Rouge Forum Dispatch: Angry Sock Puppet Show Masks Endless War and Austerity
We Say Fight Back!
The Fury in France
Could the latest round of strikes spell the beginning of the end for Emmanuel Macron?
France is paralyzed. Since a general strike began on Thursday, planes have been grounded, mail delivery stopped and schools closed, and trains remain in their depots. Even lawyers are staying home. Some 800,000 people took to the street across the country last Thursday, and another major demonstration is planned for today as the strike continues. As one participant put it to the French newspaper Mediapart, the mass mobilizations are meant as a rebuke to “Macron and his world.”
The uprising is in response to President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to drastically reform France’s pension system. It’s not the first major labor action of Mr. Macron’s presidency: Similar mobilizations followed his plan to revise labor protections in late 2017, as well as his cuts to the national rail service and overhaul of university admissions last spring. But this looks to be the largest. Will it decisively change France’s political landscape?
With such a broad turnout, the labor movement believes it may achieve a repeat of the general strike of 1995, which shut down the country for weeks and forced President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Alain Juppé to abandon a similar pension reform. Union leaders hope that the threat of an economic standstill lasting through the Christmas holidays will give the government no choice but to capitulate and at the same time seriously weaken Mr. Macron’s credibility through the remainder of his presidency.
Mr. Macron — who has long thought himself uniquely capable of succeeding where his predecessors failed — is hoping to weather the storm once again. Despite the frequency of strikes and protests throughout his time in office, opposition parties have failed to convert this anger into a serious political challenge. www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/opinion/france-strike-macron.html
Last Straw as Teachers in France Join Nationwide Strike
One of the many groups taking part in the massive general strike in France this week, and joining forces with the year-long Yellow Jackets movement, are the country’s public school teachers. The “coup de grâce” for teachers was the Macron administration’s proposed teacher pension reform, in which retirement payments would be calculated based upon salaries earned throughout a teacher’s career rather than their last paychecks.
In other words, a teacher’s earnings as a new graduate and during the years they gained experience and possibly pursued advanced training or specializations would carry equal weight in calculating the amount they would receive upon retiring from service in public education years and decades later.
One teacher’s union put it this way. A retiree with a 40 year career in teaching might have finally attained a salary of 3,200 euros a month. Right now, they would retire with 2,281 euros a month, but after the reforms, that would decrease to 1,803 euros.
All in all, it’s a disingenuous way for a neo-liberal government to claw back the final thanks offered to yet another group of civil servants in the name of budgets and saving costs. But it is also another example of neoliberalism’s war on public education. www.commondreams.org/views/2019/12/10/last-straw-teachers-france-join-nationwide-strike?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3lJcqMsLALkhxDk-paXEicsRGtfcSBRbpDQJbBbre74tEc7Ls-LK0N4d0
‘We Are Unstoppable, Another World is Possible!’: Young Climate Activists Storm COP 25 Stage
The Little Red Schoolhouse
Grand jury calls out ‘data manipulation’ in Miami-Dade, Broward school districts
A scathing Florida grand jury interim report released Wednesday said the brazen and continued violation of state laws passed in response to the Parkland shooting was so severe that local school officials needed to be more severely penalized.
“School district noncompliance with state-level laws has been a persistent problem,” the report stated. “It is clear to us that, once our terms end and the threat of public shaming or indictment is no longer on the table, compliance will never be satisfactory.”
The grand jury recommended that tougher penalties could include the withholding of state money, criminal charges and the removal of superintendents, administrators or school board members.
…The grand jury asserted that the districts are intentionally manipulating data they report to the state, playing games with the requirement that all campuses have armed security and excluding charter schools out of school safety planning, creating “unnecessary chaos.”It specifically called out Miami-Dade and Broward school districts for manipulating discipline data in the School Environmental Safety Incident Reporting System, known as SESIR.
The report cited the Broward Teachers Union’s school safety and discipline survey of 2019, “where a number of teachers describe reporting SESIR-eligible incidents perpetrated by students in their classrooms to administrators, only to later have those same students returned to their classes without being disciplined at all, or in some cases, after some sort of ‘conference.’ ”
“Even more troubling are the instances where teachers claim to have referred students for discipline, only to be told by administrators to modify their own conduct to curtail the student’s behavior, or worse, to be told that the perpetrator cannot be disciplined because of a disability, and thus, is allowed to remain in class without consequence and continue disrupting the learning environment of the other students,” the report read. Read more here: www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article238322818.html?fbclid=IwAR3yNs9KoeJxay-NKxxf_ZlotXWe6eF-sUFPkO0NXnzVELmvI3BcCSZ6i30#storylink=cpy
above, Rouger Bill Boyer in Detroit School
Detroit teacher: I’ll never forget day my students saw mutilated body on way to school
I remember that morning when a group of second-graders was walking to Hutchinson Elementary-Middle school. Two of those students were mine.
As they were walking, they saw a large, black garbage bag in the middle of the street. Suddenly, they realized that a hand was hanging out of the bag. When the students came to school, they told the principal about the bag in the street with the mutilated body. The district sent counselors to talk to the students about what they saw. They didn’t want the students to discuss the incident with other students. But they reassured the students that they could talk to any adult in the building if they needed to.
