Rouge Forum Dispatch: Speeding the End of Empires
We Say Fight Back!
Teachers bypass union, organize sickout on social media page (Rousing Video)
Jefferson County KY Public Schools was forced to cancel classes Tuesday as teachers staged the fourth ‘sickout’ in less than two weeks. Hundreds of teachers called in sick, despite an agreement reached between the school district and the Jefferson County Teacher’s Association to send a delegation of approximately 500 educators to Frankfort.
The sickout was organized by teachers on a Facebook page called JCPS Leads. JCPS teacher Justin Newby, one of the page’s administrators, said his colleagues were unhappy with the JCTA/JCPS plan.
“Ultimately, the teachers decided they did not agree with this and they needed to be here and wanted to be here,” Newby said.
JCPS Superintendent Dr. Marty Pollio said he was disappointed the district had to cancel classes yet again.
“We thought we had put together a pretty good deal where a large number of teachers could still advocate in Frankfort,” Pollio said.
Brent McKim, president of JCTA, said teachers organizing themselves has presented challenges for the union.
“We’ve been trying to find some common ground options but that was not the case, so we respect our members’ decisions,” McKim explained.
Newby said there is a disconnect between union leadership and teachers. Many teachers believe it’s essential that they are in Frankfort to advocate for students and make sure lawmakers don’t try to pass legislation last minute, as they did with the pension bill last year. www.wlky.com/article/teachers-bypass-union-organize-sickout-on-social-media-page/26802536?fbclid=IwAR1GkHVTd_FzTYdhEuaEg5UYIevAXUPR6e3ojAEBO3P4VKt5xNTC2A4R-tM
There Is No Excuse for How Universities Treat Adjuncts (well, capital and empire)
Students are paying higher tuition than ever. Why can’t more of that revenue go to the people teaching them?
In early June, California labor regulators ruled that a driver for Uber, the app-based car service, was, in fact, an employee, not an independent contractor, and deserved back pay. The decision made national news, with experts predicting a coming flood of lawsuits. Two weeks later, FedEx agreed to a $288 million settlement after a federal appeals court ruled that the company had shortchanged 2,300 California delivery drivers on pay and benefits by improperly labeling them as independent contractors. The next month, the company lost another case in a federal appeals court over misclassifying 500 delivery drivers in Kansas. Meanwhile, since January, trucking firms operating out of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have lost two major court battles with drivers who claim that they, too, have been robbed of wages by being misclassified as independent contractors.
If you think you notice a pattern here, you’re right. After years of inertia, courts and regulators are starting to take on companies that categorize employees as contractors in order to avoid wage and benefit costs. With inequality and the declining middle class becoming major issues in the 2016 presidential race, politicians (at least on the Democratic side) are now also vowing to do something about the plight of contingent workers. “I’ll crack down on bosses who exploit employees by misclassifying them as contractors or even steal their wages,” Hillary Clinton said in her big economic-policy speech in July. www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/higher-education-college-adjunct-professor-salary/404461/?fbclid=IwAR0_JNHKvkDUe5gaRbPB6SRGMD5wm0U4e34dy140_FIHAKB4JMGMC5_hSK8&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=5c9ac08f4b738500018cddf9_ta&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook
Mexico: Teachers return to legislative palace, block deputies’ access
The 2013 educational reforms were up for discussion in the lower house of Congress again today, but not for long: teachers once again blocked access to the Chamber of Deputies, shutting down all congressional activity.
Education and constitutional affairs commissions were to meet today and formally discuss the reforms implemented by the previous federal government, but only 20 of the 66 deputies arrived before members of the CNTE teachers’ union.
The meeting was called off and re-scheduled for Thursday.
About 30 arrived at the congressional palace at about 7:00am. Within an hour and a half, all the entrances were blocked by teachers and their tents.
The spokesman for the union’s Oaxaca local, Section 22, told reporters that the protest was in response to the failure of deputies to meet one of the teachers’ demands, namely having access to the document the lawmakers were going to discuss during today’s meeting.
Wilbert Santiago warned that “reinforcements” were expected to arrive in buses later today, and augment the protest camp’s numbers.
Last week, the Chamber of Deputies was shut down for 48 hours after about 1,500 protesting teachers set up a camp on the streets outside. mexiconewsdaily.com/news/teachers-return-to-legislative-palace/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=51a6a33595-MNT+mar27-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-51a6a33595-349631657
Epifanio Camacho: a Militant Farmworker Brushed Out of History (beats sellout religious fanatic Chavez)
Cesar Chavez is perhaps best known for his role in the 1965-1970 Delano grape strike and boycott and his nonviolent tactics in those protests.
Although Chavez insisted on nonviolence, there was dissent within the National Farmworkers Association as some workers believed more militant tactics were necessary. One of these workers was Epifanio Camacho. With Cesar Chavez day approaching, it is important to remember the work and life of Epifanio Camacho, who recently published his memoir.
Epifanio Camacho: The Making of a Militant
Camacho’s life story is critical to understanding how and why he became militant.
