Rouge Forum Dispatch: Your wildcat could be next! Plan!
We Say Fight Back!
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Teachers’ Strikes Spread to Other States?
The fury among low-paid teachers that triggered a wildcat teachers’ strike in West Virginia—the longest in its history—may be spreading.
Teachers across the country may soon build on the state’s example. The Oklahoma teachers’ union said it will shut down schools within months if its demands aren’t met, and some teachers said they may strike even if a deal is reached.
“The end goal is funding for public education and our core services, and if it takes us closing down schools to do that, then we are prepared and willing to do so,” said Alicia Priest, president of the Oklahoma Education Association. On Thursday, the OEA will announce a timetable that could culminate in a school shutdown if lawmakers don’t pass teacher raises, something the legislature hasn’t done in a decade. While some teachers may have been on the fence, said Priest, the two-week West Virginia strike “has given them an emboldened sense of purpose and a sense of power.”
That may not be enough for the rank and file. Some Oklahoma teachers are planning a wildcat strike of their own. Leaders from a dozen schools met last week to discuss such an unsanctioned walkout, and they plan to reconvene Wednesday to vote on a strike date. If the union’s plans aren’t to their liking, they may walk out, said Larry Cagle, who teaches advanced placement courses and is one of the organizers behind the independent effort. “We’re going to force this on the union and on the superintendent,” he said. “Teachers are ready—they are chomping at the bit.”
Teachers have complained of low pay and poor treatment by politicians for years, breeding a high level of distrust when it comes to any new promises. In West Virginia, teachers expressed skepticism on Tuesday right up until the legislature voted to approve a pay hike bill and the governor signed it.
Nevertheless, American teachers are benefiting from a tailwind these days thanks to a tightening private-sector labor market, which brings stronger state revenue as well as alternative job opportunities, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-06/could-west-virginia-s-wildcat-teachers-strike-spread
Opinion: I am a coal miner’s daughter and a West Virginia teacher. Here’s why I’m on strike.
Even with a master’s degree plus 45 credits and 15 years of teaching experience, I bring home an estimated $2,200 a month. P.E.I.A, if thawed, will subtract an estimated $300 additional from this, leaving me with $1,900 a month.
I was born, raised, and schooled in Pennsylvania. Twenty years ago, I began my undergraduate degree at Penn State University. My mother, a West Virginia teacher at the time, strongly discouraged me from pursuing the teaching profession because of the financial reality. Graduate school arrived, and teaching was still in my heart. I was fully prepared with the commitment of living a modest life.
I did it simply because kids need someone to care. My God, every educator cares. As a matter of fact, if we didn’t care, we couldn’t do our jobs. These kids are with us all day, all night and all weekend. You don’t see the eyes of our students when they desperately need an adult who cares about them. It’s a gut check. It is humbling. It is why we accept the risks to be a teacher, economically, emotionally and even legally in today’s ugly world.
I am a coal miner’s daughter, like many of us shouting. We have been exposed to the requirements of respect, and our government has seriously underestimated our voices. www.pbs.org/newshour/education/opinion-i-am-a-coal-miners-daughter-and-a-west-virginia-teacher-heres-why-im-on-strike
Sellout in West Virginia: The NEA/AFT bosses arrived and betrayed the educators–rammed through a Quisling deal with no back-to-work vote
(The strike had two primary goals, a raise for ALL state workers and health care coverage. A raise is promised. There is nothing but a “task force to study” PEIA, health care. And the budget to be cut to fund this? MEDICAID.
…“We have reached a deal,” (billionaire coal boss governor)Justice said on Twitter. “I stood rock solid on the 5 percent teacher pay raise and delivered. Not only this, but my staff and I made additional cuts which will give all state employees 5 percent as well. All the focus should have always been on fairness and getting the kids back in school.”
The legislation (House Bill 4145) that Justice signed Tuesday includes only the teachers, school service workers and West Virginia State Police. Other state employees are planned to receive raises via the budget bill.
H.B. 4145 will replace a previous, lower pay raise bill that Justice already signed into law.
Although Justice broke the news, a cadre of legislative leaders erupted in laughter when asked whether Justice was present for the 1 a.m. Tuesday negotiation that led to the compromise. They said his chief of staff, Mike Hall, was present, but not the governor himself, which Justice later confirmed.
At the conference committee hearing, Senate Finance Chairman Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, said the deal comes with a caveat — the Senate only agreed to fund the raises via “very deep” cuts to the budget, including a $20 million slash to general services and Medicaid. www.wvgazettemail.com/news/legislative_session/we-have-reached-a-deal-wv-schools-reopening-after-justice/article_7939c12d-7b0c-5929-972b-6b0864c60da8.html
Dale Lee (second from left), Christine Campbell (third from left) and school support staff union president Joe White smile and applaud as governor Justice signs bill (WSW web site). Justice is a billionaire. He is a Republican switched to Democrat (to win the Governor’s office) switched to Republican to help Trump. Campaigning, Justice was endorsed by the United Mine Workers AND WVEA.
BUT
Children got the best kind of education during the West Virginia educators’ strike: it’s class war. Schools closed by civil strife, strikes and wildcats, are superior to open capitalist schools dedicated to circumscribed lies and tests about lies.
Yes, the wildcat was betrayed. Yes, the educators either fell for the betrayal, were worn out, or simply pulled to teaching kids in a classroom again.
However, they educated thousands of people.
They wildcatted, tossed union bosses aside, and proved the only illegal strike is a strike that fails.
They had no faith in the state, government–showing it’s an executive committee of the rich– until the end when they were tricked into trusting a “task force” for health care.
They spread the strike through rank and file organizing committees in every county.
Their exemplary fightback spread all over the world. It’s the best thing that’s happened in whatever there is in the “labor movement” in twenty and more years.
They buried the insipid term: Intersectionality. Of course–race, sex/gender, nation, culture were all involved–under the umbrella of Class War.
They had guts!
Now, if we could only add anti-war to that list…
‘Schools will stay closed until we get what we are asking for,’ Oklahoma teachers union president says
Leaders of the Oklahoma Education Association on Thursday unveiled the specifics of their demand for $10,000 teacher pay raises and said new legislative talk of $2,000 raises would not stop public school teachers from walking out en masse on April 2.
The state’s teachers union proposal calls for a $6,000 teacher raise in year 1 and $2,000 each in years 2 and 3, for a total, three-year cost of $1.46 billion.
They also want a raise for school support workers that would cost $292.5 million by the end of those same three fiscal years.