When my students came to class, they told me what happened. I was so hurt and fearful for them to have seen such a horrifying sight. I didn’t know what to do or how I could help them. The only thing that I could do was listen. I remember trying to maintain my regular routine as much as possible.
I tried my best to be calm and not show any anxiety. I had to teach as if nothing had happened. But was that the right thing to do? www.freep.com/in-depth/news/columnists/rochelle-riley/2019/12/14/detroit-teacher-my-students-saw-mutilated-body-way-school/3740008002/
Morning Report: San Diego Unified Is Now Eyeing Layoffs
San Diego Unified is again considering layoffs to help close a $70 million budget hole expected next year, reports VOSD’s Ashly McGlone.
Just two months ago, the district was projecting a $58 million deficit, but officials didn’t explain what caused the budget hole to shoot up by $12 million, and did not respond to questions about the rise.
More budget cut details will emerge in coming months, but in a presentation to the district’s school board trustees on Tuesday’s night, the district laid out “strategic layoffs of certificated/classified as needed in March” as a “potential shift” and listed a hiring freeze, spending freeze and program shifts among solutions.
Across-the-border raises for the district’s 10,500 employees blew up the district’s balanced budget, creating a big new structural deficit.
When the district was forced to make cuts in 2017, principals and other administrators said the cuts caused chaos in their schools. Clerical positions went vacant, the district slashed custodial staff and special education staffing dipped so low that parents feared for their students’ safety. www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/morning-report-san-diego-unified-is-now-eyeing-layoffs/?utm_source=Voice+of+San+Diego+Master+List&utm_campaign=f69e4877a2-Morning_Report&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c2357fd0a3-f69e4877a2-81862829&goal=0_c2357fd0a3-f69e4877a2-81862829
Violent kids take over Florida’s classrooms, and they have the law on their side
Out of the blue, the student balled his fists and punched his teacher in the face, pummeling her until she was dazed and crying, a police report says.
By the time a calm returned to Northeast High in Oakland Park, two teachers and an aide were in ambulances. The special needs student wasn’t arrested because he “cannot tell the difference between right and wrong behaviors,” a police sergeant wrote in his report.
Three days later, the teen was back on campus.
In school after school, students are erupting with violence. They stab or beat teachers. They throw furniture. They stalk and attack classmates, turning schoolrooms into danger zones where the rights of violent students with disabilities trump all others.
In an eight-month investigation, the South Florida Sun Sentinel found that a sweeping push for “inclusion” enables unstable children to attend regular classes even though school districts severely lack the support staff to manage them.
State and federal laws guarantee those students a spot in regular classrooms until they seriously harm or maim others. Even threatening to shoot classmates is not a lawful reason to expel the child. projects.sun-sentinel.com/teenage-time-bombs/how-schools-manage-violent-kids/?disable-dss&fbclid=IwAR29xK0OolvPaSeQ77aYMxW1F5BsnIBFLvHk3b8tLzTytu4rJJ2_jGuPmOY
University of California Is Sued Over Use of SAT and ACT in Admissions
A coalition of students, advocacy groups and a largely black and Hispanic California school district filed suit against the University of California system on Tuesday to stop it from using standardized test scores in its admissions. The move, if successful, could shake up the testing industry and radically reshape college admissions.
The plaintiffs say the college entrance tests, the SAT and ACT, are biased against poor and mainly black and Hispanic students. By basing admissions decisions on those tests, they say, the system illegally discriminates against applicants on the basis of their race, wealth and disability, and denies them equal protection under the California Constitution.
They argue that the use of standardized tests has led to the creation of a vast test-prep industry that privileges affluent families who can afford to send their children to tutoring. Other measures — like grades and teacher recommendations — would provide a fairer way of judging students, the plaintiffs say.
“It is illegal wealth and race discrimination that damages the futures of tens of thousands of deserving students each year, who could excel at U.C. campuses of their choice,” said Mark Rosenbaum, directing attorney at the nonprofit Public Counsel, which is representing some of the plaintiffs. www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/us/sat-act-uc-lawsuit.html
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
Afghanistan war metrics were manipulated to highlight battlefield success, according to bombshell WaPo report
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A U.S. Marine moves through a village during a patrol near Bost Kalay, Afghanistan. (Sgt. Sean J. Berry/U.S. Marine Corps)
America’s longest war continues to drag on as U.S. forces are amid one of its heaviest bombing campaigns since the start of the conflict 18 years ago as Washington seeks to force the Taliban into a settled peace.
But in the backdrop, war metrics that have been used to push positive public sentiment and stay the course in a war U.S. officials have acknowledged as unwinnable were manipulated to tout successes and emphasize particular strategies were moving in the right direction, according to a an explosive story from the Washington Post.
In documents obtained through a government records request by the Washington Post, a senior National Security Council official said the Obama administration and Pentagon pushed metrics that portrayed the 2009 decision to surge 30,000 troops to Afghanistan in an inaccurately positive light.