Epifanio Camacho was born in San Agustín, a village of about 150 inhabitants, in the province of Tamaulipas, Mexico, on the eve of the Mexican Revolution. Camacho spent his formative years in Mexico and migrated to the United States in 1955 when he was in his thirties.
Camacho’s first job was in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he worked as a gravedigger. His employer consistently underpaid him and Camacho eventually tired of this and left. He went to Oklahoma to pick cotton and then to Arizona to do the same. From there, he went to the Coachella Valley in California, where he picked dates. Eventually, he got a job at Montebello Rose in McFarland, California grafting rose plants.
The Rose Grafting Strike in McFarland (Counterpunch online)
Why L.A.’s Ride-Hail Drivers Went on Strike
The Little Red Schoolhouse
Greg Grandin on Teaching Empires Workshop
Parents charged in admissions scandal begin making their appearances in federal court (Corruption endemic in Capitalist Schools)
They filed into court, one after the other — the casino magnate, the Napa Valley vintner, the Hot Pocket heiress — having braved the Boston cold and a line of cameras and reporters outside the courthouse doors, to stand before a judge and have their rights to travel, to speak with codefendants and to change their residences curtailed or revoked.
It was a situation none of the 15 people who appeared for the first time before U.S. District Judge M. Page Kelley had been in before.
Each has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. Prosecutors allege the parents paid small fortunes to William “Rick” Singer, a Newport Beach college consultant who has pleaded guilty to four felony counts, to sneak their children into top universities with bribes, fake athletic credentials and rigged entrance exams.
A day earlier, Rudy Meredith, the former Yale women’s soccer coach, admitted to taking bribes from parents and pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and conspiracy. A dozen coaches, university officials, school administrators and teachers were arraigned in Boston federal court on Monday and pleaded not guilty.
There were, to name a few, I-Hsin “Joey” Chen, wearing an electric yellow vest and accompanied by a woman toting an enormous Louis Vuitton bag, who listened to Kelley’s instructions with the help of a Mandarin interpreter; Michelle Janavs, the Newport Coast philanthropist whose family developed the Hot Pocket; Elisabeth Kimmel, a television executive and advisor to a popular San Diego brewery; Marci Palatella, the chief executive of a liquor distribution company and wife of former San Francisco 49ers guard Lou Palatella; and two couples: Gregory and Marcia Abbot, and Diane and Todd Blake. www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-college-admissions-parents-initial-appearance-20190329-story.html
Liar Liar Pants on Fire: Kamala Harris Announces Plans to Increase Salaries for Teachers
Presidential hopeful, Kamala Harris, has announced potential policy plans to increase salaries for teachers.
The senator swept to fame after announcing her candidacy for US president in 2019. In an effort to recognize the societal contribution of educators, Harris has announced a plan to raise teachers’ salaries by 20% if she’s elected in 2020. The plan has been described as a potentially ‘historic’ investment in the education sector by the federal government. Kamala has a long and healthy record when it comes to standing up to power serving the underserved and fighting bigotry. twentytwowords.com/kamala-harris-announces-plans-increase-salaries-teachers/?utm_content=buffer9b86c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=22&fbclid=IwAR3N5hdBS0BahyNaeuZnwxMtW2LtKWrHSLWJ_yBP88A4rKhmr-Q1gfY_ics
Betsy DeVos Explains Benefits of Larger Class Sizes On Cspan
InHOG guration of President and Future Queen, SDSU’s Adela de la Torre
Student Research Symposium Showcase
Open House – 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center
Investiture of Adela de la Torre, Ph.D.
2 to 4 p.m.
Viejas Arena
Campus and Community Celebration
4 to 5:30 p.m.
Hepner Hall on Campanile Walkway
SDSU President Adela de la Torre would be honored to have you share this special occasion with her. www.sdsualumni.org/s/997/rd16/interior.aspx?sid=997&gid=1&pgid=7825&cid=16533&ecid=16533&crid=0&calpgid=61&calcid=13075
de la Torre Was Boss at UC Davis, helping oversee, then cover-up, this:
Katehi scandal at UC Davis called ‘worse than pepper spray’–de la Torre helped cover this too
As Linda P.B. Katehi’s hold on her job as chancellor of UC Davis began to unravel in March and April, her staff alternately conceived talking points to lead her out of the controversy and blamed its own failings in helping to create the crisis, newly released documents show.
UC Davis officials discussed helping Katehi slip out of a legislative hearing, critiqued her answers in media interviews and bemoaned coverage by The Sacramento Bee of her actions, which ultimately led to her suspension April 27. They provided talking points on how Katehi should handle press questions about the hiring and repeated promotions received by her daughter-in-law, along with the university’s hiring of consultants to help scrub the Internet of references to the 2011 pepper-spraying of student protesters by campus police.
The documents provide a glimpse of behind-the-scenes efforts Katehi’s staff made as the crisis spiraled out of control after the chancellor accepted a seat on the for-profit board of DeVry Education Group and angry students began a series of protests against her. As the weeks passed with more media scrutiny, the documents show how the controversy was wearing on some. Read more here: www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article90418047.html#storylink=cpy
Negotiations over Mission Valley site to be done in secret: de La Torre again, this time for developers
Negotiations over the future of the Mission Valley site are going private. The City and San Diego State are both contractually bound to work together in private and withhold any information from outside entities.