“We cannot — no, we will not allow our students to go without any longer,” OEA President Alicia Priest said. “If the Legislature doesn’t pass $6,000 teacher pay raises and necessary revenue to pay for them, … OEA is calling on every Oklahoma teacher to leave their classroom and come to the Capitol.” www.tulsaworld.com/news/education/watch-live-teachers-union-announces-its-demands-of-oklahoma-legislature/article_f7adead4-fc79-5298-953b-6a189e30bfd8.html
Update: W. Va. Teachers Get Raise; Arizona Educators Gear Up for Similar Protest
Arizona educators are asking: Could it happen here?
Last week, Noah Karvelis, a music teacher at Tres Rios Elementary, got into a discussion with the president of the Arizona Education Association over Twitter. Karvelis said that his colleagues were ready to take statewide action, or possibly even strike, after watching what was happening in West Virginia.
Joe Thomas, the union president, suggested that they should start local. Why not have teachers wear red to show their willingness to get involved, he said?
Sure enough, on Wednesday, teachers around Arizona are planning to wear red to send a message that they want immediate action from their elected representatives to resolve the school funding crisis. www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/arizona-teachers-gearing-up-for-west-virginia-style-action-10202525
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You can watch Mother Jones in PBS’ “Mine Wars” here: www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/theminewars/?utm_source=FBPAGE&utm_medium=social&utm_term=20180307&utm_content=1397309362&linkId=48819361
The West Virginia Teacher Strike Was Just the Start
The statewide teachers’ strike in West Virginia — one of the biggest in the nation in years — could signal the beginning of a new trend: a revolt against austerity policies.
The nine-day walkout, which ended Tuesday, was highly unusual. Teachers don’t leave their classrooms unless they’re seriously fed up, and West Virginia’s teachers were mad as hell. Austerity policies have squeezed them more and more each year: They earned, on average, $45,622 in 2016, with West Virginia ranking 47th among the states in teacher salaries, according to the National Education Association. Only Oklahoma, Mississippi and South Dakota paid less, and Oklahoma teachers, encouraged by the West Virginia walkout, are also considering a strike. www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/opinion/teachers-west-virginia-strike.html
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Richard Spencer’s Michigan State visit culminates with fights, anti-Nazi chants
Violent clashes erupted Monday when Richard Spencer, a leading figure in the white nationalist movement, visited Michigan State University to spread his message decrying diversity and taking aim at a society where “everything that is good is anti-white.”
Fights broke out as some protesters hurled bottles, rocks and horse manure to block Spencer’s supporters from entering the Pavilion for Agriculture and Livestock Education, a venue at the southern tip of campus where Monday’s event was held. Punches were thrown as members of the two groups hurled insults at one another.
Throughout the event, protesters chanted:”Nazis go home.”
“I’m a Michigan State graduate, and I wanted to show that Michigan State is not a place for hate,” said Jacob Osojnak, 48, who traveled from his home in Naperville, Illinois, to attend the protest.
Between 12 and 24 people were arrested for a range of felony and misdemeanor offenses, including weapons violations and hindering and obstructing police, said MSU Police Capt. Doug Monette.
Spencer’s speech was originally set to run from 4:30-6:30 p.m., but he delayed the start of the event until 5 p.m. due to what he described as “chaos” outside. www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/03/richard_spencers_michigan_stat.html
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CHAPTER ONE
War Is A Racket
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?
Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few — the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.
And what is this bill?
This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations. www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html#c1
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The Little Red Schoolhouse
Tormented by a Student’s Sexual Assault, a Teacher Falls: A Rape, a Coverup, a Suicide
On the morning of Aug. 3, 2016, with summer school classes in session, a teacher’s aide at Lincoln High school walked into the bathroom and saw what looked like one boy sexually assaulting another.
The teacher’s aide — the single eyewitness to the incident — later told police he saw both boys with their pants down, the suspect “right on (the victim), touching him skin to skin.”
The victim was a 17-year student with cerebral palsy and a condition that requires a tube in his head so excess fluid can escape. He can’t speak more than a few simple words at time and needs help with most daily tasks. (VOSD is withholding the names of the students involved because they were both minors at the time of the incident.)
According to a police report obtained by Voice of San Diego, a day passed before an officer from San Diego Unified’s school police department conducted interviews and completed his report on the incident.
In an interview with the school police officer, the 15-year-old suspect, with his mother by his side, told the officer he knew the difference between right and wrong. Helping someone is right, he said. What he’d done to the other student in the bathroom was wrong.
“I went to the bathroom with (the other student) and I put my thing in him. I put my thing in his butt. I don’t know why I did it. I have never done anything like this before. I think it lasted for like two minutes,” the suspect said.
He made a similar admission to a Lincoln staff member, though he told her it was an accident.
On Aug. 5, two days after the incident, a detective from San Diego Police Department’s sex crimes unit reviewed the case. Despite the suspect’s admission, as well as statements from two witnesses, the detective recommended the case be cancelled for lack of evidence. www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/tormented-students-sexual-assault-teacher-falls/?utm_source=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&utm_campaign=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&utm_medium=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&utm_term=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&goal=0_c2357fd0a3-2715ad761a-81862829
Aztec Shops purchase $2.3 million Alvarado Estates home for incoming president
When San Diego State’s next president, Adela de la Torre, steps into her new position, she will be moving into a newly-purchased, $2.3 million home in Alvarado Estates.
Located in the same gated community as the previous president’s house, the property will both be a home for de la Torre and be used to hold small functions for the university. The decision to remain in the same community was partially based on its proximity to SDSU, university spokesperson Jill Esterbrooks said.
“SDSU presidents have lived in the nearby Alvarado Estates since 2000,” Esterbrooks said via email. “The near-campus location helps strengthen the president’s connection to the university and College-area community.”
The new home is located at 4811 Yerba Santa Drive — about half a mile from the old presidential residence at 4545 Yerba Santa Drive, and a little under a two-mile drive from campus. thedailyaztec.com/88379/news/aztec-shops-purchase-2-3-million-alvarado-estates-home-for-incoming-president/
City Attorney Reviews SDSU West’s Mission Valley Proposal
Q: Will adoption of the initiative require that the development outlined in the initiative be built?
A: No.
Q:Does the initiative require a stadium to be built?
A: No.
Q: What happens if a stadium is not built?
A: There is no remedy for the city if a stadium is not built within seven years of the sale, or at all.
Q: Does the Initiative require the purchaser to build a River Park?
A: No. There is no remedy in the initiative if the River Park is not constructed within seven years or at all.
Q: Will the Development include affordable housing?