“It was impossible to create good metrics. We tried using troop numbers trained, violence levels, control of territory and none of it painted an accurate picture,” the NSC official said in a 2016 government interview, according to the Washington Post’s government documents.
“The metrics were always manipulated for the duration of the war,” the NSC official said, the Washington Post reported….
Sopko is the lead inspector general for a government watchdog group known as the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, which produces reports on reconstruction aid and the conflict in Afghanistan.
Sopko told the Washington Post that the documents it obtained showed “the American people have constantly been lied to” about the state and progress of the conflict. www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2019/12/09/afghanistan-war-metrics-were-manipulated-to-highlight-battlefield-success-according-to-bombshell-wapo-report/
Congress Learns Pentagon Wasted $1 Trillion, Promptly Gives It Bigger Budget
Here’s a fun little thought experiment: Imagine a “big government” bureaucracy embarked on a wildly ambitious project of social engineering — only to discover, almost immediately, that it had little hope of meeting its stated objectives. Reluctant to admit defeat, or jeopardize funding for its endeavors, this federal agency proceeded to deliberately mislead the public about how badly its project was going, and the likelihood of its ultimate success. Over an 18-year-period, these pointy-headed bureaucrats and their allied elected officials conspired to shovel roughly $1 trillion of taxpayer money into an initiative that exacerbated the very problems it purported to solve — and got 2,300 Americans killed in the process!
Now imagine that a major newspaper published a bombshell report meticulously documenting this bureaucracy’s conscious efforts to mislead the American people whom it claimed to serve, so as to ensure that it could carry on squandering our blood and treasure with impunity.
Would Congress reward that bureaucracy with a $22 billion budget increase hours later, with self-identified “small government” conservatives leading the call?
This week, we learned that the answer is “of course.”
On Monday, the Washington Post published “The Afghanistan Papers,” thousands of pages of war documents that our government did not want us to see, and which the paper only secured after a protracted legal battle. Those documents include nearly 2,000 pages of notes from interviews with generals, diplomats, and other officials who played a central role in waging America’s longest war. Here is some of what the Post uncovered: …
John Sopko, the head of the federal agency that conducted the interviews, acknowledged to The Post that the documents show “the American people have constantly been lied to.” nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/12/afghanistan-papers-ndaa-congress-defense-bill.html?fbclid=IwAR2hosg0YF2MUu1dKjZ2Dg4yiJbZZU-13WarZFEpXjyBpOlVG7aHXXCK-Ds
“Tactics without strategy is a good way to fail.”
Links to the WAPO Series on the Afghan War Lies, Failures, and Death
www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-army-police/
House Passes $738 Billion Military Bill With Space Force and Parental Leave
A bipartisan group of lawmakers agreed to give troops a pay raise and the president his Space Force, while jettisoning a slew of measures that would have reined in the president’s war powers.
The House on Wednesday passed a $738 billion military policy bill that would authorize the creation of the Space Force championed by President Trump as the sixth branch of the military and secure paid parental leave for more than two million federal workers.
The 377-to-48 vote reflected broad bipartisan support for the compromise package, one of the nation’s most expensive military policy bills to date. It passed over the opposition of a bloc of progressive Democrats and libertarian-minded Republicans who objected to its steep price tag and its omission of provisions they had proposed to limit the president’s power on an array of military matters.
Most House Republicans threw their support behind the measure, joining with Democrats to ensure its passage. It was part of a year-end burst of bipartisan legislating that has broken out this week, even as the Democratic-led House moves toward impeaching Mr. Trump. www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/us/politics/house-ndaa-space-force-leave.html
Why the Afghanistan Papers Are an Eerie Reminder of Vietnam
Body Counts
There was one quote in the Afghanistan papers that stopped me. It was almost as if I had read this before in the Pentagon Papers. In 2015, an unnamed National Security Council official said, “It was impossible to create good metrics. We tried using troop numbers trained, violence levels, control of territory and none of it painted an accurate picture.” With regard to Vietnam, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) constantly inflated “body counts”—the number of dead Vietnamese—as a metric of impending victory. This is clear in both the Pentagon Papers and in the papers at the Johnson Library (Austin, Texas).
One soldier who worked in MACV would often go along with the generals to observe the battlefield. His words, collected by Toshio Whelchel, are worth reading: “once we flew over an area after a B-52 raid and the devastation was incredible. There were all these plastic bags out there with our guys supposedly counting bodies of enemy killed. But they were merely picking up body fragments—anything to put in the bag—and counting each one as a single kill.” www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/11/why-the-afghanistan-papers-are-an-eerie-reminder-of-vietnam/
No ‘End Date’ for U.S. Troops in Syria
Top general is confident he can keep pressure on the Islamic State, but a recent watchdog report says the group could reconstitute.
Less than two months after U.S. President Donald Trump demanded all U.S. troops withdraw from northeastern Syria for the second time, the general in charge of all U.S. forces in the Middle East now says he has no orders to leave the region.
“I don’t have an end date,” Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, told a small group of reporters in Bahrain on Saturday.
