We Say Fight Back!

Indiana teachers make sea of red outside statehouse

Thousands of Indiana educators are rallying outside the statehouse Tuesday morning in what they’re calling Red for Ed action day.

Teacher unions say about half of Indiana’s nearly 300 school districts will be closed Tuesday while their teachers attend the rally as legislators head to work.

Fort Wayne Community Schools and East Allen County Schools joined the list of districts closing their doors.

Northwest Allen County Schools and Southwest Allen County Schools plan to remain open and take part in “Walk-ins,” where teachers are encouraged to wear the color red.

Tuesday’s rally includes a meeting with lawmakers, a march on the statehouse grounds and teachers sharing stories.

Teacher unions say members are frustrated over seeing little or no pay raises in a decade but face additional demands from the state.  wpta21.com/news/top-stories/2019/11/19/indiana-teachers-make-sea-of-red-outside-statehouse/?fbclid=IwAR1VuuqyGod432-CueWHC9oo3TTsg_NYap7rSRKyqomM_BrzSLiMFs6nv6I

Two, Three, Many Uprisings: Chile, Ecuador, Algeria, Haiti, Lebanon, Sudan, Hong Kong and in the USA? Rumblings…

Google workers protest suspensions of activist employees

About 200 Google employees and other tech workers assembled outside the company’s downtown San Francisco office on Friday to call for the reinstatement of two workers placed on leave this month for reasons they claim are connected to their internal activism.

The protesters accused the company of suspending the employees, Laurence Berland and Rebecca Rivers, to intimidate and silence others inside the Alphabet-owned internet giant who have spoken out on a variety of issues including the company’s pursuit of defense contracts and decreasing internal transparency.

“Our co-workers…have been on the front lines of this struggle for freedom and good jobs for all here at Google,” Stephanie Parker, a Google employee and one of the organizers of a November 2018 walkout by 20,000 Googlers, said at the rally. “Their reward? Google has suspended them from their jobs and interrogated them for speaking out. We are here today to show them our support and demand that Google bring them back immediately.”

The company said the employees were placed on administrative leave as they are investigated for violating company policy by accessing and sharing documents they did not have permissions for and tracking the publicly shared calendar of other employees on the communications and human resources teams. Sleuthing by staffers on calendar entries reportedly revealed Google’s hiring of a law firm known for its work against unionization campaigns.   www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-11-22/google-workers-rally-activists-protests?fbclid=IwAR3hcfA-6Sq9le2mds_60n0pi4mePqO9F7dvFDoTxw-1vUHjrjtMmvMIo08

The Invention of Thanksgiving

Massacres, myths, and the making of the great November holiday.

Autumn is the season for Native America. There are the cool nights and warm days of Indian summer and the genial query “What’s Indian about this weather?” More wearisome is the annual fight over the legacy of Christopher Columbus—a bold explorer dear to Italian-American communities, but someone who brought to this continent forms of slavery that would devastate indigenous populations for centuries. Football season is in full swing, and the team in the nation’s capital revels each week in a racist performance passed off as “just good fun.” As baseball season closes, one prays that Atlanta (or even semi-evolved Cleveland) will not advance to the World Series. Next up is Halloween, typically featuring “Native American Brave” and “Sexy Indian Princess” costumes. November brings Native American Heritage Month and tracks a smooth countdown to Thanksgiving. In the elementary-school curriculum, the holiday traditionally meant a pageant, with students in construction-paper headdresses and Pilgrim hats reënacting the original celebration. If today’s teachers aim for less pageantry and a slightly more complicated history, many students still complete an American education unsure about the place of Native people in the nation’s past—or in its present. Cap the season off with Thanksgiving, a turkey dinner, and a fable of interracial harmony. Is it any wonder that by the time the holiday arrives a lot of American Indian people are thankful that autumn is nearly over?

Americans have been celebrating Thanksgiving for nearly four centuries, commemorating that solemn dinner in , 1621. We know the story well, or think we do.

Students storm field at halftime of Harvard-Yale demanding action on climate change

Largely of college age but with a few older protesters mixed in, the group chanted: “Hey Hey! Ho Ho! Fossil fuels have got to go!” One banner read “This is an emergency.”

Police in yellow vests lined up alongside the sit-in but did not intervene. When the 15-minute halftime expired and the protest continued, hundreds more fans streamed onto the field to join in. Fans remaining in the stands began to boo, but only briefly.   www.nydailynews.com/sports/college/ny-climate-change-protest-harvard-yale-20191123-zojhuw6gojdtbgv2e3dyned6gi-story.html?fbclid=IwAR2AlEZ0GTju8fVlbBP_Q63RmKQTEj8N73fqQ1zx88uUxA3fg3Ejc5_64nM

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Poisoned Flint weighs school closures as it grapples with special ed costs

Skyrocketing special education costs and debt are squeezing Flint Community Schools to the point its superintendent wants to close four of its 12 school buildings.