The two parties say this agreement is meant to solidify the relationship in a way that is consistent with voter approved Measure G.
Joining KUSI to discuss more on the Mission Valley site negotiations is Land Use Lawyer and C3 Board Member Cary Lowe. Video within: www.kusi.com/negotiations-over-mission-valley-site-to-be-done-in-private/
How a couple worked charter school regulations to make millions
The warning signs appeared soon after Denise Kawamoto accepted a job at Today’s Fresh Start Charter School in South Los Angeles.
Though she was fresh out of college, she was pretty sure it wasn’t normal for the school to churn so quickly through teachers or to mount surveillance cameras in each classroom. Old computers were lying around, but the campus had no internet access. Pay was low and supplies scarce — she wasn’t given books for her students.
She struggled to reconcile the school’s conditions with what little she knew about its wealthy founders, Clark and Jeanette Parker of Beverly Hills.
When Kawamoto saw their late-model Mercedes-Benz outside the school, she would think: “Look at your school, then look at what you drive.”
“That didn’t sit well with us teachers,” she said.
The Parkers have cast themselves as selfless philanthropists, telling the California Board of Education that they have “devoted all of our lives to the education of other people’s children, committed many millions of our own dollars directly to that particular purpose, with no gain directly to us.”
But the couple have, in fact, made millions from their charter schools. www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-edu-charter-schools-20190327-htmlstory.html
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
Once Jailed in Guantánamo, 5 Taliban Now Face U.S. at Peace Talks
When the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and toppled the Taliban government, even those who surrendered were treated as terrorists: handcuffed, hooded and shipped to the American detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Now, in a stark demonstration of the twists and contradictions of the long American involvement in Afghanistan, five of those men are sitting across a negotiating table from their former captors, part of the Taliban team discussing the terms of an American troop withdrawal.
[To follow the Afghan war peace negotiations, sign up for the weekly At War newsletter.]
“During our time in Guantánamo, the feeling was with us that we had been brought there unjustly and that we would be freed,” said one of the former detainees, Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa. “But it never occurred to me that one day there would be negotiations with them, and I would be sitting there with them on one side and us on the other.”
The five senior Taliban officials were held at Guantánamo for 13 years before catching a lucky break in 2014. They were exchanged for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the only known American service member to be held by the insurgents as a prisoner of war. www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/world/asia/taliban-guantanamo-afghanistan-peace-talks.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
www.facebook.com/watch/?v=303199527032308&t=117
Don’t believe the hype, Isis has not yet been defeated – here’s why
If the Americans are in fact leaving at last, the Kurds are still going to be betrayed and left to the mercy of their enemies – be this Turkey or Syria
After all the headlines about the supposed defeat of Isis, anyone who doesn’t believe a word of it may seem a bit of a spoilsport. But whenever I read that victory has been declared – whether it be of the Bush “mission accomplished” variety or the “last Isis stronghold about to fall” fantasy – I draw in my breath. Because you can make a safe bet that it’s not true.
Not just because the fighting around Baghouz is, in fact, still continuing outside the wrecked town. But because there are plenty of Isis fighters still under arms and ready to fight in the Syrian province of Idlib, along with their Hayat Tahrir al Sham, al-Nusra and al-Qaeda comrades – almost surrounded by Syrian government troops but with a narrow corridor in which they could escape to Turkey; always supposing that Sultan Erdogan will let them. There are Russian troop outposts inside these Islamist front lines, along with Turkish military forces but the tentative ceasefire which held for five months has become a lot more tenuous in the past few weeks.
Maybe it’s a failure of our institutional memory – or it’s just plain simpler to go along with the simplest story – but Idlib has for three years been the dumping ground of all Syria’s Islamist enemies, or at least the antagonists who didn’t surrender when they fled the big cities under Syrian and Russian bombardment. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/isis-caliphate-defeated-us-trump-terrorism-syria-a8836946.html
Russia Deploys Troops, Equipment to Venezuela
The deployment, which Moscow dismissed as “nothing mysterious,” raises the likelihood of a standoff between the U.S. and Russia in the strategically important country.
Russian armed forces reportedly deployed to Venezuela over the weekend as the regime of President Nicolas Maduro continues to face intense pressure from a U.S.-backed political opposition.
Two Russian military planes touched down outside the capital Caracas on Saturday carrying nearly a hundred troops and military staff, and 35 tons of cargo, according to media reports. Russian state news service Sputnik, citing an anonymous source, dismissed the deployment as “nothing mysterious” and said the officials were planning to discuss “defense industry cooperation” with their Venezuelan counterparts. www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2019-03-25/russia-deploys-troops-equipment-to-venezuela
War crimes case expands to SEAL Team 6
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Despite a lull in court-martial proceedings against Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward “Eddie” Gallagher for allegedly stabbing to death an Islamic State prisoner, the case has expanded to target members of SEAL Team 6.