Roughly 500 U.S. forces will remain in northeastern Syria with their Kurdish-led partners, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to continue fighting the remnants of the Islamic State, McKenzie said during a visit to Bahrain for the Manama Dialogue security summit. Under Trump’s directive, the troops will primarily be stationed in the Deir Ezzor province to guard the region’s rich oil fields, but the Defense Department insists that the mission is part of the broader campaign to defeat the terrorist group.
Despite a recent Turkish invasion of northeastern Syria and ensuing turmoil in the region, McKenzie said in a separate interview with Foreign Policy that he is confident the coalition can effectively hunt the Islamic State from its more limited position in Syria and a nearby outpost in Iraq. Operations against the militants resumed over the weekend, with coalition forces killing and injuring multiple fighters in a Nov. 22 raid in the Deir Ezzor province foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/25/no-end-date-for-u-s-troops-in-syria/
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Airstrikes called in as Taliban attempt to breach Bagram Air Base
A series of airstrikes were called in following a failed attempt by the Taliban to breach Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, on Wednesday, according to a Resolute Support spokesman.
U.S. and Afghan forces were pulled into a nine-to 10-hour firefight after a suicide bombing targeted a medical facility that was under construction near the base, a source on the ground told Military Times.
Taliban fighters then barricaded themselves inside the medical facility they attacked and were hit with a series of airstrikes Wednesday evening, according to a Resolute Support spokesman.
The medical facility was located outside Bagram and was under renovation at the time to provide care for local Afghans. www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2019/12/11/airstrikes-called-in-as-taliban-attempt-to-breach-bagram-air-base/?utm_campaign=Socialflow+MIL&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR2duRziwU5nMmCXTXGb7-wMuab2ByvJDG-qqlOUZZZxQ2vIO2PSCjlys64
Nearly 1 Million Vets Face Food Stamps Cut
About 900,000 veterans and 5,000 active duty troops face cuts in their food stamp benefits beginning Thursday as $5 billion is automatically trimmed from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program for low-income families.
“The coming benefit cut will reduce SNAP benefits, which are already modest, for all households by 7 percent on average, or about $10 per person per month,” according to an analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
“Nationwide, in any given month, a total of 900,000 veterans nationwide lived in households that relied on SNAP to provide food for their families in 2011,” according to an analysis of census data, the Center’s report said.
The SNAP program received a boost under the 2009 Recovery Act, or stimulus bill aimed at lifting the nation out of recession, but that temporary increase will expire Thursday as Congress continues to debate a new farm bill which would separate farm subsidies from food stamp benefits. www.military.com/daily-news/2013/10/29/nearly-1-million-vets-face-food-stamps-cut.html?fbclid=IwAR0NT8AsomekyaGigTRKteCLq5PtVmQFijjE8DDTXXu2-lXAydkzGXIGh-4
Navy removes an ordnance disposal unit commander
The Navy has relieved a commanding officer over one of its Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Units of his duties, officials said Friday.
Capt. Oscar Rojas, commander, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group One (EODGRU1) in Coronado relieved Cmdr. Sean Kido of command over Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit Eleven (EODMU11) Thursday “due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command,” the Navy said in a statement that provided no details. The mobile unit is based in Imperial Beach.
Cmdr. Evan Colbert, former commanding officer of Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit Six, has temporarily assumed the responsibilities of EODMU11 commanding officer.
EODMU 11 locates, identifies, recovers and disposes of explosive ordnance, including chemical and nuclear weapons. It is one of three such units in San Diego. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/story/2019-12-13/a-navy-ordnance-disposal-unit-commander-is-removed
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
737 Max Scandal Cuts Boeing’s Once Rock-Solid Image
Pilots had a saying that showed their faith in the company’s aircraft– “If it ain’t Boeing, I ain’t going.”
But that high level of confidence is in the past. Ask Tajer about his trust in Boeing now, and he says, “Oh, it’s been shaken. Absolutely. Boeing is still an incredible company but they horridly fouled up this aircraft.”
Tajer, who is a spokesman for American’s pilots union, says it’s not just that Boeing installed a flawed flight control system that forced both planes into uncontrollable nose dives, but pilots are outraged because the company never told pilots the system even existed. That outrage only grew when Boeing initially defended the design and suggested pilot errors were more to blame for the crashes. This was compounded by revelations that Boeing officials knew about the systems flaws before the crashes and appeared to have downplayed safety concerns. www.npr.org/2019/11/26/783197253/737-max-scandal-cuts-boeings-once-rock-solid-image
Detroit pension investment official to get 75% raise, signing bonus as contractor
An investment executive for the city’s pension system is getting a 75% salary boost and $50,000 signing bonus to do his work as a contractor.
The agreement over the $285,000 salary is the culmination of a lengthy rift over a pay increase proposed for the retirement system’s deputy investment officer, Kevin Kenneally.
The deal, signed Dec. 2 by Kenneally and Bob Smith, who chairs one of the city’s two pension oversight boards, will require Kenneally to resign his position as a city employee. Instead, he will enter into a three-year contracting role under his newly created Detroit-based firm, KJK Associates. www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2019/12/09/detroit-pension-investment-official-kenneally-raise-signing-bonus-contractor/2633097001/?fbclid=IwAR2_4bxcQQ2FVTUe7JVelmhMJGTQVqS2c0zVKzFSCXvPdNb4iL1W5y2XmUE
This Is What Racism Sounds Like in the Banking Industry
A JPMorgan employee and a customer secretly recorded their conversations with bank employees.