Superintendent Derrick Lopez said the district is facing a $5.7 million budget deficit stemming from $3.6 million in special education costs not covered by the state and $2.1 million in legacy debt, which together have forced the district to enter into a deficit elimination plan.

Fueling the district’s economic problems is the fact that 24% of the 3,750 students in Flint Community Schools are designated as special education, a number that is nearly twice as high as the 13.2% statewide average.

“The district’s current financial hardship is a result of longstanding loans to be repaid, in combination with a disproportionate number of students requiring special education services, compared to state averages,” Lopez said.

The number of special education students in Flint schools has substantially increased from just below 15% in the 2014-15 school year — as Flint’s water crisis began — to 24% currently, a figure provided by Lopez.   www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2019/11/19/flint-weighs-school-closures-grapples-special-ed-costs/3921929002/

114,000 Students in N.Y.C. Are Homeless.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for an outside monitor after a series of racist incidents that has left Syracuse University besieged.

It was an ordinary cram session, around midnight, when the screed appeared on students’ phones. A racist manifesto, sent to a small clutch of people sitting at a Syracuse University library on Tuesday morning, warned of “the great replacement,” a right-wing conspiracy theory that predicts white genocide at the hands of minority groups.

It was just the latest example of racist activity that has left the private university besieged, with officials confronted by student sit-ins and harsh critiques from faculty members and federal agents crawling the campus.

The incidents, which began less than two weeks ago, have included racist graffiti, swastikas and hate speech hurled at black and Asian students.

On Sunday, the university suspended all social activities at fraternities for the rest of the semester, after a group of students, including members of one fraternity, accosted a female African-American student on Saturday night and used a racial slur.   www.nytimes.com/2019/11/19/nyregion/syracuse-manifesto-racism-fraternity.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

MSU survey: Nearly 13% of female undergraduates sexually assaulted last year

Nearly 13% of female undergraduates at Michigan State University said they were sexually assaulted in the 2018-19 academic year, according to a survey released Thursday.

More than 15,000 students, faculty and staff, nearly a quarter of the campus community, shared their experiences with sexual misconduct and relationship violence through the MSU Campus Climate Survey, giving the university a snapshot of a campus culture that concerns many students.

“We’ve certainly had challenges in this area,” said MSU President Samuel Stanley Jr. “Way more than any university in the country.”

The optional, campus-wide, online survey was launched in March.

“That was a very rocky time in our organizational history and the data bore that out,” said Rebecca Campbell, professor of psychology and adviser to the president on RVSM issues

4.3% of undergraduate women said they were raped last year

The survey defined sexual assault as unwanted, non-consensual sexual contact. Sexual harassment or coerced sexual contact was not included.  www.freep.com/story/news/2019/11/21/msu-michigan-state-university-sexual-assault-rape-nassar-climate-survey/4258131002/?fbclid=IwAR2lT8AZCa98taClWEF35owyswKplzmv8J1Ifodjy51HTQiGFwj0mn0PrYA

Thomas Jefferson School of Law’s last try to keep national accreditation fails

Officials with the American Bar Association this week upheld a decision to strip national accreditation from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in downtown San Diego.

The school will lose national accreditation effective Dec. 17, the day after the end of its fall semester.

The school plans to continue operating but with accreditation from the state.

Accreditation from the State Bar of California allows the school’s students to take the state bar exam, but not bar exams in other states. National accreditation allows law graduates to take any state’s bar exam.  www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/story/2019-11-22/thomas-jefferson-school-of-laws-last-attempt-to-keep-national-accreditation-fails

Cal State math proposal would create an unfair barrier for black and Latino students, critics say

A controversial Cal State University proposal to require a fourth year of math-related coursework for admission came under robust questioning and at times harsh criticism Wednesday from top state educators and others who said it would unfairly block black and Latino students from the system with no guarantee that it would improve graduation rates.

More than 90 social justice groups, education organizations, and school district and legislative leaders from across the state have voiced their opposition to the plan, first proposed in 2016 and enthusiastically embraced by CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White as a way to raise standards and graduation rates, close achievement equity gaps and better prepare California’s future workforce.

In the fifth board hearing this year on the issue, tensions surfaced in testimony. The proposal calls for CSU admits to take an additional year of math, science or other quantitative coursework, such as computer science or personal finance. At the heart of the debate are questions about educational access for the hundreds of thousands of students who apply to and attend the nation’s largest public four-year university system. www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-21/csu-proposes-delay-to-increased-admissions-requirements

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

Rising costs, dwindling recruit numbers, increasing demands may bring back the military draft

In mid-October, with unrest swirling in Baghdad, a familiar visitor slipped quietly into the Iraqi capital. The city had been under siege for weeks, as protesters marched in the streets, demanding an end to corruption and calling for the ouster of the prime minister, Adil Abdul Mahdi. In particular, they denounced the outsize influence of their neighbor Iran in Iraqi politics, burning Iranian flags and attacking an Iranian consulate.

