We Say Fight Back!

 

CPS strike: Teachers and support staff, along with parks workers, will all strike on Oct. 17 if no contract deals reached

Ecuador fuel protests: 350 arrested as demonstrations continue

Transportation in major cities continues to be paralysed as bus and taxi workers strike over cuts to fuel subsidies.

Protests over fuel subsidy cuts paralysed transportation around Ecuador for a second day on Friday as authorities held 350 people in jail for unrest triggered by President Lenin Moreno’s belt-tightening fiscal package.

Witnesses said bus and taxi services remained on strike after fuel prices soared on Thursday following  Moreno’s fiscal measures earlier in the week.

Moreno – putting Ecuador on a more market-friendly track after years of left-wing rule and aligning policies to conform with a $4.2bn International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan – has scrapped decades-old fuel subsidies and announced tax reforms.

That has infuriated transport unions, whose action has been joined by indigenous groups, students and other unions.   www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/ecuador-fuel-protests-275-detained-demonstrations-continue-191004135117634.html

www.facebook.com/theanongroup/videos/413595942632960/?t=50

 

Climate Strike/Auto Strike: Same Struggle, Same Fight

by Laura Flanders

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Why We Should Teach About the FBI’s War on the Civil Rights Movement

his month marks the 45th anniversary of a dramatic moment in U.S. history. On March 8, 1971—while Muhammad Ali was fighting Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden, and as millions sat glued to their TVs watching the bout unfold—a group of peace activists broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and stole every document they could find.

Keith Forsyth, one of the people who broke in, explained!:

I was spending as much time as I could with organizing against the war, but I had become very frustrated with legal protest. The war was escalating and not de-escalating. And I think what really pushed me over the edge was, shortly after the invasion of Cambodia, there were four students killed at Kent State and two more killed at Jackson State. And that really pushed me over the edge, that it was time to do more than just protest.

Delivered to the press, these documents revealed an FBI conspiracy—known as COINTELPRO—to disrupt and destroy a wide range of protest groups, including the Black freedom movement. The break-in, and the government treachery it revealed, is a chapter of our not-so-distant past that all high school students—and all the rest of us—should learn, yet one that history textbooks continue to ignore.  www.commondreams.org/views/2016/03/01/why-we-should-teach-about-fbis-war-civil-rights-movement?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3RZ9svEhsl0AMAFUOwXKHPtrcWomux8aSmuWDj-P_fSa37lZnwD3CmKCk

www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/502816043600092/?t=10

 

Donald Trump Jr., girlfriend to get $50,000 to speak at University of Florida

Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, his girlfriend and a former television news personality, are slated to speak at the University of Florida next week. The $50,000 paycheck they’ll receive for the event has sparked pushback. www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-education/2019/10/03/donald-trump-jr-girlfriend-to-get-50-000-to-speak-at-university-of-florida-484844

Southwestern community college.
3 cop cars for one handicap placard ?????? pic.twitter.com/tMxWZMKvXb

— ♡mamas♡ (@_moran_iguess) October 1, 2019

Southwestern investigates campus police after black student was handcuffed, cited for parking infraction

A video of Southwestern College police officers handcuffing and detaining a black male student — at one point taking him to the ground — after a suspected parking infraction earlier this week has fueled student concerns about police discrimination against people of color.

The video, shot by another student and posted on Twitter, shows the student cursing and yelling while handcuffed on the Chula Vista community college campus, and asking what he had done to be arrested.

“I’m literally walking to my car and you’re (expletive) arresting me, bro?” the student yells at the officers surrounding him in the Tuesday incident.   www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2019-10-03/forum-today-after-video-surfaces-of-police-handcuffing-college-student-for-parking-infraction

Morning Report: Southwestern Title IX Investigation Took an Unexpected Turn

Two years ago, investigators were looking into a Title IX complaint against Southwestern College professor John Tolli when they made a shocking find: Tolli’s work computer contained a trove of nude photos of himself and other students, plus videos of him having sex with a student in his office and videos of him masturbating.