Jimmy Kennedy earned $13 million during his nine-year career as a player in the National Football League. He was the kind of person most banks would be happy to have as a client.
But when Mr. Kennedy tried to become a “private client” at JPMorgan Chase, an elite designation that would earn him travel discounts, exclusive event invitations and better deals on loans, he kept getting the runaround.
At first, he didn’t understand why. Then, last fall, he showed up at his local JPMorgan branch in Arizona, and an employee offered an explanation.
“You’re bigger than the average person, period. And you’re also an African-American,” the employee, Charles Belton, who is black, told Mr. Kennedy. “We’re in Arizona. I don’t have to tell you about what the demographics are in Arizona. They don’t see people like you a lot.” Mr. Kennedy recorded the conversation and shared it with The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/business/jpmorgan-banking-racism.html?action=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage
The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement and The War on Reason
JOHN KIRIAKOU: Those Torture Drawings in the NYT
In 2002, John Kiriakou captured the Guantanamo prisoner who drew those sickening pictures. Abu Zubaydah has a constitutional right to face his accusers in court, or be released, Kiriakou says.
The New York Times last week published shocking drawings by Guantanamo prisoner Abu Zubaydah showing in graphic detail the types of tortures he endured at the hands of CIA officers and contractors at secret prisons around the world. The drawings were sickening. With a child’s simplicity, they showed the irrational cruelty of the CIA’s torture program, which weakened our country, violated domestic and international law and ended up saying so much more about us, as Americans, than it did about the terrorists who wished us harm.
The Times did its duty of reminding us what monsters the CIA produced in the early years of its so-called war on terror, people introduced to most Americans in the Senate’s torture report.
These are people such as the CIA’s former Director George Tenet and Deputy Director John McLaughlin. They include unapologetic torture proponents such as former Deputy Director for Operations Jose Rodriguez and current CIA Director Gina Haspel. They are the creators of the torture program: psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. And in the photos of Abu Zubaydah’s drawing that the Times ran, the CIA dutifully blacked out even the stick-figure sketches of the actual torturers, those CIA officers who sold their souls to break the law, all in honor of that false god called “national security.” consortiumnews.com/2019/12/12/john-kiriakou-those-torture-drawings-in-the-nyt/
Woefully Inadequate Article
With that said, the Times article, although revelatory in terms of Abu Zubaydah’s personal story, was woefully inadequate. It never mentioned, for example, how the Obama administration did literally nothing to make any of this right.
The Issue-Less Impeachment: The Corporate Democrats Stand for Nothing, So They Impeach for Nothing
The corporate Democrats are effectively exonerating themselves and their Republican brethren of the full spectrum of lawlessness that is everyday politics in the belly of the racist, imperial beast.
“The Democrats have used the vile, childishly compulsive and overtly racist Trump as a straw man ever since he announced for the 2016 presidential race.”
The impeachment of Donald Trump has nothing to do with social justice at home and abroad, global environmental stability, or the rule of law anywhere on the planet. Rather, the corporate Democrats have methodically narrowed the scope of the indictment to exclude all the actual crimes of this president against humanity, peace, the environment and the rule of law – for the obvious reason that both corporate parties and all modern U.S. presidents are collectively and individually guilty.
In limiting the indictment to Trump’s attempted political extortion of Ukraine for the purpose of influencing a U.S. election – a laughable charge, since the Kiev regime is the creature of the U.S. (Democratic) engineered overthrow of the previous, elected Ukraine government – the Democrats are effectively exonerating themselves and their Republican brethren of the full spectrum of lawlessness that is everyday politics in the belly of the racist, imperial beast.
Trump will be put in the dock for a (relatively) minor offense as a kind of purgative of the whole corporate system’s rotten innards. blackagendareport.com/issue-less-impeachment-corporate-democrats-stand-nothing-so-they-impeach-nothing
‘Sick to my Stomach’: Explosive Report Details ICE Negligence in Medical Care for Detained Children Resulted in Deaths, Preventable Surgeries
“ICE is operating exactly as the Trump administration wants it to when migrants are being so violently neglected.”
Reporting from Buzzfeed News Thursday evening exposed how President Donald Trump’s immigration policies led to four deaths and preventable surgeries for children held in the administration’s detention regime, including one eight-year-old boy whose forehead was partially removed.
“I am sick to my stomach,” said activist Sophie Ellman-Golan of the report’s allegations.
Reporter Hamed Aleaziz broke the story, based on an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) whistleblower report he obtained about conditions for immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The report is here (pdf).
“The allegations appear in a DHS memo, obtained by BuzzFeed News, containing reports of detainees being given incorrect meds, suffering from delays in treating withdrawal symptoms, and one who was allowed to become so mentally unstable he lacerated his own penis and required surgery,” Aleaziz said of the report on Twitter.