Search warrant documents and email messages from Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents leaked to Navy Times reveal the seizure of cell phones and electronic communications beginning in early February, allegedly to prove that Gallagher urged fellow SEALs at the Naval Special Warfare Development Group — or DEVGRU — to obstruct justice or retaliate against junior sailors who ratted him out for war crimes.
The documents and emails appear to support a theory put forward by Gallagher’s defense attorneys that military prosecutors are going after what they call a “Mean Girls” clique of special operators.
They suspect prosecutors are trying to prove collusion between Gallagher and other SEAL leaders at California’s Naval Base Coronado and members of the color-coded DEVGRU squadrons in Virginia.
Investigators appeared to want to perform forensic examinations of the phones or otherwise track the communications to see if SEAL Team 7′s Gallagher conversed with peers at DEVGRU about retaliating against witnesses in the NCIS probe. www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/03/27/war-crimes-case-expands-to-seal-team-6/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ebb%2028.03.19&utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Military%20-%20Early%20Bird%20Brief
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
Italy’s Hug Makes China Feel Warm Inside
The first G-7 country to join Belt and Road embraces Beijing’s benign view of its place in the world.
Italy’s agreement last week to sign on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative has unnerved European and U.S. leaders who hoped for a united front against Beijing’s geo-economic ambitions. “Endorsing BRI lends legitimacy to China’s predatory approach to investment and will bring no benefits to the Italian people,” the White House’s National Security Council warned via Twitter.
While Chinese investment in Europe is nothing new, Belt and Road is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature program. Winning over a member of the Group of Seven industrialized nations and a major European country boosts its credibility. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-26/belt-and-road-tie-is-italy-s-way-to-hug-china
Xi Jinping urges France to help build trust with China ahead of meeting with Germany and EU
- Chinese President tells French counterpart Emmanuel Macron that relationship should not be based on zero-sum competition
- German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will meet Chinese leader in Paris as France pushes for more coordinated European response to China
China’s President Xi Jinping has sought to reassure France that their relationship should not be built on zero-sum competition ahead of a meeting with the German leader and head of the European Commission on Tuesday.
In a meeting with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Monday, Xi said the two countries should build their relationship on “mutual trust, practical cooperation and friendly sentiments”, according to China’s state news agency Xinhua.
Macron will host German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Paris on Tuesday, for a four-way meeting with Xi to discuss trade, climate change and Europe-China relations, as France pushes for a more coordinated EU approach to China. www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3003339/xi-jinping-urges-france-help-build-trust-china-ahead-meeting
16 Years Later, How the Press That Sold the Iraq War Got Away With It
In an excerpt from his new book Hate Inc., Matt Taibbi looks back at how the media built new lies to cover their early ones
Sixteen years ago this week, the United States invaded Iraq. We went in on an unconvincing excuse, articulated by George W. Bush in a speech days before invasion:
“Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq’s neighbors and against Iraq’s people.”
To the lie about the possession of WMDs, Bush added a few more: that Hussein “trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al-Qaeda.” Moreover, left unchecked, those Saddam-supplied terrorists could “kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country.”
The disaster that followed cost over a hundred-thousand lives just in Iraq and drained north of $2 trillion from the budget. Once we were in and the “most lethal weapons ever devised” were not discovered, it quickly became obvious that large numbers of people at the highest levels of society had either lied, screwed up, or both.
The news media appropriately caught a huge chunk of the blame. But a public that had been fooled once was not prepared for the multiple rounds of post-invasion deceptions that followed, issued by many of the same pols and press actors. These were designed to rewrite history in real time, creating new legends that have now lasted 16 years.
These have allowed people like Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer — through whose mouth many of the chief lies of the era flowed — to come out this week and claim it was a “myth” that “Bush lied, people died.”
The myths had enormous utility to the working press, whose gargantuan errors have been re-cast as honest mistakes of judgment. A lot of the people who made those mistakes are still occupying prominent positions, their credibility undamaged thanks to a new legend best articulated by New Yorker editor David Remnick, who later scoffed, “Nobody got that story completely right.”
Nobody except the record number of people who marched against the war on February 15, 2003 — conservative estimates placed it between six and ten million worldwide (I marched in D.C.). Every one of those people was way ahead of Remnick. www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/iraq-war-media-fail-matt-taibbi-812230/
‘We’re in the Last Hour’: Democracy Itself Is on Trial in Brexit, Britons Say
No one feels that the government has represented their interests. No one is satisfied. No one is hopeful.
It has amounted to a hollowing out of confidence in democracy itself.
“I don’t think the central institutions of government have been discredited like this in the postwar period,” said William Davies, who teaches political economy at Goldsmiths, University of London….“Maybe the best thing to come out of this is the recognition that the political elites — people just want them to get off the stage. www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/world/europe/uk-brexit-democracy-may.html
The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement and The War on Reason
![Jamal Khashoggi wearing a hat: Dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a team sent from Riyadh]({"default":{"load":"default","w":"77","h":"52","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BBVqtsL.img?h=524&w=768&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=342&y=291"},"size3column":{"load":"default","w":"62","h":"43","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BBVqtsL.img?h=426&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=342&y=291"},"size2column":{"load":"default","w":"62","h":"43","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BBVqtsL.img?h=426&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=342&y=291"}})
Members of Saudi team that killed Khashoggi received training in US
Members of the Saudi team that killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi received training in the United States, the Washington Post has reported, revealing other new elements in the death of the newspaper’s former contributor.