Documents show one former student of Tolli’s who had a sexual relationship with him told investigators that she’d felt preyed on by Tolli’s status, then pressured to stay quiet about their affair. She shared with the investigator an email in which he had told her that a complaint to the college would have no merit, so “save yourself the embarrassment.”

During the investigation, the biology professor said his behavior did not demonstrate that he was a bad teacher, it instead reflected that he was a bad husband.

Southwestern officials refused to disclose the investigation documents to the school’s newspaper, The Sun. It only released the documents after the involvement of a VOSD lawyer.

A resignation agreement between the school and Tolli shows he was allowed to quietly resign, and Southwestern officials agreed not to mention the findings to prospective employers.

He now works at San Diego City College.   www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/morning-report-southwestern-title-ix-investigation-took-an-unexpected-turn/?utm_source=Voice+of+San+Diego+Master+List&utm_campaign=806249d7d4-Morning_Report&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c2357fd0a3-806249d7d4-81862829&goal=0_c2357fd0a3-806249d7d4-81862829

 

Second caught-on-video fight roils Moreno Valley schools, weeks after fatal attack on 13-year-old

One week after a 13-year-old boy died from injuries suffered in a sucker-punch attack by two students at a Moreno Valley school, a new video has emerged showing a group of girls fighting at another campus roughly six miles away.

The fight broke out about 11:10 a.m. Wednesday at Sunnymead Middle School and was captured in a graphic video.

In the video, an altercation between two 12-year-old girls begins inside a classroom. One walks over to another. As a teacher tries to restrain the first girl, instructing another student to call the police, the girl breaks free and strikes the other girl. The two fall to the floor, hitting each other as students start screaming. The first girl pulls the other’s hair, while the teacher continues to try to intervene.  www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-04/fight-breaks-out-at-moreno-valley-middle-school-week-after-boy-dies-from-sucker-punch

Union Report: When Unions Open Their Own Charter Schools — Lessons From California’s Kwachiiyoa Elementary

As difficult as it may be to believe nowadays, when teacher unions deem charter schools their mortal enemies, there was a brief period of time when they took a different approach. Affiliates of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers once created their own charter schools. They were to be established as models for how excellent schools could be if the best educational and labor practices espoused by the unions were followed.

NEA’s motto is “Great Public Schools for Every Student.” Here’s what happened when the union tried to construct one great public school for 450 students.

In 1996, NEA created the Charter School Initiative. It was a project to build and support six charters around the country. The national union put $1.5 million behind the effort. Then-NEA President Bob Chase told a congressional subcommittee that “charter schools can become a positive vehicle for reform within public schools, depending on how they are developed, funded, structured and governed.”

Chase was convinced that “when charter schools are created along the lines that our members have chosen, professional educators applying best practices and teaming with parents and community members, that they do indeed offer hope for positive changes within our public school system as a whole.”  www.the74million.org/article/union-report-when-unions-open-their-own-charter-schools-lessons-from-californias-kwachiiyoa-elementary/

University of Iowa tells faculty not to promote Greta Thunberg visit via UI social media

‘This event does not fall within the scope of something we can promote’

In the news that teenage globe-trotting climate activist Greta Thunberg — fresh off her viral admonishment last week before the United Nations — is participating today in an Iowa City protest, a University of Iowa environmental sciences professor saw opportunity.

“If we haven’t already, I’d like to suggest we put Greta’s visit up on (Civil and Environmental Engineering) Facebook,” UI professor Michelle Scherer suggested Thursday to colleagues in the UI College of Engineering, according to emails provided to The Gazette.

Scherer, a civil and environmental engineering professor who serves as associate director of a National Science Foundation Sustainable Water Development Graduate Program, suggested the UI also share information about the Swedish teen’s Iowa visit via its College of Engineering and IIHR — Hydroscience & Engineering outlets.