A: That is unclear. The city could not enforce those (affordable housing) requirements against the state.
Q: Would the initiative require city taxpayer funds?
A: That is unclear. The initiative doesn’t state who will pay for River Park improvements on city land.
Q: Can the purchaser transfer its interest in the site?
A: Yes. The State Board of Trustees will make the ultimate use and development determination for the Existing Stadium Site including whether the site will be sold to a third party. www.kpbs.org/news/2018/mar/05/city-attorney-reviews-sdsu-west-intiative/
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Whose University Is It Anyway?
TOWARD THE END of his life George Orwell wrote, “By the age of 50, everyone has the face he deserves.” The same is true of societies and their universities. By the time a society reaches its prime, it has the university it deserves. We have arrived there now in Canada, in the middle age of our regime, well past our youth but not quite to our dotage. What do we see when we look into the mirror of our universities? What image do we find there? Lots of smiling students, lots of talk of “impact” and “innovation,” more than one shovel going into the ground, a host of new community and industry partnerships to celebrate. But whose image is that really? Who created it and whom does it serve?
Administrators control the modern university. The faculty have “fallen,” to use Benjamin Ginsberg’s term. It’s an “all-administrative” institution now. [1] Spending on administrators and administration exceeds spending on faculty, administrators out-number faculty by a long shot, and administrative salaries and benefit packages, particularly those of presidents and other senior managers, have skyrocketed over the last 10 years. Even more telling perhaps, students themselves increasingly resemble administrators more than professors in their ambitions and needs. Safety, comfort, security, quality services, first-class accommodations, guaranteed high grades, institutional brand, better job placements, the market value of the credential — these are the things one hears students demanding these days, not truth, justice, and intelligence. lareviewofbooks.org/article/whose-university-is-it-anyway/#!
‘I feel really bad for the Class of 2018’: D.C. students’ graduation may be imperiled
In the wake of scandal, school administrators are enforcing long-ignored attendance rules, even if that leaves some students who thought they were on track to graduate scrambling to figure out if they can earn their diplomas. (Wapo 3/6)
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National City teachers protest the lack of supplies
On Wednesday, February 28, over 250 teachers, parents, and students rallied outside the National School District offices chanting and holding signs along the sidewalk. Once the board meeting began, they filled up seats, aisles, and hallways.
Teachers maintain that there has been a budget surplus for the past four years, but the district refuses to spend the money even though teachers have no curriculum for their students…
In December 2017, Brady reported paying over $5700 for airfare so boardmembers could attend a Department of Education board meeting in Sacramento as well as for meals at Pearl on the River ($398.15), the Tin Fish ($109.02), the Blond Burro ($142.03), and Seasons 52 ($368.08).
In September 2017, Carson paid $1020 for a November CBO Symposium in Anaheim, plus $212.97 in airfare for an Inclusion Collaborative Conference in San Jose. Carson also spent district money on many office supplies from “floor mat for Ginny, wipes and Lysol” to binders, scissors, and Sharpie pens. His purchasing-card expenses showed that he spent $423.14 in June 2017, $177.25 in August 2017, $312.09 in September 2017, and $146.62 in December 2017 — all on office supplies.
Meanwhile, teachers said repeatedly that they had to pay for curriculum materials out of their own pockets. During public comments at the board meeting, one teacher explained, “In first grade we have not had phonic curriculum to teach our students how to read. So, we used to have the green workbooks and then all of a sudden they said, ‘No they’re not aligned with Common Core.’ Okay, so what did we do? We bought curriculum out of our pockets or created worksheets.” www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2018/mar/02/stringers-national-city-teachers-lack-supplies/#
Mich. dip in 3rd-grade reading worst of 11 states
Despite investing heavily in early literacy since 2015, Michigan schools showed the largest decline in third-grade reading levels among 11 comparable states in the last three years, according to a new education report.
Using three consecutive years of data starting with the 2014-15 school year, Michigan ranked last among the group for changes in third-grade reading proficiency, according to officials with Education Trust-Midwest, a nonpartisan research and advocacy organization.
Michigan was at the bottom of the group, behind Delaware, Vermont, Connecticut, Idaho and West Virginia. California, Hawaii and Washington state showed the most improvement on the test in the last three years. Those states use standardized tests similar to Michigan’s…
In the Detroit Public Schools Community District, the number of third-graders who scored proficient in reading on the M-STEP was 9.9 percent in 2017, meaning more than 90 percent of students could not pass the test.
DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told The Detroit News last month that his third-graders have been making improvements in reading since Michigan passed its third-grade retention law. Vitti said the district has plans to install an entirely new curriculum next school year to address literacy issues.
Former Baltimore County schools leader Dallas Dance pleads guilty to perjury
Baltimore County school Superintendent Dallas Dance pleaded guilty Thursday to four counts of perjury for failing to disclose nearly $147,000 he earned from consulting jobs — including payments from a company he helped win a no-bid contract with the school system.
Prosecutors recommended a sentence of five years and want Dance to serve 18 months in jail. A sentencing hearing was scheduled for April 20, Dance’s 38th birthday.
Afterward, Dance quickly left the Baltimore County courtroom. His lead attorney said Dance would have no comment. www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/bs-md-dallas-dance-trial-20180305-story.html
English chairman ‘taken aback’ by UW-Stevens Point plan to cut majors
A University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point proposal to eliminate 13 majors caught at least one of the affected department chairs by complete surprise, he said Tuesday.
UW-Stevens Point administrators on Monday said they plan to eliminate low-demand liberal arts degree programs, including English, history and political science. It is part of the college’s efforts to address a projected deficit of $4.5 million over two years because of declining enrollment and lower tuition revenues.
Mike Williams, the chairman of the Department of English, said he had no idea that English would be on a list of potential cutbacks.
“We’re taken aback by the proposal. And it still is a proposal,” Williams said. “Right now we have to marshal arguments that will convince the administration that the measures they have proposed are mistaken.” www.stevenspointjournal.com/story/news/2018/03/06/uwsp-budget-cuts/398842002/
John L. Miller-Great Neck North High School on Long Island is proposing to turn an athletic field into a parking lot to accommodate the increasing number of students who drive to the school. Credit Heather Walsh for The New York Times
GREAT NECK, N.Y. — The parking areas at John L. Miller-Great Neck North High School here on Long Island can sometimes resemble a luxury dealership — BMWs, Range Rovers and Mercedes-Benzes.
And these are the students’ cars, not the teachers’.
“That’s pretty much what you’re going to see in the student lot here,” said a high school senior, Angela Bazon, 18, as she hopped into her own black Mercedes C-300 after school on a nearby street.