A critic of the Saudi regime, Khashoggi was killed and dismembered October 2 in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a team of 15 agents sent from Riyadh. His body has never been recovered.
After having denied the murder, Saudi Arabia said the operation was carried out by agents who were out of control. A trial of 11 suspects opened earlier this year in Saudi Arabia.
But much of the case remains shrouded, beginning with the role of Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman.
The US Senate, after a closed-door briefing by the CIA, adopted a resolution naming the crown prince as “responsible” for the murder, while President Donald Trump has refused to publicly take a stand.
According to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, a Saudi who closely read the transcript of a recording from a bug placed in the consulate by Turkish intelligence said it indicates the plan was to kidnap Khashoggi and bring him back to Saudi Arabia for detention and interrogation.
A note in the transcript says an injection was administered to Khashoggi, which the Saudi source said was probably a powerful sedative.
A bag was then placed over his head, and Khashoggi screamed: “I can’t breathe, I have asthma. Don’t do this.” According to the Post, he died soon after.
The transcript describes a buzzing noise, perhaps an electric saw used to dismember the journalist.
According to Ignatius, who said he interviewed more than a dozen American and Saudi sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, some members of the Saudi Rapid Intervention Group received training in the United States. www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/members-of-saudi-team-that-killed-khashoggi-received-training-in-us-report/ar-BBVqtsM?ocid=ob-fb-enus-280&fbclid=IwAR3p5yQuj33psd2sly_-sQr0i9UPmwBwXvpL5kbGS-C-UdLviPSUYZrxC2g
Leaks reveal white nationalists active at San Diego colleges
A recent leak of more than 200,000 online chat logs from a white supremacist group reveals how local members are targeting students on San Diego college campuses and trying to project a respectable image even as the group’s members privately espouse Islamophobic, anti-Semitic and racist views.
The group, called Identity Evropa, is nationally known for helping organize the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., where a protester was killed and dozens injured over two days of clashes.
More recently, the group made news because online whistleblowers began identifying Identity Evropa members, publishing their online chat messages and linking them with social media posts. In the last week, their efforts have led to official investigations of a Virginia school police officer and seven service members from various branches of the U.S. military.
A San Diego Union-Tribune review of the chat logs has revealed that a local branch of Identity Evropa has visited area colleges at least a dozen times since fall 2017, though fliers first appeared at San Diego State University the year before. The chat logs also refer to publicity and recruitment activities at Southern California colleges as recently as last month www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-san-diego-white-nationalists-20190324-story.html
U.S. Mercenaries Arrested in Haiti Were Part of a Half-Baked Scheme to Move $80 Million for Embattled President
Most of the Americans arrived in Port-au-Prince from the U.S. by private jet early on the morning of February 16. They’d packed the eight-passenger charter plane with a stockpile of semiautomatic rifles, handguns, Kevlar bulletproof vests, and knives. Most had been paid already: $10,000 each up front, with another $20,000 promised to each man after they finished the job.
A trio of politically connected Haitians greeted the Americans when their plane landed around 5 a.m. An aide to embattled Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and two other regime-friendly Haitians whisked them through the country’s biggest airport, avoiding customs and immigration agents, who had not yet reported for work.
The American team included two former Navy SEALs, a former Blackwater-trained contractor, and two Serbian mercenaries who lived in the U.S. Their leader, a 52-year-old former Marine C-130 pilot named Kent Kroeker, had told his men that this secret operation had been requested and approved by Moïse himself. The Haitian president’s emissaries had told Kroeker that the mission would involve escorting the presidential aide, Fritz Jean-Louis, to the Haitian central bank, where he’d electronically transfer $80 million from a government oil fund to a second account controlled solely by the president. In the process, the Haitians told the Americans, they’d be preserving democracy in Haiti. theintercept.com/2019/03/20/haiti-president-mercenary-operation/?utm_source=The+Intercept+Newsletter&utm_campaign=7c46173133-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_03_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e00a5122d3-7c46173133-131514793
Solidarity for Never
Friday March 1, a powerful strike by the Oakland Education Association (OEA) came to an abrupt halt when the union’s bargaining team and officers agreed to a tentative contract settlement that fell far short of what Oakland teachers and their student and community supporters thought they’d been fighting for.
The next day, over 100 OEA site representatives met to discuss the settlement and then vote on whether to recommend ratification to the general OEA membership. Labor videographer Steve Zeltzer interviewed several people on their way into the meeting hall. The interviewees included some past and present OEA leaders, as well as several rank and file members, and presents a diversity of views, ranging from outraged opponents of the settlement to staunch defenders. The video is 25 minutes long, and we think that it’s well worth watching in its entirety.