The visitor was there to restore order, but his presence highlighted the protesters’ biggest grievance: he was Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, head of Iran’s powerful Quds Force, and he had come to persuade an ally in the Iraqi Parliament to help the prime minister hold onto his job.

It was not the first time General Suleimani had been dispatched to Baghdad to do damage control. Tehran’s efforts to prop up Mr. Mahdi are part of its long campaign to maintain Iraq as a pliable client state.

Now leaked Iranian documents offer a detailed portrait of just how aggressively Tehran has worked to embed itself into Iraqi affairs, and of the unique role of General Suleimani. The documents are contained in an archive of secret Iranian intelligence cables obtained by The Intercept and shared with The New York Times for this article, which is being published simultaneously by both news organizations.   www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/18/world/middleeast/iran-iraq-spy-cables.html

Thousands flee, hundreds reported dead in Turkish attack on U.S.-allied Kurds in Syria

ISTANBUL/ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey pounded Kurdish militia in northeast Syria for a second day on Thursday, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee and killing at least dozens of people in a cross-border assault on U.S. allies that has turned the Washington establishment against President Donald Trump.

The offensive against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) led by Kurdish YPG militia, which began days after Trump pulled U.S. troops out of the way and following a phone call with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, opens one of the biggest new fronts in years in an eight-year-old civil war that has drawn in global powers.

“We have one of three choices: Send in thousands of troops and win Militarily, hit Turkey very hard Financially and with Sanctions, or mediate a deal between Turkey and the Kurds!” Trump said in a Twitter post on Thursday.   www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-security-turkey-usa/thousands-flee-hundreds-reported-dead-in-turkish-attack-on-u-s-allied-kurds-in-syria-idUSKBN1WP0VH?fbclid=IwAR2qVpmG64WUUPoXpTklenGilaSSmbIlrwSYC6qUdVOfDj0dpQ2SS6QpwCk

Veterans For Peace Condemns Racist Coup in Bolivia

Veterans For Peace strongly condemns the violent U.S.-backed right-wing coup in Bolivia. Evo Morales was the first Indigenous president in Bolivia, which is 65% Indigenous. The openly racist Bolivarian oligarchy, descendants of European colonizers, could not stand to see a government that was led by Indigenous people and whose policies were lifting millions of people out of poverty.

The U.S. government tries to hide its involvement in Latin American coups, but we know that the U.S. and the CIA have a long history of interfering in Latin America , and USAID has “invested more than $97 million in “decentralization” and “regional autonomy” projects and opposition political parties in Bolivia since 2002“. Several of the coup generals were trained at the infamous School of the Americas (aka School of Assassins) at Fort Benning, Georgia, where Veterans For Peace members have gathered every year – for 30 years – calling SHUT IT DOWN!

For over two centuries, the United States has been dominating and exploiting Latin America, which the powers-that-be considered to be “our backyard.” This has included many direct military interventions as well as support for military dictatorships. The U.S. is now intervening all around the globe, but it has been hyperactive in Latin America over the last few years. The Trump Administration is openly attempting to overthrow the socialist government of Venezuela, and is busy undermining progressive forces in the region. The U.S. government was the first to recognize the illegal coup government in Bolivia. Donald Trump immediately called out the governments of Venezuela and Nicaragua, suggesting they could be next. The U.S. has doubled down on its economic blockade of Cuba. The powers-that-be will not tolerate any Latin American government that puts the needs of its people above the greed of foreign corporations.   www.veteransforpeace.org/our-work/position-statements/veterans-peace-condemn-racist-coup-bolivia?fbclid=IwAR3LoHPvm372QgplcfN4HmTyBUI-dSr0jJcCC-7wBo2lLoS5ZJUg4D7wE_E

Germany secures access to vast lithium deposit in Bolivia

– Germany and Bolivia on Wednesday sealed a partnership for the industrial use of lithium, a key raw material for battery cell production, in an important step to become less dependent on Asian market leaders in the dawning age of electric cars.

Interest in battery metals such as cobalt, nickel and lithium is soaring as the auto industry scrambles to build more electric cars and cut noxious fumes from vehicles powered by fossil fuels in light of stricter emission rules.

“Germany should become a leading location for battery cell production. A large part of production costs is linked to raw materials,” German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said.

“German industry is therefore well advised to secure its needs for lithium early in order to avoid falling behind and slipping into dependency,” Altmaier said, adding the deal was “an important building block” to secure this supply.

