Schuette says the investigation started in 2013 when two men came forward to report alleged past abuse.

Rapp was assigned to Jackson Lumen Christi High School at the time. He was told to leave in 1987 following allegations a student was molested. Rapp was sentenced to prison in 1999 for sexually abusing teenage boys in Oklahoma. He was jailed Thursday pending a June 26 preliminary examination conference.  www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/05/28/priest-sexual-abuse-boys/28078159/

A Tennessee pastor who was recently admonished by police for having sex with another man in a church van parked in a parking lot, was arrested this week for embezzling an estimated $60,000 from his church’s coffers.

Boyd Watson Holder Jr. 44, was taken into custody after church officials reported that between $70,000 and $100,000 had been discovered missing from the Victory Apostolic Church bank account in Kingsport, reports the TimesNews.  ..According to witnesses who appeared before the grand jury, money appears to have been spent on dating sites Online Buddies and Farmers Only, as well as for auto repairs.www.rawstory.com/2015/05/pastor-caught-having-gay-sex-in-van-spent-stolen-church-money-on-farmer-dating-website-police/

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

more here thestir.cafemom.com/tweens_teens/184952/22_kids_who_got_detention/129685/man_of_steel/1

So Long