Her parents gave Ms. Bazon the sedan for her 17th birthday, a tradition for many teenagers in this wealthy suburb of New York City.
But finding a place to park at school has become much harder. Even as the number of teen drivers declines nationally, many high schools in well-off communities, like Great Neck North, are seeing an increasing number of students driving to school, with nowhere near enough parking to accommodate them.
The parking challenge is a symptom of a new age of opulence — many families in affluent school districts are far richer than a generation ago and more able and willing to indulge their children.
Now, squeezed for space, Great Neck North plans to add a 97-spot student parking lot, which has come as welcome news to students like Josh Vilinsky, 17, a junior, who says he has to arrive nearly an hour before school just to find street parking for his $62,000 Mercedes coupe, a gift on his most recent birthday.
The school’s plan to pave over one of its former athletic fields to create the lot, however, has provoked a backlash from residents who call the $652,000 project too expensive and say it will attract more traffic and deprive the neighborhood of precious green space. www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/nyregion/high-school-student-parking.html
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
US aircraft carrier leaves Vietnam, wrapping up historic visit
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U.S. aircraft carrier the USS Carl Vinson and two U.S. naval combat ships carrying 6,500 crew members departed Da Nang on Friday following an historic five-day port call.
The visit attracted global attention by marking a milestone in the diplomatic relationship between Vietnam and the U.S.
Since the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the Vinson is the first aircraft carrier to return to the country.
Professor Carlyle Thayer from the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defense Force Academy, said the USS Carl Vinson is sending a message that the U.S. will maintain its naval presence in the South China Sea and that Vietnam supports the presence of the U.S. Navy for regional peace and stability. The waters are known as the East Sea in Vietnam. e.vnexpress.net/news/news/us-aircraft-carrier-leaves-vietnam-wrapping-up-historic-visit-3720863.html
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2 Navy officers sentenced in ‘Fat Leonard’ case
Accepting and soliciting gifts of lavish hotel rooms, drinks, meals and prostitutes has officially ended the careers of two of the Navy’s rising stars — and will put a dent in both of their savings accounts as well.
Capt. John F. Steinberger and Cmdr. Jason W. Starmer both struck deals with military prosecutors in separate but concurrent trials that played out March 6 in adjacent courtrooms on Norfolk Naval Station.
The pair became the latest casualties of the Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis scandal as they struck plea deals with Navy prosecutors and Adm. Phil Davidson, who, as head of Fleet Forces Command, has been designated the convening authority in any of the scandalous Fat Leonard cases.
Steinberger, a surface warfare officer, was initially charged with conspiracy, violation of a lawful order, conduct unbecoming, graft and bribery.
In the end, the conspiracy, graft and bribery charges were dropped, and he instead pleaded guilty to a dereliction of duty charge for accepting gifts from Francis.
He also pleaded guilty to an additional charge of conduct unbecoming an officer, specifically for having sex on multiple occasions with on-the-house prostitutes in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and The Philippines…
Since being charged last April 2017, Steinberger has been assigned — in a move that’s sure to raise eyebrows — to Navy Region Southwest as the head of the Navy Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program.
Starmer, meanwhile, is a former enlisted sailor who was initially charged with graft, violating a lawful order, making false official statements and conduct unbecoming an officer while serving as head of operations for the Joint United States Military Advisory Group, Thailand.
He pleaded guilty to the charges of patronizing a prostitute and adultery — for having sex with prostitutes provided by Francis in Singapore on consecutive nights in April 2013. www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/03/07/o-6-and-o-5-sentenced-in-fat-leonard-case/
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Iraq war costs U.S. more than $2 trillion: study
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday said.
The war has killed at least 134,000 Iraqi civilians and may have contributed to the deaths of as many as four times that number, according to the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.
When security forces, insurgents, journalists and humanitarian workers were included, the war’s death toll rose to an estimated 176,000 to 189,000, the study said.
The report, the work of about 30 academics and experts, was published in advance of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003.
It was also an update of a 2011 report the Watson Institute produced ahead of the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks that assessed the cost in dollars and lives from the resulting wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
The 2011 study said the combined cost of the wars was at least $3.7 trillion, based on actual expenditures from the U.S. Treasury and future commitments, such as the medical and disability claims of U.S. war veterans.
That estimate climbed to nearly $4 trillion in the update.
The estimated death toll from the three wars, previously at 224,000 to 258,000, increased to a range of 272,000 to 329,000 two years later.
Excluded were indirect deaths caused by the mass exodus of doctors and a devastated infrastructure, for example, while the costs left out trillions of dollars in interest the United States could pay over the next 40 years.
The interest on expenses for the Iraq war could amount to about $4 trillion during that period, the report said….
The report concluded the United States gained little from the war while Iraq was traumatized by it. The war reinvigorated radical Islamist militants in the region, set back women’s rights, and weakened an already precarious healthcare system, the report said. Meanwhile, the $212 billion reconstruction effort was largely a failure with most of that money spent on security or lost to waste and fraud, it said.
Above, US made cluster bombs in Yemen
Corker: If Pentagon can ‘turn entire countries into craters’ why can’t it audit itself?
Sen. Bob Corker on Wednesday questioned why the Defense Department can “turn entire countries into craters” but has yet to audit itself.
“We all watch us kill people remotely in Mosul and other places, people far away, commanding drones. It’s remarkable we can do something like that. DoD has the capacity to turn entire countries into craters, has all kinds of cyber capabilities,” said Corker, R-Tenn.
At a Senate Budget Committee hearing on the ongoing DoD audit and management reforms, Corker—a leading fiscal conservative in Congress—was among lawmakers questioning DoD Comptroller David Norquist and Chief Management Officer John Gibson….
A comprehensive Pentagon audit is underway for the first time, even though Congress first legislated the requirement in 1990. The annual defense policy law for 2014 mandated the audit begin in 2018.
The audit is likely to be the largest audit ever, comprising 24 stand-alone audits and involving 1,200 auditors, Norquist said in written remarks. It has been budgeted at $367 million for fiscal 2018, but Norquist defended the cost. www.defensenews.com/congress/2018/03/07/corker-if-pentagon-can-turn-entire-countries-into-craters-why-cant-it-audit-itself/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow
They served in the U.S. military and hoped for citizenship. They got deported.
Vargas and his delegation brought their message Saturday to the Deported Veterans Support House in northern Tijuana. Here, they met with veterans who served but then had problems before they obtained full citizenship, finding themselves ejected from the United States after running afoul of the law.