With the joint venture, Bolivian state company YLB is teaming up with Germany’s privately-owned ACI Systems to develop its massive Uyuni salt flat and build a lithium hydroxide plant as well as a factory for electric vehicle batteries in Bolivia.   uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germany-bolivia-lithium/germany-secures-access-to-vast-lithium-deposit-in-bolivia-idUKKBN1OB22X?fbclid=IwAR1XA11CgBHVk50G7zQMdpIEtwQ1Ik9L7t8KwS3I394odRoGo2Y8KFrHBXE

Reports of War Crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan Highlight the Failures of Both Wars

by Patrick Cockburn

The alleged bid by the British government and army to close down investigations into torture and murder in Iraq and Afghanistan appears to be the latest aspect of a widespread desire in the UK to forget all about these failed wars. Joining the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 is commonly blamed on Tony Blair, but there is little interest in the desperate situation into which British troops were plunged post-invasion, first in southern Iraq and then, three years later, in Helmand province in Afghanistan.

The gravity of the miscalculations in each case is not in doubt. Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British ambassador in Kabul at the time, wrote in his memoirs that the worst mistake made by the Foreign Office in the previous 30 years was the invasion of Iraq, and the second worst was “its enthusiastic endorsement of Britain’s half-baked effort to occupy Helmand in 2006”.

The allegation that war crimes were committed – to be claimed in a BBC Panorama programme on Monday evening – is in keeping with Britain’s dismal record in these conflicts.

The ICC has said it is considering opening an investigation into the claims, based on leaked documents. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said the allegations are unsubstantiated.

After the capture of Baghdad, the British army stayed in the south of Iraq, mostly in and around Basra, apparently under the impression that this would be quieter than the Sunni Arab provinces that had more strongly supported Saddam Hussein.

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor                 

WeWork chairman posts photos from lavish, Michelin-starred dinner a day after his company began laying off 2,400 employees

WeWork Chairman Marcelo Claure shared his pasta tasting at a high-end Italian restaurant on social media a day after the embattled startup began massive layoffs.

In his Instagram stories, Claure posted a photo of the $110-per-person tasting menu at Michelin-starred Babbo with the caption “pasta overdose.” A subsequent video from the Greenwich Village, New York City restaurant shows various plates laid out on his table, including a serving of olive oil cake and gelato.

Celebrity chef Mario Batali and TV personality Joe Bastianich opened the establishment in 1998; Batali ended his partnership with the restaurant earlier this year after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment.

The New York Times’ Amy Chozick tweeted a screenshot from Claure’s Instagram stories, saying that he just laid off thousands of employees “right before Thanksgiving.”    www.businessinsider.com/wework-chairman-marcelo-claure-pasta-tasting-photos-amid-employee-layoffs-2019-11

                          

Gina Champion-Cain invokes Fifth Amendment in her response to SEC’s $300M fraud case

San Diego businesswoman Gina Champion-Cain, in a court filing Wednesday, repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to federal charges accusing her as the mastermind behind a $300 million fraud case.

Wednesday was the deadline for Champion-Cain’s long-awaited response to the case, which was filed in late August by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Instead of directly responding to allegations that she bilked dozens of investors of money raised from them as part of a liquor license lending scheme, she declined to admit guilt.

“To the extent a response is required, Ms. Champion-Cain respectfully invokes her rights under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution against self-incrimination” and “declines to answer,” her lawyers stated throughout the 22-page response.

Champion-Cain, a prominent restaurateur whose once robust portfolio of dining venues is now mostly shut down, is accused of devising a scheme where instead of using investor money to make high-interest loans to individuals seeking alcohol licenses, she directed the bulk of the money to a company she controlled.   www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2019-11-20/gina-champion-cain-invokes-fifth-amendment-in-her-response-to-secs-300m-fraud-case

When MyPayrollHR shut down, thousands of companies and a quarter of a million workers were left in the lurch.

  But days before, according to federal authorities, Michael Mann, the president of MyPayrollHR, redirected those payroll funds — $26 million in total, according to a separate lawsuit — into his own personal accounts.

That set off a cascade of events. Mr. Mann’s banks found the transfer suspicious and froze his accounts, causing MyPayrollHR to cease operations.

Yet Cachet still distributed millions of dollars into the direct deposit accounts of thousands of workers.

When Cachet realized it had allocated funds that didn’t exist, the company reversed the transactions, taking back money from thousands of workers. Multiple attempts led to overdrafts for some accounts. One worker in Tennessee had an account overdraft by nearly $1 million.   www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/nyregion/mypayrollhr-michael-mann.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Record Inequality and Corporate Profits Are What Media Call a ‘Strong Economy’

Corporate news outlets have an inherent interest in cloaking class warfare by equating a “strong economy” with the prosperity of the investor class, even if it comes at the expense of everyone else.

Last month, CNBC (10/7/19) reassured us that fears of a potential recession are “overblown,” because the “hard data” shows that the “US economy remains strong.”

If you’ve been keeping track of corporate media coverage of the US economy over the past several years, you might have noticed a contradictory pattern. You’ll find that corporate media make ubiquitous references to a “strong economy,” while simultaneously providing many reports on the increasingly impoverished and precarious working class alongside the continuously rising fortunes of the rich.