Jack Gerson, former Oakland Education Association Executive Board and former negotiating team member
After betrayal of Oakland teacher strike, district lays off hundreds, prepares school closures
The betrayal of the seven-day teacher strike by the Oakland Education Association (OEA) has opened the door for the school officials in Oakland, California to accelerate their assault on public education.
On March 4, the day after the strike officially ended, the school board enacted $22 million in budget cuts, including $1.1 million from services for disabled, homeless and foster care youth support as well as $800,000 from music programs. Another $3.6 million was cut from restorative justice programs for conflict mediation, $1.3 million from nutrition for poor students, and $2.9 million from college preparation programs. As part of the OEA’s deal with the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), the union agreed to help impose these cuts.
Roughly a week later, the district began to distribute layoff notices to 257 educators across the district, including teachers with strong performance reviews, as part of the $22 million in budget cuts. Prior to the strike, the OEA adamantly refused to include teachers’ steadfast opposition to budget cuts as one of its demands at the bargaining table, echoing the district’s claims that this could not be included in collective bargaining.
A similar process has unfolded in Denver, Colorado, where over 220 positions have been cut to pay for a meager salary increase. Like their counterparts in Oakland, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association called the deal to end the strike an “historic victory.” www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/28/oakl-m28.html
GM squeezed $118 million from its workers, then shut their factory: UAW Hacks SHOCKED!
Union workers are livid that they agreed to make $118 million a year in annual concessions to save the plant in mid-2017, only to have GM effectively threaten to close it down a year and a half later. Unless GM reverses its course, Lordstown will fall victim to the harsh reality that fewer consumers are buying small cars and that Chief Executive Mary Barra is hyper-focused on doing business only where GM can earn big returns.
“Everything they asked us to do, we did,” said Dan Morgan, the shop chairman of Local 1112 and chief negotiator of the agreement, the details of which haven’t previously been reported. “And still, we don’t have a product to build.”
GM idled the plant in March, saying demand for the Cruze was too weak to continue. In an email, GM spokesman Dan Flores said that the union agreed to many concessions but that they didn’t address the realities the company faces.
The problem isn’t high wages, it’s falling sales — and GM’s post-bankruptcy cash flow discipline. “We didn’t discontinue the Cruze because of something the local union did or didn’t do,” Flores wrote. “It was a market-driven decision to discontinue the Cruze, and there were no products to allocate to Lordstown.” www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-general-motors-lordstown-ohio-union-20190329-story.html
UAW membership dropped by 35,000 in 2018
The United Auto Workers lost more than 35,000 members in 2018, a 9 percent decrease, according to documents filed Friday with the U.S. Department of Labor.
The union said in the filing it had 395,703 members last year, down from 430,871 it had in 2017. It marks the first time in nine years the union has shrunk since its ranks reached a low of 355,191 in 2009 during the Great Recession.
The fall in membership came even as 264,000 new manufacturing jobs were added in the U.S. in 2018. That was the most new workers in 30 years.
The UAW called the numbers in the annual filing “a snapshot in time” and attributed the reduction in the filing to fluctuations in end-of-the-year payments from members that resulted in about 10,000 members not being counted in the union’s 2018 filing. www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2019/03/29/uaw-membership-dropped-last-year/3314861002/
Treachery
AFSCME Brags About Gaining 9,000 Members… After It Lost 110,000 Fee-Payers
In a lengthy press release after submitting its disclosure report to the U.S. Department of Labor, AFSCME trumpeted its “strong membership numbers” in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Janus ruling.
The union did add 9,097 active members in 2018, bringing its active member total to 1,153,225. That’s only half the story.
AFSCME has been playing semantic games with reporters for months after Janus, telling the Washington Post that it had gained seven new members for every one it lost.
But the only workers immediately freed by Janus were agency fee-payers, and here the news for AFSCME was much less rosy. The union reported 2,215 fee-payers in 2018 — a loss of more 110,000 workers.
These snapshots are useful, because they represent the only reasonably reliable numbers the public gets to see. But the overall effect of the Janus ruling will play out in trends over time. History tells us unions will lose members as more workers become aware of their options. History also tells us that losses will eventually plateau. Everyone should calm down.
SEIU Wants A Strong Labor Movement. Just Maybe Not Inside SEIU.
Workers at the Washington headquarters of the Service Employees International Union held a vote March 12 to determine whether they would be willing to go on strike. After months of negotiations, SEIU and its staff union still hadn’t reached a new collective bargaining agreement, creating the real possibility of a work stoppage inside one of the country’s largest labor unions.
Most employees found management’s final contract offer unacceptable, fearing it would weaken their job security and the viability of their own union. But they knew management planned to stand firm ― especially when they found printouts of management’s talking points in copiers around the building.
The document made clear in bold that management would budge no more at the table. It also included what some employees considered an ominous warning if they chose to walk out due to the impasse: SEIU “will be well prepared to conduct the business of our members without interruption in the event of a strike.”
Translation: We can get by without you.