According to Aleaziz’s reporting:
The allegations were laid out in a March 20 memorandum signed by Cameron Quinn, DHS’s officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and sent to top ICE leadership. The memo describes the whistleblower as someone within the ICE Health Service Corps, or IHSC, which provides medical care and oversight for detainees in the agency’s custody. BuzzFeed News does not know the person’s identity. www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/13/sick-my-stomach-explosive-report-details-ice-negligence-medical-care-detained?fbclid=IwAR1z-sfWlz1pMRmg1T6BLEgIIyH8uHbgVEqt1Wc6YqD_Sm50Mu-reyu3U8w
Federal authorities arrest 6 protesters, including doctors, outside Border Patrol building in Eastlake
Detroit police chief: Longstanding culture of drug unit corruption
Selling drugs in any city is dangerous, as dealers risk being killed or robbed by rivals — but in Detroit, pushers for years also have known they could be ripped off by cops, police chief James Craig said Thursday.
“The culture here has been such that drug traffickers figured that was just the cost of doing business,” Craig said during a press conference at Public Safety Headquarters. “They knew ‘I could get killed, robbed by my competition or robbed by cops.’ It’s not like that in other cities I’ve worked in.”
Craig’s remarks followed a Detroit News report about a four-month ongoing investigation that uncovered “a pattern and practice” of alleged corruption in the drug unit, called the Major Violators Section.
The allegations include drug cops planting evidence, lying to prosecutors in search warrant affidavits, robbing dope dealers and embezzling funds meant to pay informants.
The Detroit-initiated investigation started Aug. 22, when Detroit internal affairs officers raided their department’s own drug unit, seizing and analyzing dozens of files and 50 computers. www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2019/12/12/detroit-police-chief-longstanding-culture-drug-unit-corruption/4410031002/
Brexit’s Advance Opens a New Trade Era
The decisive Conservative victory in Britain leaves no doubt that in today’s global equation, national interests are supreme and globalization is suspect.
The notion that global economic integration amounts to human progress had a good run, dominating the thinking of the powers that be for more than seven decades. But a new era is underway in which national interests take primacy over collective concerns, with trading arrangements negotiated among individual countries.
Britain’s voters made that clear on Thursday in handing an emphatic majority to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party, all but ensuring that the world’s fifth-largest economy — and a charter member of the international trading system — will proceed with its abandonment of the European Union.
A preliminary deal hailed on Friday by the two largest economies, the United States and China, raised the prospect of easing their high-stakes trade animosities. But the nature of their engagement — country to country, not mediated by the World Trade Organization or some other international authority — underscored the principles of the new age. www.nytimes.com/2019/12/13/business/economy/uk-election-brexit-trade.html
Depraved Ruling Elite File: These Are the Women Who Have Accused President Trump of Sexual Misconduct
Writer E. Jean Carroll says Donald Trump assaulted her in a dressing room in the late 1990s, making her at least the 19th woman to allege sexual misconduct by the president.
In a cover story for New York magazine, Carroll, the author of five books known for her advice column in Elle, detailed violent encounters with six men, including Trump and former CBS chairman Les Moonves. The article includes a photo that appears to show Trump and Carroll together with their then-spouses at an NBC party in 1987.
In a statement, Trump said “there is zero evidence” for the accusation, adding that he’s “never met” Carroll.
The allegation was the latest — and most serious — accusation against Trump of sexual misconduct in the past. Since he launched his campaign, other women have come forward to say that Trump came into women’s dressing rooms, kissed them without consent and groped them. www.thecut.com/2019/06/donald-trump-assault-e-jean-carroll-other-hideous-men.html#_ga=2.212034964.1209354183.1561136636-514074888.1561136636
Jeffrey Epstein ‘sex slave list’ soars by hundreds as new 10,000 page document is made public in Virginia Roberts trial
HUNDREDS more people are implicated in new documents in a legal case involving Prince Andrew’s alleged sex slave accuser Virginia Roberts.
Around 10,000 pages of files, five times the number already made public, identify individuals who were allegedly involved with Jeffrey Epstein
Among them is an unnamed man who wrote to Manhattan’s Federal Court saying that disclosing his name would cause him “permanent and unjustifiable harm”.
The files relate to a US defamation case involving Roberts, who claims she was a sex slave supplied to paedophile Epstein’s pals including Prince Andrew, 59. He denies it.
The hearing was part of a defamation case brought by Miss Roberts against Epstein’s alleged ‘madam’ Ghislaine Maxwell for calling her a liar.
The case was settled but a higher court has ruled that the files should be made public.
Miss Maxwell’s attorney Jeff Pagliuca – in an effort to block or at least delay the court paper’s release – said that among the documents were 29 depositions, most of them on video.
It also included Epstein’s black book of contacts. Epstein hanged himself in jail last month while on a sex traffic charge.
Prosecutors have said their investigation into his alleged accomplices continues. www.thesun.co.uk/news/9864975/jeffrey-epstein-sex-slave-list-soars-virginia-roberts/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebarweb
www.facebook.com/wsj/videos/940704379613668/?t=0
Weinstein reaches $47-million sellout settlement with accusers and creditors
After months of wrangling, infighting and uncertainty, a controversial $47-million settlement was reached between Harvey Weinstein, his former film studio’s board and several women who have accused the disgraced movie mogul of sexual misconduct, according to attorneys involved in the negotiations.