Last month, a New York Times report (10/20/19) exemplified this seemingly bizarre practice when it wondered why so many workers are striking when we apparently live in such a “strong economy,” because the piece also discussed how “today’s strikes are fueled by a deeper sense of unfairness and economic anxiety.”

Even though corporate media are now warning us not to be too complacent because of a potential imminent recession and slowing GDP growth (CNN, 8/18/19; Wall Street Journal, 10/30/19), references to a “strong economy” and an “economic recovery” from the Great Recession still abound.

Three years ago, the New York Times (12/2/16) remarked that former President Barack Obama was handing off a “strong economy” to President Donald Trump, even as it noted that “tens of millions of Americans understandably feel that the recovery has passed them by.” Two years later, Times columnist David Brooks (11/29/19) led off a column by declaring, “We’re enjoying one of the best economies of our lifetime.”  www.commondreams.org/views/2019/11/19/record-inequality-and-corporate-profits-are-what-media-call-strong-economy?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1cY7_dAie6bDXk5STfnLSmSBi8DZvtpM3oEaZAtzWZ12mO4XDaJ-c6SrI

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

Stephen Miller And ‘The Camp Of The Saints,’ A White Nationalist Reference

Senior White House adviser Stephen Miller is an immigration hard-liner. He engineered the Trump administration’s family-separation policy and its travel ban on people from some Muslim-majority countries.

But last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center detailed leaked emails in which it says Miller encouraged far-right website Breitbart to promote white supremacist ideas. In one message, Miller references a book of fiction: “Someone should point out the parallels to Camp of the Saints.”

The Camp of the Saints is a 1973 French novel by Jean Raspail that has become a key inspiration within white nationalist circles. It portrays a dystopia, or perhaps an apocalypse: a flotilla of South Asian people who invade France and effectively overthrow Western society.

“The key themes are actually white supremacy and the end of white civilization as the West knows it — infestation, invasion, hordes of nameless, faceless migrants who come to indeed invade the West and bring about its end,” says Chelsea Stieber, professor of French and Francophone studies at Catholic University of America.

Stieber says she became interested in the novel after she heard echoes of its rhetoric – its “not-normal political discourse” — in President Trump’s inaugural address.

“I noticed a language that I was intimately familiar with because I study it — because I worked on far-right French nationalism and its literature and language for a long time,” she says. “And I was sort of blown away. The alarm bells started going off.”    www.npr.org/2019/11/19/780552636/stephen-miller-and-the-camp-of-the-saints-a-white-nationalist-reference

Barbarism Rising: Inside the bloody cartel war for Mexico’s multibillion-dollar avocado industry

The cartel members showed up in this verdant stretch of western Mexico armed with automatic weapons and chainsaws.

Soon they were cutting timber day and night, the crash of falling trees echoing throughout the virgin forest. When locals protested, explaining that the area was protected from logging, they were held at gunpoint and ordered to keep quiet.

Stealing wood was just a prelude to a more ambitious plan.

The newcomers, members of a criminal group called the Viagras, were almost certainly clearing the forest to set up a grow operation. They wouldn’t be planting marijuana or other crops long favored by Mexican cartels, but something potentially even more profitable: avocados.

Mexico’s multibillion-dollar avocado industry, headquartered in Michoacan state, has become a prime target for cartels, which have been seizing farms and clearing protected woodlands to plant their own groves of what locals call “green gold.”  www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-11-20/mexico-cartel-violence-avocados

Depraved Ruling Elite File: ABC News denies that it killed Jeffrey Epstein reporting

ABC News was in cleanup mode on Tuesday after a video surfaced of “20/20″ co-anchor Amy Robach expressing frustration that the network did not run her 2015 reporting on pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.

The video — leaked on YouTube by conservative provocateur James O’Keefe — shows Robach at an anchor desk talking to a producer about a 2015 interview she conducted with Epstein victim Virginia Roberts that implicated Britain’s Prince Andrew, attorney Alan Dershowitz and former President Clinton. O’Keefe said that the tape was recorded in August and that it was provided by an ABC employee.

The most damning claim from Robach is that ABC News would not run the reporting because it feared losing access to coverage of the British royal family.

“I’ve had the story for three years,” Robach said in the video. “I’ve had this interview with Virginia Roberts. We would not put it on the air. First of all, I was told, ‘Who’s Jeffrey Epstein? No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story.’ Then the palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a million different ways. We were so afraid we wouldn’t be able to interview [Kate Middleton and Prince William] that we quashed the story.”   www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2019-11-05/abc-news-denies-that-it-killed-jeffrey-epstein-report

WHERE’S GHISLAINE?

FBI ‘know where Ghislaine Maxwell is’ and are ‘building case against’ her’

SHE’S been living undercover between the UK and the US since the Prince Andrew sex abuse storm erupted in August – but now cops know exactly where ‘pimp’ Ghislaine Maxwell is, an expert claims.