But a college communications and marketing team member shot down that suggestion, citing the university’s “political activity” guidelines and policy.

“We cannot use our channels to publicize or promote policy change,” replied Jason Kosovski, director of marketing and communications in the Engineering College. “We are always free to publicize our research, even if it has policy impacts, but Greta’s visit does not fit under the umbrella of university research.”

He stressed faculty and staff not use college, center, or department channels to promote Thunberg’s visit.   www.thegazette.com/subject/news/education/greta-thunberg-iowa-city-climate-strike-university-of-iowa-facebook-post-social-media-20191004?template=amphtml&fbclid=IwAR3qxL4qN6eHh9rzXL3FOlTaL9CkKu5Buw6sibeK9n6y6f1igDZI8pZGKHY

Many San Diego Unified Schools Are Nowhere Near Full

State data shows 94 schools reported enrollment below 80 percent capacity, and a dozen schools were at 50 percent capacity or less. But San Diego Unified isn’t the only district grappling with declining student populations

School is back in session, and San Diego Unified School District anticipates educating about 1,200 fewer K-12 students than last year.

Student enrollment has declined steadily at the region’s largest public school district in recent years. The district taught less than 103,000 students last year – 7,700 fewer than just five years ago and 14,700 fewer than 10 years ago, according to district records.

And there is no sign the slide will slow anytime soon.

Budget documents show San Diego Unified officials anticipate a loss of about 1,500 more students next year, and again the year after, when enrollment may dip below 99,000 students.  That’s bad news for district leaders who are routinely left searching for millions of dollars in spending cuts. Since the state funds public schools on a per pupil basis, lost students means lost money – about $13,000 per student annually for San Diego Unified, according to state data.  www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/many-san-diego-unified-schools-are-nowhere-near-full/

Attorney who paid $75,000 to rig daughter’s ACT exam sentenced to 1 month in admissions scandal

Having already lost his bar license and co-chairmanship at a prestigious law firm, Gordon Caplan on Thursday received a final rebuke from the legal system he once sat atop when he was sentenced to one month in prison for conspiring to rig his daughter’s college entrance exams.

Caplan, a resident of Greenwich, Conn., paid $75,000 to ensure his daughter received a score in the 97th percentile on the ACT. Her test was fixed by William “Rick” Singer, a Newport Beach consultant who has admitted rigging dozens of such exams for his wealthy clients by bribing test proctors and administrators.

Once a co-chairman of the global law firm Willkie Farr and Gallagher, Caplan, 53, was ordered incarcerated by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani over the objections of his attorneys, who had argued Caplan was so disgraced, his career so ruined and his family so wounded by his misdeeds that prison wasn’t necessary.  www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-03/attorney-sentenced-in-college-admissions-scandal?fbclid=IwAR2kKxrIthlcYIozpaiUuPOyFAfDEkfBrDqmAD9R3_zl-ON56ncVb4DTG0I

Key college admissions scandal figure will cooperate with feds in blow to accused parents

The head of a West Hollywood private school where dozens of wealthy parents allegedly had their children’s SAT and ACT exams fixed signaled on Tuesday that he would plead guilty and cooperate with investigators, a blow to parents who have maintained their innocence in the college admissions scandal.

The plea is a coup for prosecutors, who are likely to use the administrator to support their argument that William “Rick” Singer and his clients were entwined in a criminal conspiracy to get their children into elite colleges.

Igor Dvorskiy, director of the West Hollywood College Preparatory School, will plead guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering no later than Nov. 20, according to a plea agreement filed Tuesday in federal court. He has agreed to cooperate with the government and testify at trial, if called. Melissa Weinberger, an attorney for Dvorskiy, declined to comment.  www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-01/west-hollywood-test-administrator-to-plead-guilty

Lost Decade: How Palm Beach County public schools cut pay for veteran teachers

Palm Beach County public schools cut the pay for veteran teachers by thousands of dollars over the past decade, relegating the county’s most experienced educators to lower salaries than their predecessors even as the cost of living climbed.