Hector Barajas, who is leading an effort to get his peers back into the United States, made his case in front of the delegation and reporters. Barajas was deported after a crime — he fired a gun. He was honorably discharged from the Army, and after serving a prison sentence he was sent back to Mexico. He mistakenly thought he’d be given citizenship automatically after his service. California Gov. Jerry Brown, D, recently pardoned Barajas.
Barajas shared a pledge Saturday that the members of Congress signed, which read in part: “We believe that anyone who is willing to join the U.S. military, fight and give their life for the U.S., should be a citizen and not subject to deportation from the country they serve.” www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-deported-vets-20170604-story.html
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
CBO Warns Bipartisan Bank Bill Heightens Risk of Financial Crisis
Office confirmed on Monday that bank lobbyists had successfully altered language of the so-called Citigroup carve-out, potentially allowing mega-banks Citi and JPMorgan Chase to add leverage and put more debt-fueled risk on their balance sheets. CBO gave Citi and JPMorgan a 50 percent chance of convincing regulators to let them take the carve-out, and their lobbyists are still working to increase that probability to 100 percent.
Factoring in the reality that the major banks will be lobbying regulators in the Trump administration could plausibly increase the likelihood of their success.
CBO’s cost estimate of S.2155, the bipartisan bank deregulation bill that faced its first test vote today, was obtained by the Washington Post on Monday and released publicly Tuesday morning. S.2155 would cost taxpayers $671 million over a 10-year period, CBO estimated, because of the increased possibility of bank failures and financial crisis from using more leverage and other deregulatory changes. “The probability is small under current law and would be slightly greater under the legislation,” they concluded.
Of course, if a crisis did occur, $671 million would seem like a pittance.
“Hardworking Americans shouldn’t have to pay for favors to Wall Street, foreign megabanks and their lobbyists,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, a leading critic of the bill, in a statement.
The CBO estimate did little to sway the 17 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus who voted Tuesday to begin debate on the bill. But it does reveal that Citigroup has already gotten halfway toward its goal of piling on more risk.
Among other parts of the bill, CBO analyzed Section 402, which would change the supplementary leverage ratio, or SLR, a simple calculation of total equity divided by total assets. The section lets “custodial banks,” which do not primarily make loans but instead safeguard assets for rich individuals and companies like mutual funds, to eliminate reserve funds parked at central banks from the calculation, reducing leverage by as much as 30 percent. This would juice returns for these banks but also layer on additional risk, by allowing them to hold less equity to offset losses in a crisis.
As first reported by The Intercept, Citi lobbyists successfully engineered a change to Section 402’s language. theintercept.com/2018/03/06/bank-regulation-citigroup-cbo/
In Flint, Mich., there’s so much lead in children’s blood that a state of emergency is declared
For months, worried parents in Flint, Mich., arrived at their pediatricians’ offices in droves. Holding a toddler by the hand or an infant in their arms, they all have the same question: Are their children being poisoned?
To find out, all it takes is a prick of the finger, a small letting of blood. If tests come back positive, the potentially severe consequences are far more difficult to discern.
That’s how lead works. It leaves its mark quietly, with a virtually invisible trail. But years later, when a child shows signs of a learning disability or behavioral issues, lead’s prior presence in the bloodstream suddenly becomes inescapable.
According to the World Health Organization, “lead affects children’s brain development resulting in reduced intelligence quotient (IQ), behavioral changes such as shortening of attention span and increased antisocial behavior, and reduced educational attainment. Lead exposure also causes anemia, hypertension, renal impairment, immunotoxicity and toxicity to the reproductive organs. The neurological and behavioral effects of lead are believed to be irreversible.”
The Hurley Medical Center, in Flint, released a study in September that confirmed what many Flint parents had feared for over a year: The proportion of infants and children with above-average levels of lead in their blood has nearly doubled since the city switched from the Detroit water system to using the Flint River as its water source, in 2014.
The crisis reached a nadir Monday night, when Flint Mayor Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency.
“The City of Flint has experienced a Manmade disaster,” Weaver said in a declaratory statement. (WAPO 3/5/18)
California’s members of Congress are worth at least $439 million
www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-richest-california-lawmakers-20180305-story.html
www.facebook.com/bbcnews/videos/842525085952708/
U.S. Allies Sign Sweeping Trade Deal in Challenge to Trump
A trade pact originally conceived by the United States to counter China’s growing economic might in Asia now has a new target: President Trump’s embrace of protectionism.
A group of 11 nations — including major United States allies like Japan, Canada and Australia — signed a broad trade deal on Thursday in Chile’s capital, Santiago, that challenges Mr. Trump’s view of trade as a zero-sum game filled with winners and losers.
Covering 500 million people on either side of the Pacific Ocean, the pact represents a new vision for global trade as the United States imposes steel and aluminum tariffs on even some of its closest friends.
Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from an earlier version of the agreement, then known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a year ago as one of his first acts in office. The resuscitated deal is undeniably weaker without the participation of the world’s biggest economy, but it serves as a powerful sign of how countries that have previously counted on American leadership are now forging ahead without it. www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/world/asia/us-trump-tpp-signed.html?emc=edit_th_180309&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=22541210309
The 1% grabbed 82% of all wealth created in 2017
More than $8 of every $10 of wealth created last year went to the richest 1%.
That’s according to a new report from Oxfam International, which estimates that the bottom 50% of the world’s population saw no increase in wealth.
“The billionaire boom is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a failing economic system,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International.
The head of the advocacy group argued that the people who “make our clothes, assemble our phones and grow our food” are being exploited in order to enrich corporations and the super wealthy. money.cnn.com/2018/01/21/news/economy/davos-oxfam-inequality-wealth/index.html
The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement and The War on Reason
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If you see Marines in action around Phoenix this week, don’t be scared
It won’t be the full MEU, just 100 Marines coming from Camp Pendleton, California, Capt. Daniel Vacchio told Arizona newspaper The Republic.
“We don’t want people who have been living here and working here to be afraid,” Vacchio said. “If you see aircraft or Marines, you can safely assume it’s us.”
Though Marines and soldiers have dedicated urban training facilities on both coasts and a large complex at an Indiana National Guard training complex, moving around conventional cities, where people live, is hard to replicate. www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/03/07/if-you-see-marines-in-action-around-phoenix-this-week-dont-be-scared/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow
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Soldiers, Marines rely on PSYOP, learning a city’s rhythm when training for urban warfare
While much attention is spent on adjusting weapons systems and training soldiers and Marines to use them, what may be of more value in an urban fight is the work being done years before a conflict erupts.