Spencer Kuvin, who represents three of the dead paedophile‘s accusers, told Sun Online he believes that the FBI are building a strong case against the Brit socialite before they arrest her – and that they are following her every move.

“There’s only two possible places where she might be and that’s England – or the UK somewhere – or in the States,” the Florida-based attorney told Sun Online.

“And if she’s in the States, she’s going to be in New York or California.

“I think those places are where she feels most comfortable and even someone who is on the run or someone who might have concerns of prosecution, they’re going to go where they feel safest and I think the two places she feels safest and most comfortable are the US and the UK.”   www.thesun.co.uk/news/10391484/fbi-know-where-ghislaine-maxwell-is-and-are-building-case-against-her/

The two jail staff members were charged with falsifying records and conspiring to defraud the United States.

The president said Chief Petty Officer Gallagher, who has been at the center of a high-profile war crimes case, would not lose his membership in the elite commando force.

Report: Navy secretary sides with admiral on Gallagher review: ‘I believe the process matters’

U.S. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer said on Friday that SEAL Chief Eddie Gallagher should face a planned “trident review board,” despite President Donald Trump’s tweet Thursday that
Gallagher should remain in a SEAL.

Spencer told Reuters at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada, he supports the hearing into whether Gallagher can keep his trident, a symbol of the SEALS, in light of Gallagher’s conviction at a general court-martial in San Diego in July.

“I believe the process matters for good order and discipline,” Spencer said.

On Tuesday, the Union-Tribune reported that the decision to review the SEAL qualifications of four service members connected to Gallagher’s war crimes case by the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Adm. Collin Green was made with the support of Navy leadership, the chief of naval operations, Adm. Mike Gilday.

Solidarity for Never

 

GM lawsuit: UAW engaged in criminal conspiracy with FCA to cut labor costs

On Wednesday, General Motors filed a 95-page federal lawsuit asserting that Fiat-Chrysler (FCA) and the UAW engaged in “a systematic and near decade-long conspiracy to bribe senior officials to corrupt the collective bargaining process,” “buy labor peace,” “slash labor costs,” and thereby “gain a wage advantage over its competitors.”

GM’s lawsuit was not filed on behalf of autoworkers. GM is demanding billions of dollars for itself on the grounds that the UAW gave billions more in concessions to FCA than it did to GM. And having just conspired with the UAW to starve out 50,000 striking autoworkers in the US, GM makes clear its gratitude for UAW collaboration. The first paragraph of the complaint reads: “The UAW and its officials are not Defendants to this lawsuit,” while GM stresses its aim to build a “stronger future” between the UAW and the company.

But the complaint includes critical and previously unknown details from court filings and internal GM-UAW deliberations that workers must know. These details expose the UAW as a legal arm of the corporations. The complaint states:

• “From July 2009 until at least 2017, FCA Group, through a pattern of racketeering activity, acquired and maintained an interest in and/or control of the UAW, and in particular its decisions and actions regarding CBAs [collective bargaining agreements], which FCA Group and the other Defendants operated as an 18 U.S.C. §1962(b) RICO [Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act] enterprise (‘FCA-Control Enterprise.’)”    www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/22/pers-n22.html

Funniest moment in the History of the US “Labor Movement:” GM files racketeering lawsuit against FCA, saying it corrupted labor talks

Open warfare broke out between two Detroit automakers Wednesday, with General Motors suing Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, alleging that it cost GM billions of dollars by corrupting labor talks over the past decade. FCA called the effort “a meritless attempt to divert attention” from GM’s own challenges.

GM also alleged that former FCA boss Sergio Marchionne authorized bribes and conspired with the UAW to “effectively take over GM through a merger.”

GM’s lawsuit, filed under federal racketeering laws, said FCA was “the clear sponsor of pervasive wrongdoing, paying millions of dollars in bribes to obtain benefits, concessions and advantages in the negotiation, implementation and administration of labor agreements over time.” That gave FCA an unfair edge in labor expenses, it said.

Those claims are tied to an ongoing federal corruption investigation that has led to 13 criminal charges and 11 guilty pleas among former FCA executives and UAW leaders, one of whom held a GM board seat. The probe has spread from misspending of money from a UAW-FCA training center to the highest reaches of the union, with both current President Gary Jones and his predecessor Dennis Williams implicated. Jones resigned Wednesday from the union amid contract negotiations with Detroit , as UAW leaders were moving to remove him.

Gary Jones resigns as UAW president, as union moved to expel him

United Auto Workers President Gary Jones resigned Wednesday amid a federal corruption investigation targeting him for embezzling more than $1.5 million in union funds, capping a steep fall for one of the country’s most powerful labor leaders.

Jones’ lawyer revealed the resignation to The Detroit News less than an hour after the union’s governing International Executive Board moved to remove Jones and UAW Region 5 Director Vance Pearson from their elected positions and expel them from the union.

“After much discussion with his family and friends, Gary has elected to resign his position as UAW president and retire effective immediately,” Jones’ lawyer, Bruce Maffeo, told The News on Wednesday afternoon.