A typical 20-year teacher in Palm Beach County earns $3,000 less today than a typical 20-year teacher did in 2008, a Palm Beach Post analysis of school district salary records shows. A typical 15-year teacher earns $1,000 less than a 15-year teacher did a decade ago, while a 25-year teacher earns $2,100 less.

Those salary declines were in real dollars. They become far greater when the effects of inflation are considered.

Beset by a recession, new salary rules and reduced state financing, school district leaders froze teachers’ pay in 2010 and 2011, then ditched a longstanding salary schedule that had rewarded senior teachers with larger raises.

As the Great Recession faded into memory, the school district began to shift more money for raises to younger teachers, a sea change that boosted their starting pay by 14 percent in a decade but reduced salaries higher up the pay scale.

The result: Thousands of veteran teachers earning thousands of dollars less than teachers at their experience level did just a decade earlier.   www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20180727/lost-decade-how-palm-beach-county-public-schools-cut-pay-for-veteran-teachers?fbclid=IwAR1dl2RBWIFjRrQpA6_1Xq8OCExPgyoYHCR0rz6HRYDPxnwGV8T7WLoACXM

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

ISIS in Afghanistan is still able to field thousands of fighters despite hellacious fight to destroy it

Death toll climbs, unrest spreads in Iraq in days of protests

Iraqi security forces opened fire on thousands of demonstrators who defied a curfew in Baghdad on Thursday and exchanged fire with gunmen in southern cities, bringing to 27 the death toll from three days of anti-government protests.

The protests spread to other cities in predominantly Shi’ite Muslim southern Iraq, where policemen said they increasingly encountered demonstrators carrying weapons.

Two policemen and two protesters were killed late on Thursday in the city of Diwaniya some 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, according to police.

In nearby Hilla protester was bludgeoned to death, according to police and hospital sources.

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

LeDuff: Trump By Another Name at Detroit City Hall

Remember what happened when it was discovered that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer paid hush money to a porn star to keep her mouth shut about the president’s bedside manner? That lawyer, Michael Cohen is doing prison time for, among other things, violating campaign finance law.

Meanwhile, here in Detroit, Mayor Mike Duggan is being investigated by the city’s Inspector General for steering money and city resources to his girlfriend’s maternal health project. When the press asked to inspect records regarding the arrangement, Duggan’s staffers deleted some of them.

Those records have since been recovered and are now available on the city’s website for free. Still, the city is demanding $222,667 to release 400,000 other pages of documents to the press. …

And now we get the news this week that Detroit is once again the most violent city in America. That’s a big deal, a barometer of what is truly going on in the Motor City and what progress, if any, we’re making. And yet, nearly every local news organization ignored the story.

Consider that we’ve been told year after year by Police Chief James E. Craig that crime in the city was falling at record levels. But when you look at the FBI’s numbers, violent crime today is exactly what it was in 2014, his first full year as chief. The needle hasn’t moved.

Imagine if this were Washington, and the director of the FBI was faking crime numbers. Imagine if the deputy director of the FBI was sent to prison for accepting bribes. Imagine if the FBI organized crime task force was caught not once – but twice – stealing drugs and money from the Mexican drug cartel. But that’s what happened in the Detroit police department under Chief Craig.   www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/23391/leduff_trump_by_another_name_at_detroit_city_hall?fbclid=IwAR1A37LSR4t7fbHQsUVg8_NQ491XPHRCF7IMbfMnnzx2oIY0BIh_bGwBAC8

‘Eye-Popping’: Analysis Shows Top 1% Gained $21 Trillion in Wealth Since 1989 While Bottom Half Lost $900 Billion

Manufacturing contracted for a second consecutive month in September, falling to its lowest level of activity in a decade, according to the Institute for Supply Management (ISM).