A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge in Delaware still must formally approve a deal that would bring an end to one chapter of the scandal that rocked the entertainment industry, decimated the Weinstein Co. and propelled #MeToo into a global movement.
The tentative settlement does not, however, resolve a separate criminal case against Weinstein in New York over multiple accusations of sexual assault. That criminal case will go to trial next month. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/courts/story/2019-12-11/la-fi-ct-harvey-weinstein-settlement-reached-20190716
Solidarity for Never
Feds scrutinize UAW Solidarity House fire in expanded investigation
Federal corruption investigators have subpoenaed security camera footage and visitor logs from the United Auto Workers’ Solidarity House for the day a fire damaged the union’s headquarters amid a widespread bribery and embezzlement probe targeting labor leaders.
A team of federal agents from the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and Labor Department served the grand jury subpoena on the UAW within days of the July 13 fire at the UAW’s riverfront headquarters along East Jefferson Avenue, according to two sources familiar with the investigation www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2019/12/11/feds-scrutinize-uaw-solidarity-house-fire-investigation/4387762002/
NEA president Garcia rigged NEA’s processes for Clinton
The NEA’s State of the Union — As Active Membership Declines by More Than 29,000, Political Spending Soars 36 Percent
The National Education Association had 29,198 fewer members working in America’s public schools beginning this school year than it did in 2018, according to the union’s annual financial disclosure report to the U.S. Department of Labor, filed Friday.
The bulk of the losses came in the highest dues-paying category, that of teachers, guidance counselors, speech pathologists and other certified professionals. That category now accounts for fewer than 2.1 million of the union’s 2,975,933 total members, including retirees and students. NEA is at its lowest membership level since 2015-16.
As we reported in October, the majority of the loss was due to the disaffiliation of the California Faculty Association and its 19,000 members. The national union’s overall financial status is complex. It spent $30 million more than it received in revenues in 2018-19, but it was mostly due to a combination of sales and purchases of securities. Apparently, NEA adjusted its investment portfolio during the year.
However, dues revenue was down, while spending on political activities and lobbying increased 36.5 percent. Aid to affiliates and advocacy organizations increased, as did employee benefits, while other expenditure categories held relatively steady.
NEA is still owed $8.5 million by the Indiana State Teachers Association for a loan connected to the 2009 implosion of the union’s insurance trust, $1.8 million by the Nevada State Education Association due to the loss of its Clark County affiliate and $850,000 from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. www.the74million.org/article/analysis-the-neas-state-of-the-union-as-active-membership-declines-by-more-than-29000-political-spending-soars-36-percent/?utm_source=The+74+Million+Newsletter&utm_campaign=8ca04957cf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_12_10_10_06&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_077b986842-8ca04957cf-176109065
How Much Does NEA Spend on Politics? Union Poured More Than $4.6 Million Into State Ballot Initiatives
One of NEA’s many political activities is contributing money to support or oppose ballot initiatives that arise in states that have such referendums. Each active NEA member contributes $20 to the union’s Ballot Measure and Legislative Crises Fund each year. As of last March, that fund had almost $49 million in it.
“Legislative crises” are bills NEA state affiliates support or oppose that are working their way through the legislative process. This enables affiliates in states without ballot initiatives to still receive NEA funding for their lobbying efforts. It is, however, difficult to itemize these grants because the money goes from NEA directly to the affiliates and is generally indistinguishable from the host of other subsidies, grants and reimbursements the national union sends down the line. www.the74million.org/article/analysis-how-much-does-nea-spend-on-politics-union-poured-more-than-4-6-million-into-state-ballot-initiatives/
Spy versus Spy
We Just Got a Rare Look at National Security Surveillance. It Was Ugly.
The Justice Department’s independent inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, and his team uncovered a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process in how the F.B.I. went about obtaining and renewing court permission under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.
“The litany of problems with the Carter Page surveillance applications demonstrates how the secrecy shrouding the government’s one-sided FISA approval process breeds abuse,” said Hina Shamsi, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project. “The concerns the inspector general identifies apply to intrusive investigations of others, including especially Muslims, and far better safeguards against abuse are necessary.” www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/us/politics/fisa-surveillance-fbi.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
The Magical Mystery Tour
Televangelist opens his Bible-themed attraction — from wailing wall and catacombs to luxury lodging
Conceived by pentecostal preacher Morris Cerullo, the $190 million Mission Valley project could become a draw for tourists
The golden-hued limestone facade rising above the freeway in Mission Valley came straight from a century-old quarry in Israel. The domed motion-seat theater, housed within the meandering 18-acre resort, draws inspiration from Disney alums.
And those dancing, multi-colored fountains at the project’s front door? Their muse was the now-iconic Bellagio water show in Vegas.