Experts frequently tout the success of psychological operations units in the run up to the second battle of Fallujah in late 2004. They worked to inform the city’s residents that the battle would soon unfold and warned them to evacuate.
As a result, an estimated 90 percent of the population fled, freeing up Marines to fight with fewer constraints than if there was a substantial number of civilians present.
In addition, simply knowing the human terrain, from culture to leaders and friendly residents, ahead of time can either prevent conflict or inform U.S. and allied forces of enemy locations, capabilities and plans.
Such information can also help to more quickly bring the city back to life through partnering with local friendly leaders to restore services, improve infrastructure and win the support of the civilian population.
Using lessons learned, soldiers and Marines are training for urban combat
When retired Marine Lt. Gen. Ron Christmas was a young lieutenant in training, officers received a grand total of a one-hour lecture on urban combat.
Lt. Col. Xavier Colon, commander of the Army’s 5th Battalion, Special Warfare Training Group, said psychological operations trainees learn early on to do interagency work.
He said the PSYOP personnel do a deep assessment of an area, looking at its infrastructure, how people communicate, who controls the networks, radio, TV and newspapers. They look at the local economy and legal systems to give an ambassador an overall picture of how information moves through and is used in that location. www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/03/06/soldiers-marines-rely-on-psyop-learning-a-citys-rhythm-when-training-for-urban-warfare/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow
Above, earlier Italian fascists like Mussolini did not fare well over time….In Italy’s elections, the fascists did scarily well
Italy’s elections may have ended in a political deadlock — no one party or alliance gained the 40% necessary to have an absolute Parliamentary majority — but the projected results of the vote signal that sweeping changes are on the horizon, changes that don’t bode well for liberal democracy.
Italian far-right leader bound and beaten by anti-fascist activists
A far-right leader was bound and beaten by left-wing extremists in Italy.
Massimo Ursino, a prominent member of the anti-immigration Forza Nuova group, was attacked in Palermo and required hospital treatment.
His balaclava-clad assailants bound his hands and feet with parcel tape, The Local reported, and the beating left him with head and facial injuries.
They pounced as Mr Ursino left a supermarket in central Palermo, in Sicily. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/italy-elections-latest-updates-beat-bound-forza-nuova-antifa-massimo-ursino-palermo-sicily-a8223316.html
Neo-fascist group’s HQ bombed in Italy
Residents of Via Marighetto, the street on which CasaPound’s office is located, were woken by the blast at around 4:30 am on Wednesday. No-one was injured by the explosion, reportedly a home-made device, though the entrance to the building was damaged. A slogan was also found painted at the scene: “The only useful vote – anti-fascism.” However, the message was not accompanied by the symbol of any far-left group. www.rt.com/news/420791-italy-casapound-trento-bombing/
Stacey Dash tells MSNBC’s Ari Melber she can’t judge ‘every person in the Neo-Nazi party’
Solidarity for Never
West Virginia Raises Teachers’ Pay to End Statewide Strike but No deal on Health Care: The NEA/AFT sellout attacks the poor–Medicaid cuts???!
…Unlike a previous proposed raise that was backed by Mr. Justice and the State House of Representatives, the deal reached on Tuesday had the support of Mitch Carmichael, the president of the more conservative State Senate. Mr. Carmichael said the deal would probably lead to painful cuts in other parts of the state budget; another Republican senator, Craig Blair, said in a conference committee that Medicaid would be among the areas cut.
“These things come at a cost,” Mr. Carmichael said. But as he signed the bill, Mr. Justice tried to dispel the suggestion that the pay raise would come at the expense of Medicaid recipients. www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/us/west-virginia-teachers-strike-deal.html
Their unions lied, so they moved on their own….
…the course of the strike was in the hands of teachers in each of the state’s 55 counties making their own separate decisions about what to do, though they monitored the mood elsewhere over social media. In Mr. Price’s county, teachers gathered for a heated meeting at a high school, where people stood up and cried out every time they heard that another county’s schools would be closed the next day.
“Once they started to all fall, we were going to fall in line with the rest of our state,” said Allyson Perry, president of the Marion County Education Association. “That’s been the theme of this the whole time.”
Earlier in the day, teachers and bus drivers from Boone County had huddled informally at the Capitol to make their decision. “None of our union reps were over there,” Robin Muncy, a bus driver, said afterward. “We just did it as a whole, because we felt we were being lied to.”
Will Lawrence, 53, a cook at an elementary school in Charleston who is not a member of any union, said, “We had to drag our leaders kicking and screaming…www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/us/west-virginia-teachers-strike.html
Janus Case Union Lawyer “The fees are the trade-off. Union security is the trade-off for no strikes,” Frederick said. “And so if you were to overrule Abood, you can raise an untold specter of labor unrest throughout the country.”
www.rollcall.com/news/politics/supreme-court-appears-split-union-case
AFT dues eater writing for the WaPo
The combination of exclusive union representation, mandatory agency fees, no-strike clauses and “management’s rights” are the foundation of our peculiar labor relations system. No other country structures its labor relations system quite like this. Knock one part out, as the Janus plaintiffs aim to do with agency fees, and the whole system can fall apart. Employers will not like the chaos that this will bring. Shaun Richman
Another one the NYTimes won’t run
The Times says, “…we can hope, these teachers can provide workers throughout the country with a powerful lesson.” www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/opinion/west-virginia-unions-teachers.html
That’s true. The lesson the Times draws, that the Supreme Court should back forced dues collection for unions, is twice wrong.
The educators are on a wildcat strike, taken against the mis-leaders in their unions.
Secondly, forced dues collection is a devil’s bargain. As union lawyers testified in the Janus hearings, the unions sell the pacified labor of members in exchange for employers collecting dues during the life of a contract. That’s the historical origin of the deal.
Dues are passed from employers to extraordinarily well paid union bosses who typically don’t work on the job. They develop an interest in guaranteeing that their bank, the union budget, remains intact.
So, union bosses declare they are “partners in production,” with Big Bosses, denying the reason most people join unions: contradictory interests.
The union mis-leaders thus have every reason to prevent members from taking direct action, striking, which proves them not merely irrelevant, but on the other side.
Hence, the dramatic decrease in the number of strikes in the U.S. over the last 30 years.
Yes, there is a powerful lesson: Wildcats lead the way. The only illegal strike is a strike that fails.
Dr Richard Gibson
Emeritus Professor, San Diego State University.