The group’s production manufacturing index slid to 47.8, down from 49.1 percent in August. Any reading below 50 percent indicates contraction.

New orders, production and employment measures were all in negative territory, while a gauge of supplier deliveries held in positive territory, even though it dipped from the previous month.

Markets slumped on the news, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 185 points, or 0.7 percent.

Trade was one of the main factors weighing down manufacturing.

“Global trade remains the most significant issue, as demonstrated by the contraction in new export orders that began in July 2019. Overall, sentiment this month remains cautious regarding near-term growth,” said ISM Chairman Timothy R. Fiore.  thehill.com/policy/finance/463823-manufacturing-index-falls-to-lowest-level-in-decade-ism?fbclid=IwAR0Bb2_et2lfgOkV_UQpxmVssdcwM5Butz61EHltgZ9pBa1ZqtnUTZpfCSg

Receiver in $300M Gina Champion-Cain fraud case uncovers at least $12M to $14M in assets

A preliminary report by the receiver in the Gina Champion-Cain fraud case reveals a tangled web of more than 60 businesses and properties — many encumbered by debt and high payroll — plus dozens of bank accounts, leaving the enterprise with an initial value of $12 million to $14 million.

Court-appointed receiver Krista Freitag, however, cautioned that it so early in the investigative process that the financial assessment could change considerably as she unravels what could be even more business entities and possible third parties who might have aided Champion-Cain in her enterprise.

Freitag issued the report Thursday in connection with her continuing assessment of a now largely defunct business empire that was brought down by a liquor license loan scheme that the Securities and Exchange Commission says defrauded investors of $300 million. The SEC has charged Champion-Cain and her companies — American National Investments and its subsidiary ANI Development — with a “multi-year $300 million scheme” where instead of using investor money to make high-interest loans for individuals seeking alcohol licenses, she directed “significant amounts of investor funds” to a company she controlled.  www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2019-10-04/receiver-in-300m-gina-champion-cain-fraud-case-uncovers-at-least-12m-to-14m-in-assets

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

 

Mossad’s Jeffrey Epstein Raked In $200 Million After Legal and Financial Crises (Ruling Depravity File)

The Silencing of Kashmir: Arundhati Roy on India, Modi, and Fascism

India’s clampdown on the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir is entering its third month, and while the right-wing government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has exerted tight control over the flow of information out of the region, a bleak picture has nonetheless emerged. Thousands have been imprisoned, including political leaders. Movement is tightly restricted. Phone lines have been cut off. Modi appears set on ending Jammu and Kashmir’s special semi-autonomous status and bringing it fully under the control of New Delhi, a move that residents of the Muslim-majority region strongly reject. Arundhati Roy, India’s most famous novelist and a passionate voice for Kashmiri self-determination, joins Mehdi Hasan to discuss the Kashmir crisis and India’s troubling rightward tilt.

Arundhati Roy: It is a place where you have had people fighting for self-determination for 70 years. They’ve been saying it with their blood. I don’t think they could have been clearer

AR: Every single person who has a voice at all has been arrested. Anybody who dares to speak up is being picked up, anybody on the street.

MH: That’s my very special guest today. Joining me from her home in New Delhi, the acclaimed, award-winning, novelist, essayist, activist, environmentalist, antiwar campaigner Arundhati Roy.

I’ll ask her about the bromance between Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and U.S. president Donald Trump, about why the world doesn’t seem to give a damn about the horrific situation in Kashmir, and about how Kashmiris are trying not just to survive but to resist.

On August 5th, the government of India, under the prime ministership of Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, launched a massive military clampdown in the long-disputed Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir. Tourists were ordered out, movement for locals was restricted, communications with the outside world — landlines, cellphones, the internet — was cut off.