Welcome to Legacy International Center, a $190 million Bible-themed resort rooted in a vision that 88-year-old pentecostal preacher Morris Cerullo says was handed down by God. Widely known for his overseas crusades and worldwide ministering for the last 70 years, the longtime televangelist has relocated the headquarters of Morris Cerullo World Evangelism to the retreat. The project was built debt-free, financed with a combination of donations from thousands of Cerullo’s followers and proceeds from the sale of ministry assets, including the organization’s former offices on Aero Ct. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/tourism/story/2019-12-09/televangelist-opens-his-bible-themed-retreat-from-wailing-wall-and-catacombs-to-luxury-lodging
Creation-Science Research Center
San Diego, California
A Brief Description of the Creation-Science Research Center
The Creation-Science Research Center was founded in 1970 and incorporated in California as a non-profit educational and scientific corporation and is officially designated by the State Attorney General as a public-service corporation. C-SRC may be described as a public education and advocacy organization. The overarching operating principle of C-SRC is the development and application of a constitutional-legal strategy for redressing philosophical imbalance wherever tax-funds are being used to promote a particular philosophical-religious belief system. The Center’s primary objective has been to change the manner in which the public schools teach about evolutionary theories. The purpose is to protect the faith of Christian children from illegal offense against their faith in the God of Creation. In 1981 the Center sponsored a lawsuit, Segraves vs. the California State Board of Education, which was tried in the Sacramento Superior Court. A landmark trial judgment and a court order were achieved which forbid the State from teaching evolution dogmatically as fact. The task of forcing the State fully to obey the court order continues. c-src.org/
Lawsuit to be filed against Catholic Diocese of San Diego over accused priest
A lawsuit was announced Wednesday against the Catholic Diocese of San Diego over a priest accused of sexually abusing more than 100 boys during his career.
The lawsuit names the Catholic Diocese of San Diego and Father Anthony Edward Rodrigue. The legal action is being filed on behalf of several people who claim they were victimized by Rodrigue “but were unable to file a civil lawsuit under California’s previous statute of limitation law.”
Rodrigue spent time at 10 different parishes in San Diego, Imperial, and San Bernardino counties during his 29-year priesthood career. Attorneys, citing a 1997 San Bernardino County sheriff’s report, said Rodrigue “admitted to sexually abusing four or five boys each year” during his career. www.10news.com/news/local-news/lawsuit-to-be-filed-against-catholic-diocese-of-san-diego-over-accused-priest
Wider Definition of Judaism Is Likely to Aid Crackdown on Colleges
An executive order signed Wednesday that extends civil rights protection to Jews is likely to strengthen the hand of President Trump’s Education Department, where the department’s civil rights chief has been investigating some of the nation’s most elite universities for anti-Jewish bias.
Mr. Trump, at a Hanukkah celebration at the White House, opened the door on a case-by-case basis to essentially defining Judaism as a race or national origin, not just a religion, under the Civil Rights Act. His order also expanded the definition of anti-Semitism to include some anti-Israel sentiments. Both moves had been pushed by Kenneth L. Marcus, the head of the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, for years.
“This is our message to universities: if you want to accept the tremendous amount of federal dollars that you get every year, you must reject anti-Semitism, it’s very simple,” Mr. Trump said at the signing ceremony.
Even before the order, Mr. Marcus was already deeming Judaism a “national origin,” like Italian or Polish, to strengthen a campaign against what he sees as rampant anti-Semitism in higher education. At both the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford, Mr. Marcus has opened “national origin” investigations to determine whether qualified applicants were rejected because of their Judaism. www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/us/politics/trump-anti-semitism-judaism-nationality.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage
Violent clashes continue in India over new citizenship bill
Protests spread to Delhi as BJP government accused of making Muslims second-class citizens
Violent clashes erupted in Delhi amid allegations a new citizenship bill discriminates against Muslims and undermines the secular foundations of India, with protests over the legislation spreading to other regions and prompting Japan’s prime minister to cancel a visit to the country.
Thousands took to the streets of Assam’s capital Guwahati for the third day, following the death of two protesters who were caught in police fire on Thursday. The north-eastern state has been the epicentre of the protests against the citizenship amendment bill (CAB).
A 48-hour block on both mobile and broadband internet was implemented, while schools were closed and roads blocked off, as demonstrators set fire to cars and tyres and a 10pm curfew was imposed on the north-east city.
The controversial bill, which was signed into law at midnight on Thursday, has stirred up opposition in Assam and across the country. Under to the new legislation, tens of thousands of Hindu, Christian, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan will be allowed to claim Indian citizenship. The same will not apply for Muslims. www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/13/violent-clashes-continue-in-delhi-over-new-citizenship-bill
The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World
Southwestern College will be hiring over 20 full-time tenure-track faculty to begin assignments Fall 2020.
Southwestern College will be hiring over 20 full-time tenure-track faculty to begin assignments Fall 2020. We are looking for dynamic, equity-focused and inclusive individuals to join our team. Interested? Let us show you exactly what is needed to be a successful candidate in the hiring process. Join us for the Faculty Hiring Summit where you can learn about our process and have all of your questions answered as well.
Please click here for JOB OPENINGS. www.eventbrite.com/e/swc-faculty-hiring-summit-tickets-83906096393