Above, Garcia feted Arne Duncan at the NEA’s Rep Assembly
Lily Eskelsen Garcia, NEA President, was paid a total of $148,689 for “Allowances” in 2016. That’s travel money wasted on the Clinton campaign. Garcia rigged NEA’s internal processes to deny a vote for Sanders. Combined, NEA and AFT wasted $32 million on the Clinton campaign.
Screen shot below from Labor Department
Supplicants! Opportunists! Dilettantes!! Party on! You have nothing to lose but integrity.
Freire was a devout Catholic. Ridiculous.
He was always complaining about being in exile. Put me in exile in Switzerland with a plum job with the World Council of Churches and you won’t hear a peep.
He was a revolutionary wherever he wasn’t and liberal wherever he was. When he returned to Brazil, he went to work for the hack Lula and complained about the school buildings, not the core of instruction.
He was a plagiarist. See the “Texts of Paulo Freire.” He stole a lot of his material from Dom Halder Camera, a Brazilian trying to defeat communists with liberation theology.
He built an opportunist little publishing cult around himself, then insisted, too much, on his own humility.
He sought to mix Che, Lenin, Mao, and others–add postmodernism, uncritically. Stupid.
His last wife is/was a gutter racist.
Nobody can fully explain how he goes from Brazil to Chile to Harvard.
Critical consciousness is not class consciousness. That is a dodge–part of the Freire hustle.
He claimed to “invent” a teaching method that probably predated Socrates.
He is a dead end. richgibson.com/rouge_forum/CSSE2008/GibsonCSSE2008.htm
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CDs067081E
Spy versus Spy
CIA Agents Were On The Ground Before We Invaded Iraq, And They Knew It Was Going To Be A Clusterf*@k
On March 20, America will be celebrating — if that’s the right word for it — the 15th anniversary of our invasion of Iraq, one of the most well-executed projections of U.S. military might in history. Despite fears that we were underestimating Saddam Hussein’s capabilities (not to mention an elaborate $250 million dress rehearsal during which the team playing the enemy quickly decimated the U.S. fleet), a coalition including American, British, Australian and Polish armed forces managed to seize control of the country within a mere 21 days, with relatively few casualties on either side.
Leaving aside the difficulties presented by the subsequent occupation, Operation Iraqi Freedom was an impressive feat of warfighting, arguably every bit the “cakewalk” that one widely mocked column predicted it would be.
But while military textbooks attribute the campaign’s success to careful planning and coordination, an ability to improvise, superior personnel, air supremacy, and the deployment of overwhelming force, less commonly acknowledged is the role of a minuscule advance team made up of CIA special activities division forces and special forces operators, who spent nine full months in Iraq before the Tomahawks started flying, carefully preparing the battlespace. Meanwhile, they also got a preview of the U.S. military’s misguided view of the Iraqi Army, which would later lead to the undoing of so much good work.
The invasion’s success was attributable to careful preparation, Sam Faddis, the former CIA operative who led the first team into Iraq told Task & Purpose. “In the north, the Iraqi military didn’t put up a fight,” he explained. “They left their barracks and went home. But that didn’t just happen. We had been working them for a long time, destabilizing the regime.”
Faddis ran a eight-man CIA team allied with the Kurds. Four of them, working under Faddis’s deputy, embedded with the PUK in Sulaymaniyah, while Faddis established a base with the KDP in Erbil. Each group was eventually joined by three Green Berets belonging to Operational Detachment Alpha 066 of the 10th Special Forces Group. taskandpurpose.com/cia-iraq-invasion/?bsft_eid=84147d9c-0e0c-4afc-a55d-6073a249a29f&utm_campaign=tp_daily_tuesday_pm&utm_source=blueshift&utm_medium=email&utm_content=tp_daily_pm_ricks&bsft_pid=68e864ee-eacb-41c5-aafc-fb64b47f0ab7&bsft_clkid=b7aa5c9a-4903-42c4-991e-54fb5b381242&bsft_uid=7c674a6c-ae11-4ec4-84f1-aef0c34e44e5&bsft_mid=4f29d71f-7902-46d1-840d-a3a48257fa83&bsft_pp=1
Incident Response crew at the scene where Sergei Skripal was found unconscious alongside a woman. (Salisbury Journal/Solent News)
Man left critically ill in Wiltshire after exposure to unknown substance ‘is former Russian spy’
A former Russian colonel who spied for the UK is in a critical
condition in hospital after being exposed to an unknown substance in Salisbury.
Sergei Skripal, who was given refuge in the UK after being jailed in his home country for treason, was found unconscious on a bench alongside a woman in a local shopping centre.
The cause of their illness has not yet been confirmed but the case drew immediate comparison to the murder of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko using radioactive polonium-210 believed to have been administered in a cup of tea. Investigators are understood to be reviewing the death of Litvinenkno to see if there are any similarities between the modus operandi of that case and this incident.
MI6’s investigation into his death was led by Christopher Steele, the ex-spy behind a dossier of compromising allegations on Donald Trump. The Independent understands investigators may consult Mr Steele in connection with the current investigation. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wiltshire-critically-ill-unknown-substance-salisbury-former-russian-spy-a8241121.html
Christopher Steele, the Man Behind the Trump Dossier
How the ex-spy tried to warn the world about Trump’s ties to Russia.
A friend in Washington, D.C., was calling with bad news: two Republican senators, Lindsey Graham and Charles Grassley, had just referred Steele’s name to the Department of Justice, for a possible criminal investigation. They were accusing Steele—the author of a secret dossier that helped trigger the current federal investigation into President Donald Trump’s possible ties to Russia—of having lied to the very F.B.I. officers he’d alerted about his findings.
The details of the criminal referral were classified, so Steele could not know the nature of the allegations, let alone rebut them, but they had something to do with his having misled the Bureau about contacts that he’d had with the press. For nearly thirty years, Steele had worked as a close ally of the United States, and he couldn’t imagine why anyone would believe that he had been deceptive. But lying to an F.B.I. officer is a felony, an offense that can be punished by up to five years in prison. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/12/christopher-steele-the-man-behind-the-trump-dossier?mbid=social_facebook_aud_dev_kw_paid-christopher-steele-the-man-behind-the-trump-dossier&kwp_0=717941&kwp_4=2531674&kwp_1=1072877
He Wouldn’t Become an Informant. Now He’s Headed for Prison.
He was walking home from his consulting job at Iran’s United Nations mission in New York, his adopted city of many years, when the F.B.I. agents approached. He was arrested, handcuffed and driven to a hotel.
The life of the consultant, Ahmad Sheikhzadeh, a naturalized American citizen of Iranian descent with a doctorate from Columbia University and a network of prominent Iran contacts including its foreign minister, was altered on that day in March 2016.