There were curfews, checkpoints, night raids, attacks on peaceful protesters by Indian security forces. The detention without trial of up to 4,000 Kashmiris – including three former chief ministers of the state.  theintercept.com/2019/10/03/deconstructed-podcast-kashmir-india-arundhati-roy/

The New York Times Called a Famous Cartoonist an Anti-Semite. Repeatedly. They Didn’t Ask Him for Comment.

by Ted Rall

Solidarity for Never

UAW leaders help feds investigate president Gary Jones

 A top deputy to United Auto Workers President Gary Jones and one of the union’s most powerful officers are helping federal prosecutors build a criminal case against the labor leader for embezzling union funds, The Detroit News has learned.

Former deputy Danny Trull and retired UAW Secretary/Treasurer Gary Casteel have met with investigators and provided an insider’s view of an alleged conspiracy and cover-up involving more than $1 million spent on personal luxuries, according to federal court records and six sources familiar with the investigation.

The government is building its case at the same time that 46,000 UAW members are striking General Motors Co. nationwide. The corruption investigation — marked by federal raids and criminal charges against 11 people linked to the UAW and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV — raises questions about whether Jones and the union’s senior leadership can sell a new contract to the UAW-GM rank-and-file.

Trull and Casteel join a team of former UAW officials who have cooperated with the investigation into labor law crimes, kickbacks, bribes, and embezzlement and helped prosecutors secure nine convictions.  www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2019/10/03/feds-shred-uaw-solidarity-while-targeting-president-gary-jones/2427048001/

GM strike, day 20: UAW director charged in federal probe put on leave

A United Auto Workers regional director charged in a widening federal union corruption investigation has been placed on leave.

Vance Pearson, a member of the union’s international executive board and the director of UAW Region 5, began leave on Friday, according to a statement from the UAW provided to the Detroit Free Press, which first reported the news. Pearson was charged last month with embezzling union funds, mail and wire fraud, and money laundering.

UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg declined to comment. Pearson’s attorney did not immediately respond.  www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-motors/2019/10/05/gm-strike-day-20/3879242002/

 

Ex-UAW communications directors call for union’s entire executive board to resign (fits of false nostalgia)

Two former communications directors for the United Auto Workers are calling for “radical remediation” of the international union amid a widening federal corruption probe that reaches the highest levels of the organization’s leadership.

The Rev. Peter Laarman, who ran the union’s public relations department from 1985 to 1990, and Frank Joyce, who ran it from 1990 to 2002, in an op-ed for the Detroit Free Press on Friday night, broke what they called an “institutional code of silence” to give a scathing rebuke of the UAW leadership for abandoning the practices of the formerly “squeaky-clean organization built by the union’s earlier generations.” They called for the resignations of the UAW’s entire international executive board and the assistance of the Canadian auto workers union to help reconstitute the leadership.    www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-motors/2019/10/04/former-uaw-communication-directors-call-resignation-union-board/3870952002/

Labor Pains

In Michigan, Michael Grimes, former senior official in the General Motors Department of the United Auto Workers International Union (UAW), pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

In Michigan, Michael Grimes, former senior official in the General Motors Department of the United Auto Workers International Union (UAW), pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

In Iowa, Theodore E. Watson, former business manager for Insulators Local 74, was sentenced to 18 months in prison followed by three years of supervised probation.  Watson was also ordered to pay restitution of $125,443.  On April 15, 2019, Watson pleaded guilty to one count of embezzlement and one count of mail fraud.

In Pennsylvania, Tony J. Liesenfeld, former President and Secretary-Treasurer of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), was charged in a one-count information with wire fraud in the amount of at least $77,716.

In the District of Columbia, Audonus Duplessis, former President of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 2463, pleaded guilty to one count of interstate transportation of stolen property for transporting $11,300 of stolen union funds from Washington, D.C. to Virginia to purchase a Dodge Charger for his personal use.  The total embezzlement by Duplessis was more than $80,000.