“His decision to do so was reached before learning of the internal charges filed earlier today by the UAW and was based on his belief that his continuing to serve will only distract the union from its core mission to improve the lives of its members and their families.”

On Thursday morning the UAW announced that Jones, through his attorney, gave his resignation to the union’s executive board.    www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-motors/2019/11/20/gary-jones-resigns-as-uaw-president/4252063002/

Ex-UAW boss Jones gave daughter free Palm Springs townhouse rental, union says

The United Auto Workers tried to fire former President Gary Jones because he covered up spending union funds on luxuries in California, including a free townhouse rental for a daughter, according to documents released Thursday.

The UAW’s governing board released a list of charges against Jones as part of the union’s attempt to oust him and Region 5 Director Vance Pearson. The release came one day after Jones resigned amid a federal corruption investigation targeting Jones and retired President Dennis Williams.

The charging documents provided new details about expenses surrounding a UAW conference in Palm Springs, Calif., in 2014. Jones and his wife were staying in a townhouse paid for by the UAW.

“Knowing that he was leaving Palm Springs at the end of the third week of January, 2014, Jones arranged for one of his family members to come to Palm Springs and stay in the townhome that had been rented for him by the UAW during the last week of January, 2014,” the document reads….

Jones and UAW officer Edward “Nick” Robinson also are accused of embezzling as much as $700,000 in union funds and splitting the money.

The Robinson criminal case includes references to what legal experts describe as undercover recordings capturing Jones and others discussing possible crimes.

The criminal case describes three conversations among UAW officials earlier this year and directly quotes labor leaders talking about destroying evidence and obstructing justice. Robinson, who is expected to plead guilty, is the only UAW official who participated in all three conversations directly quoted by prosecutors.

In January, Jones met with Robinson and Pearson and tried to obstruct the investigation, prosecutors said.

“UAW Official A promised to provide a sham job to a relative of (Robinson) in order to ‘take care of’ the relative if Robinson agreed to falsely take sole responsibility for the … cash embezzlement portion of the conspiracy, thereby attempting to protect UAW Official A from federal criminal prosecution,” prosecutors wrote.    www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2019/11/21/ousted-uaw-boss-jones-gave-daughter-free-palm-springs-townhouse-union-says/4261305002/

UAW Official Demoted After Saying Locals That Voted Against Ford Agreement Should Lose Jobs

As voting on the Auto Workers’ agreement with Ford came to a close last week, a union official publicly expressed his contempt for locals that had voted against the pact.

Management should move production to locals that voted yes, wrote Michael Robison, an assistant director in the union’s National Ford Department.

“Everyone of them Locals should lose there product now and in the future. $1 Billion dollar investment in KTP [Kentucky Truck Plant] really. Ship Lima Engine to Dearborn Engine. Ship Chicago Assy’s work to Flat Rock,” Robison wrote Friday on Facebook.    labornotes.org/blogs/2019/11/uaw-official-demoted-after-saying-locals-voted-against-ford-agreement-should-lose-jobs?fbclid=IwAR2EaX6cD2FO6z0SSRNjjaNxeiCZZV-L0kg4-81HyrR4cLNUixgOaTYUabc

Leadership unclear as UAW faces its ‘most critical moment’ (next crook step up)

It is unclear who will lead the United Auto Workers in the middle of a corruption crisis following the resignation of embattled President Gary Jones, accused by the union’s executive board of filing false invoices.

Acting President Rory Gamble continues in his role for now, spokesman Brian Rothenberg said. But the union’s executive board must vote on a replacement to finish out Jones’ four-year term now that he has resigned, according to the UAW constitution. A date has not been set yet.    www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2019/11/22/leadership-unclear-uaw-faces-its-most-critical-moment/4260007002/

Here are the UAW’s Article 30 charges against Gary Jones

the UAW International Executive Board has voted to begin Article 30 proceedings against former President Gary Jones and his indicted right-hand man, Vance Pearson, Local 4 and ClickOnDetroit learned on Wednesday.

By filing charges under Article 30, board members made it clear they are seeking to remove Jones and Pearson from their elected positions within the union and to expel them from membership in the UAW. After they announced Article 30 proceedings on Wednesday, however, Jones resigned as president of the UAW. He had already taken a leave of absence.  www.clickondetroit.com/news/2019/11/21/here-are-the-uaws-article-30-charges-against-gary-jones/?breaking_news=2389&utm_content=18680971&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Breaking%20News%20Alert&utm_term=wdiv_breaking

$93.6 Million Verdict Threatens to Bankrupt One of America’s Most Powerful Unions(Is the Union mostly its bank account?)

Spy versus Spy

Inside the Organized Crime Syndicate known as the CIA: an Interview with Douglas Valentine

Heidi Boghosian: Doug, in your book, The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World, you lay out some of the most egregious acts of the agency. What do you think are one or two of the worst?