In a sign of the staff discontent, 92 percent of those who cast ballots voted in favor of the strike authorization, meaning leaders of the staff union could declare a stoppage if and when they saw fit. www.huffpost.com/entry/seiu-union-busting-bargaining-agreement-labor_n_5c9bdd80e4b08c450cd06aaf
Agenda for the 2019 NEA Rep Assembly (delegates are already planning their parties, ballgames, boat rides, in the midst of a huge wildcat wave–and they’ll go for some corrupt Dem to boot.
ra.nea.org/agenda/?fbclid=IwAR1AfdeMplZiPEk7eYO6IMUDI5Li2FQL6QPj2sIby-RyT3eJcwTZRz81qvI
Gradebook podcast: Who’s listening to Florida’s teacher union? Interview With FEA Suck up Prezzie
![Florida Education Association president Fed Ingram visits Tampa and St. Petersburg on March 28, 2019, to talk about education with community groups. [Jeffrey S. Solochek | Times]](https://www.tampabay.com/storyimage/HI/20190328/ARTICLE/303289774/AR/0/AR-303289774.jpg&MaxW=1200&Q=66 "Florida Education Association president Fed Ingram visits Tampa and St. Petersburg on March 28, 2019, to talk about education with community groups. [Jeffrey S. Solochek | Times]")
Leaders of the Florida Education Association, the state’s teacher union, have long been a vocal presence in Florida’s political landscape. When current president Fed Ingram took office, he suggested the organization’s approach wasn’t working in conservative Tallahassee. He planned to take the advocacy in a different direction. After several months, he’s seen some progress, but acknowledges it can be difficult to have influence when so many decision makers don’t share his group’s philosophy. www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/2019/03/28/whos-listening-to-floridas-teacher-union/?fbclid=IwAR0CmqFOf6BefzXhmUJzH0iw_rbX_0Tjyk_jtydWOccjbuLroveLUMnaq1A
BBQ for Breakfast and 2-Hour Commutes
South Africa’s power blackouts have our journalists scrounging for candles and cooking outside.
Fire-cooked meals, fraying tempers on gridlocked roads, an obsession with keeping devices charged, and candles. Lots of candles. As South Africans experienced a second week of blackouts, new routines set in.
I start the morning with a glance at my power-outage app to get the day’s schedule. Our Johannesburg home had no electricity for 4.5 hours every day last week, mostly starting at noon or 8 p.m. If it’s an evening-outage day we’ll either eat early or find a restaurant that has power, a generator or wood-fired oven. We avoid sushi.
Some Bloomberg colleagues are more creative. Telecom reporter Loni Prinsloo has been cooking morning and evening meals on a grill in the yard. On the menu: steak, eggs and “braaibroodjies”—grilled sandwiches cooked on the barbecue, or braai, as it’s known locally. Others, like Cape Town-based editor John Viljoen, are especially glad to have gas cooktops. www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-24/bbq-for-breakfast-and-2-hour-commutes?utm_source=CJR+Daily+News&utm_campaign=98051f1b2c-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_10_31_05_02_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9c93f57676-98051f1b2c-174344297
Spy versus Spy
Taibbi: As the Mueller Probe Ends, New Russiagate Myths Begin
Donald Trump couldn’t have asked for a juicier 2020 campaign issue
…For the commercial press to recapture any dignity after this collusion debacle, it has to at least start admitting to its role in artificially raising expectations in the last two years. It’s hard to imagine them doing that, however. This story has been so enormously profitable for cable stations, in particular, it will be hard for them to let go of this narrative. What are they going to do, go back to just reporting the news? One can almost feel how depressed network executives must be at the thought. They’ve trained audiences to expect bombshells. What will they sell now? www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/taibbi-russia-investigation-conclusions-813171/h
Break-In at North Korean Embassy: Spain Says Gang Stole Material and Offered It to F.B.I.
An armed group attacked the North Korean Embassy in Madrid last month and then fled. Neighbors reported hearing a woman’s screams, but the embassy did not want to discuss the events with the Spanish police.
On Tuesday, the story got even stranger.
A Mexican man who lives in the United States led the raid, and later offered material stolen from the embassy to the F.B.I., a Spanish judge investigating the case said.
In a summary of his investigation, José de la Mata, a judge of Spain’s national court, identified the leader of the gang as Adrian Hong Chang, who he said had escaped, through Portugal, to the United States. An American citizen, identified as Sam Ruy, was also involved in the Feb. 22 assault, he said.
The judge later issued international arrest warrants for both suspects, according to an official from the court. www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/world/europe/spain-north-korea-embassy-attack.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage
Saudi Arabia ‘hacked Amazon boss’s phone’, says investigator
Gavin de Becker was hired by Mr Bezos to find out how his private messages had been leaked to the National Enquirer tabloid.
Mr de Becker linked the hack to the Washington Post’s coverage of the murder of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Saudi Arabia has not yet commented on the allegation.
Mr Bezos owns the Washington Post.
Mr de Becker said he had handed his findings over to US federal officials.