In Maryland, Annette Jones, former President of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 331, was sentenced to two years in prison followed by three years of supervised probation.  Jones was also ordered to pay restitution of $82,180.  On May 7, 2019, Jones pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud.

In New York, Frank Cognetta, former Secretary-Treasurer of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1-D, was sentenced to two years in prison followed by three years of supervised release. On March 11, 2019, Cognetta pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy. (Labor Racket weekly)

The fight that created the UAW racket today:

 

Spy versus Spy

Impeachment, Brought to You by the CIA

by Rob Urie

For the first time in half a century, the political left in the U.S. is ascendant. Bernie Sanders is holding his own in the primaries. A group of well-considered programs to save the environment and provide good jobs and health care for all is gaining political traction. And the need is dire. The climate is warming, the seas are polluted and fished out and industrial agriculture threatens to end life on the planet. So, it’s time to change the subject?

Despite occasional warm gas passed in a leftish direction, establishment Democrats never had any intention of allowing a left political program to move forward. After four decades of asserting that they ‘believe’ climate science, the moment has arrived when the only political path forward is to take on their donors. Whatever your assessment of their motives, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have no intention of doing this.

Following the electoral fiasco of 2016, the DNC defended itself in court by arguing that it has no obligation to provide a fair and open primary. In fact, the DNC ran a disinformation campaign against Bernie Sanders, used Superdelegates to overturn primary results, miscounted and misplaced ballots in crucial state primaries and violated its own charter in the allocation of funds to the candidates. In other words, they stole the primary election.   www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/04/impeachment-brought-to-you-by-the-cia/

The Magical Mystery Tour

Dying after setting herself on fire, “Blue Girl” spotlights Iran’s women’s rights movement

Former priest charged with indecent exposure in Huron County

A former Catholic priest restricted from public ministry by the Archdiocese of Detroit after a sexual abuse complaint is now facing a criminal charge of indecent exposure.

The early morning of Aug. 26, 70-year-old Lawrence M. Ventline entered Murphy’s Bakery, 110 W. Huron Road in Bad Axe, and exposed his genitals, according to Police Chief David W. Rothe. Police were notified the next day.  www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2019/10/former-priest-charged-with-indecent-exposure-in-huron-county.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=mlivedotcom_sf&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR1pwgiYUU-5N3jutAsi4eDlRo63neHUr1_UG76zfwwZgyTTl3nrgkje3fI

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

www.facebook.com/SonyClassics/videos/379516776283439/?t=15

The Las Vegas Shooter, Two Years Later

 

So Long

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGFAUthMo0E

Johnson gained little notice in his life, but his songs — quoted by the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin — helped ignite rock ‘n’ roll.

Little about the life Robert Leroy Johnson lived in his brief 27 years, from approximately May 1911 until he died mysteriously in 1938, was documented. A birth certificate, if he had one, has never been found.

What is known can be summarized on a postcard: He is thought to have been born out of wedlock in May 1911 in Mississippi and raised there. School and census records indicated he lived for stretches in Tennessee and Arkansas. He took up guitar at a young age and became a traveling musician, eventually glimpsing the bustle of New York City. But he died in Mississippi, with just over two dozen little-noticed recorded songs to his name.

youtu.be/AUyKnEiv70Y

And yet, in the late 20th century, the advent of rock ’n’ roll would turn Johnson into a figure of legend. Decades after his death, he became one of the most famous guitarists who had ever lived, hailed as a lost prophet who, the dubious story goes, sold his soul to the devil and epitomized Mississippi Delta blues in the bargain.

In the late 1960s, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin covered or adapted Johnson’s songs in tribute.  www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/obituaries/robert-johnson-overlooked.html?fbclid=IwAR13xYhe2YAmj_d7kgm9U-H3ihDTC7wNXbA4prrTCyH1kZaAmrexrvWHus8

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_Ql7ncX978