In the hotel room where he was kept overnight, Dr. Sheikhzadeh recalled, the agents told him he could be imprisoned for decades on tax and sanctions violations if he did not become an informant. He had worked at the Iranian mission since 1990, preparing analyses of published articles on Iran and discussing them at weekly meetings.
Dr. Sheikhzadeh, a 62-year-old bachelor, migrated to the United States before Iran’s 1979 revolution and became a citizen in 2000. He surrounds himself with books in his Greenwich Village apartment, takes yoga classes and checks on older neighbors.
Friends and colleagues laugh at the idea that he could be a spy. But that is the image federal prosecutors sought to portray, describing his actions in court documents as having undermined “important economic controls that were put in place to protect the national security of the United States.” www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/world/middleeast/ahmad-sheikhzadeh-iranian-prosecution.html
The Magical Mystery Tour
Trump Will Start the End of the World, Claim Evangelicals Who Support Him
Evangelical Christians overwhelmingly support President Donald Trump because they believe he’ll cause the world to end.
Many have questioned why devout evangelicals support Trump, a man who has bragged about sexual assault, lies perpetually and once admitted he never asks God for forgiveness. Trump’s lack of knowledge of the Bible is also well-known.
Nevertheless, many evangelical Christians believe that Trump was chosen by God to usher in a new era, a part of history called the “end times.” Beliefs about this time period differ, but it is broadly considered the end of the world, the time when Jesus returns to Earth and judges all people.
Jerusalem has a central role as the city of prophecy and the place where the end of times plays out. According to the prophecy, a 1,000-year period of peace must be followed by seven years of tribulation, during which wars, disease, and natural disasters will lay waste to the earth. In the book of Revelation, Israel is described as a nation that exists during the time of tribulation, and Jerusalem’s Jewish temple is resurrected during this period. The last temple was destroyed around 70 A.D, and today there is a mosque on the Temple Mount where the previous two temples are believed to have stood. Evangelicals believe that a unified Israel with control over Jerusalem will facilitate the construction of a new Jewish temple, and set the groundwork for the end of times.
That’s where Trump comes in.
“What kick-starts the end times into motion is Israel’s political boundaries being reestablished to what God promised the Israelites according to the Bible,” Nate Pyle, a pastor and author of a book about Jesus, told Newsweek. www.newsweek.com/trump-will-bring-about-end-worldevangelicals-end-times-779643
Australian Cardinal George Pell Appears in Court on Sex Abuse Charges
Wearing his clerical collar, the most senior Vatican official ever charged in the Catholic Church sex abuse crisis appeared in an Australian court Monday for a hearing to determine whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to put him on trial.
Australian Cardinal George Pell’s committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court before Magistrate Belinda Wallington is scheduled to take up to a month, with testimony of alleged victims to be suppressed from publication.
Pell arrived by car and was flanked by police and one of his lawyers, Paul Galbally, as he walked through a large group of media and into the court security screening area. He remained silent as he entered.
He emptied his pockets before walking through a security metal detector and a security guarded frisked him in a routine procedure. time.com/5185012/australian-cardinal-george-pell-hearing/
Feud over fortune embroils Michigan religious group (God needs more $$$$)
Pontiac — An excommunicated member of a century-old west Michigan religious group is alleging a few “interlopers” have conspired to loot more than $50 million in assets from the organization.
Charles W. Ferrel, 59, who lives in Hawaii, claims in his 27-page Oakland Circuit Court lawsuit that a few members of the Benton Harbor-based Israelite House of David have diverted funds from the organization’s purpose, endangered its favored federal tax status as a nonprofit and exposed it to potential tax liabilities.
Ferrel, a former trustee and director of IHOD, said he was wrongfully excommunicated five years ago but is still faithful to the church’s doctrines and wants to prevent its destruction. Ferrel seeks reinstatement and control of assets he alleges have been diverted to at least 10 limited liability companies.
Short of that, he believes the organization’s sizeable assets should be turned over to the state of Michigan.
“It is the most bizarre lawsuit I have seen in my entire career,” said Ferrel’s attorney, David M. Black, who has been practicing law for 43 years. “The group itself is a very interesting chapter in Michigan’s history involving communal life, even an entombed leader. There was the purchase of Australian real estate, and a way station in Hawaii www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/oakland-county/2018/03/06/israelite-house-david-lawsuit/32683303/
The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World
‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli Cries in Court as He’s Sentenced to 7 Years in Prison
Martin Shrkeli, the smirking “Pharma Bro” vilified for jacking up the price of a lifesaving drug, was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison for defrauding investors in two failed hedge funds.
The self-promoting pharmaceutical executive notorious for trolling critics online was convicted in a securities fraud case last year unconnected to the price increase dispute.
Shkreli, his cocky persona nowhere to be found, cried as he told U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto he made many mistakes and apologized to investors. time.com/5193670/martin-shkreli-prison-r-securities-fraud/
Detroit set for Stormy rendezvous with porn star (best opening line in journalism this year)
A piece of the American presidency is coming to a Detroit strip club.
Stormy Daniels, a porn actress who said she had sex with President Donald Trump several years before he was elected, will perform Wednesday at Truth Detroit, according to her Twitter account.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is coming to Detroit as part of a national tour that followed the notoriety over her alleged presidential entanglement. Trump denies that it happened. www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/03/08/stormy-daniels-truth-detroit-trump/32745761/
www.facebook.com/forDailyPositive/videos/1905624663100933/
Remember!
So Long
Dorothy Height, Largely Unsung Giant of the Civil Rights Era, Dies at 98
Dorothy Height, a leader of the African-American and women’s rights movements who was considered both the grande dame of the civil rights era and its unsung heroine, died on Tuesday in Washington. She was 98.
The death, at Howard University Hospital, was announced jointly by the hospital and the National Council of Negro Women, which Ms. Height had led for four decades. A longtime Washington resident, Ms. Height was the council’s president emerita at her death.
One of the last living links to the social activism of the New Deal era, Ms. Height had a career in civil rights that spanned nearly 80 years, from anti-lynching protests in the early 1930s to the inauguration of President Obama in 2009. That the American social landscape looks as it does today owes in no small part to her work.
Originally trained as a social worker, Ms. Height was president of the National Council of Negro Women from 1957 to 1997, overseeing a range of programs on issues like voting rights, poverty and in later years AIDS. A longtime executive of the Y.W.C.A., she presided over the integration of its facilities nationwide in the 1940s. www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/us/21height.html
.Learn about the wall of sound below, then the loss of the Crystal.
Free Phil