“Our investigators and several experts concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos’ phone, and gained private information,” he wrote on the Daily Beast website. www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47763179
The Magical Mystery Tour
An Outbreak Spreads Fear: Of Measles, of Ultra-Orthodox Fanatical Jews, of Anti-Semitism
A measles outbreak in a New York suburb has sickened scores of people and stoked long-smoldering tensions between the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and the secular world at large.
Erica Wingate was working at a clothing store in town this week when a male customer, with the black hat and sidelocks typically worn by ultra-Orthodox Jews, started coughing.
Another shopper standing next to him suddenly dropped the item she had been holding and clutched her child. “She was buying something, and she just threw it down,” Ms. Wingate recalled. “She said, ‘Let’s go, let’s go! Jews don’t have shots!’”
A measles outbreak in this suburban New York county has sickened scores of people and alarmed public health experts who fear it may be a harbinger of the growing influence of the anti-vaccine movement. But it has also intensified long-smoldering tensions between the rapidly expanding and insular ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and secular society.
The authorities here in Rockland County have traced the spread of measles to ultra-Orthodox families whose children have not been vaccinated. www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/nyregion/measles-jewish-community.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Below, Ali Asks Why Jesus is White
www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2107621355952161&t=109
The Vatican takes heat after pope keeps worshipers from kissing ring (who knows where its been?); staff of women’s magazine resigns
Pope Francis greeted the faithful at St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday and allowed nuns and priests to kiss his papal ring during his weekly audience without a hitch, a likely relief to a Vatican encountering sharp criticism this week.
The Vatican came under fire from some Roman Catholics after images showed Francis repeatedly pulling his hand away from worshipers who leaned down to kiss his papal ring Monday in Loreto, Italy. In addition, the all-female staff of the Vatican’s women’s magazine resigned, alleging editorial interference from their male boss.
Some Catholics said the so-called baciamano is a sign of respect paid by the faithful to the church, not only the pope.
“Is it possible that the pope does not understand that the people who wish to kiss his ring wish to honor St. Peter and not him?” priest Dwight Longenecker, pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Greenville, S.C., wrote on his blog. “If he does not, then it would seem that he has not learned one of the basic lessons that every priest should learn — that it’s not all about him.”
Reactions posted on the conservative Catholic website Lifesite News went so far as to describe Francis’ behavior as “demonic” and “mentally unhinged.” Some Catholics are already angered by Francis’ mercy-before-dogma papacy and his push to allow divorced and civilly remarried divorcees receive Communion.
The Vatican did not comment on the images of the pope in Loreto.
Austen Ivereigh, who has written a biography of the pope, said the pontiff disliked the air of deference about the ring kissing gesture…..
The resignations involving the women’s magazine staff occurred Tuesday.
“Women Church World,” which is published alongside the Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano, has lifted the lid on scandals within the church, including the cases of bishops and cardinals who compel nuns to cook and clean for them for little or no pay.
Last month, the publication exposed the sexual abuse by priests of nuns who are forced to have abortions or give birth to children who are not recognized by their fathers. The article said nuns have kept silent about the abuse for years out of fear of retribution.
Francis acknowledged the abuse when asked about it last month, saying, “I cannot say no, in my house we don’t have this problem.”
Lucetta Scaraffia, who founded the women’s publication in 2012, said a newly appointed editor at L’Osservatore Romano, Andrea Monda, who took over in December, had tried to assume editorship at the magazine as well.
He had retreated when the staff threatened to resign, but then added new female writers to tone down the coverage, said Scaraffia.
“We are throwing in the towel because we feel surrounded by a climate of distrust and progressive de-legitimization,” Scaraffia wrote in an open letter to Francis, who has often called for a greater role for women at the Vatican.
In its final editorial for the magazine, which has yet to be published, the staff said Monda was “pitting women against one another.”
Monda denied the accusation, saying in a statement that he had merely suggested topics and contributors.
In her letter, Scaraffia said there was a “return to the antiquated and arid custom of choosing women considered trustworthy from on-high, under the direct control of men.”
Moon to Ocean, San Diego.Ex-principal sues district after gifting wooden penis to employee
Sen. Mike Lee: Real Solution To Fight Climate Change Is To Have More Children
www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/315785525750245/?t=4
So Long
We Remember Viola Liuzzo Murdered After Driving Voting Rights Activists to Selma
25 March
He says it was a parting gift between two friends at a St. Clair County high school based on an inside joke.
His employer thought otherwise.
A wooden penis given to a female security guard at the high school by the principal is now the subject of a civil lawsuit in federal court in Detroit.
The school’s superintendent alleges the gift was given in front of others, and the woman also cried repeatedly after receiving it and that she felt sexually harassed by it.
John Stanton, former principal of Anchor Bay High School, is suing the district’s superintendent, Leonard Woodside, alleging his constitutional rights were violated when he was forced to resign from his job in June 2017 after giving the gift to the woman as she left for another job in the district.
Stanton alleges in the lawsuit the woman had first given him the wooden penis after she confiscated it from a student at the high school. www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2019/03/22/ex-principal-sues-district-after-gifting-wooden-penis-employee/3244519002/