Douglas Valentine: Oh, you know, that’s so hard to say, but it’s certainly conducting paramilitary wars in foreign countries. For example, in Laos, the CIA organized an entire army of mountain tribes. They were mistakenly called the Meo by the Americans [pronounced Mayo] (which was equivalent to saying the N-word), when they were actually the Hmong [pronounced Mung].

Laos was supposed to be a country that was neutral, but the CIA organized an entire secret army of just this tribe of Hmong natives. Most of the soldiers were children, young boys, 14, 15, 16 years old. And they sent thousands and thousands of these young boys to their deaths trying to stop the Vietcong from coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos. They just used this mountain tribe as expendable cannon fodder. And they do this sort of thing all over the world all the time. They’ve done it in Iraq, they’ve done it in Afghanistan, they do it in numerous countries throughout Africa, where they just organize militias and secret armies.

And nobody ever reports how tens of thousands of these people [are sent] to their deaths. There’s never a price to pay for it. So, for me—of all of the many, many things they do, including torture as blackmail, even infiltrating various agencies—you have the U.S. government using them for its own purposes, conducting secret wars and sacrificing young foreign citizens. That really strikes me as the worst.   covertactionmagazine.com/index.php/2019/11/21/inside-the-organized-crime-syndicate-known-as-the-cia-an-interview-with-douglas-valentine/

Former CIA Officer Sentenced to 19 Years in Prison Over Chinese Espionage Contacts

A Central Intelligence Officer who was paid nearly $1 million from Chinese sources, and admitted to taking directions from Chinese agents to reveal classified U.S. intelligence, was sentenced to 19 years in prison Friday, the third former U.S. intelligence officer to be convicted this year over contacts with China.

Jerry Chun Shing Lee, who served for over a decade in the CIA, “had firsthand knowledge of some of the CIA’s most significant secrets, from the location of operations to counterintelligence techniques to the identities of clandestine human sources and the identities of covert CIA officers,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo.

Lee was arrested in January 2018 after the FBI found notebooks and a thumb drive containing classified intel on CIA operatives and locations. He pleaded guilty in May to conspiring to provide national defense information with a foreign government. 

Lee admitted to first meeting Chinese operatives in 2010 after leaving the Agency, and was offered to be taken care of “for life” in exchange for information on U.S. secrets. While authorities were never able to prove whether Lee gave the Chinese information — an accusation Lee denies — some officials still suspect he is responsible for the collapse of the CIA’s spy network in China, when assets began dying or defecting to the Chinese.  www.nationalreview.com/news/former-cia-officer-sentenced-to-19-years-in-prison-over-chinese-espionage-contacts/

Swedish prosecutors drop Julian Assange rape investigation

Swedish prosecutors have dropped their preliminary investigation into an allegation of rape against the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, bringing an end to a seven-year legal standoff.

The decision was taken after prosecutors concluded that “at this point, all possibilities to conduct the investigation are exhausted”, Sweden’s director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny, said on Friday.

“In order to proceed with the case, Julian Assange would have to be formally notified of the criminal suspicions against him. We cannot expect to receive assistance from Ecuador regarding this. Therefore the investigation is discontinued.

“If he, at a later date, makes himself available, I will be able to decide to resume the investigation immediately.”

The WikiLeaks founder sought asylum in Ecuador’s embassy in London in 2012 after losing court battles to avoid extradition to Sweden over the claims, which he denies.

Separate allegations of sexual assault, made by a second Swedish woman, were dropped by Swedish authorities in 2015 after the statute of limitations expired.

Shortly after the announcement on Friday morning, an image of Assange smiling was posted to his Twitter account.     www.theguardian.com/media/2017/may/19/swedish-prosecutors-drop-julian-assange-investigation

The CIA’s Secret Quest For Mind Control: Torture, LSD And A ‘Poisoner In Chief’

During the early period of the Cold War, the CIA became convinced that communists had discovered a drug or technique that would allow them to control human minds. In response, the CIA began its own secret program, called MK-ULTRA, to search for a mind control drug that could be weaponized against enemies.

MK-ULTRA, which operated from the 1950s until the early ’60s, was created and run by a chemist named Sidney Gottlieb. Journalist Stephen Kinzer, who spent several years investigating the program, calls the operation the “most sustained search in history for techniques of mind control.”

Some of Gottlieb’s experiments were covertly funded at universities and research centers, Kinzer says, while others were conducted in American prisons and in detention centers in Japan, Germany and the Philippines. Many of his unwitting subjects endured psychological torture ranging from electroshock to high doses of LSD, according to Kinzer’s research.   www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-quest-for-mind-control-torture-lsd-and-a-poisoner-in-chief?fbclid=IwAR1xOJzhKwnrzoLyfCCQAdEAEJ0FsDbuhvZ-VJ6y4p7BO0oXr7S_EX1CJ1I

 

The Magical Mystery Tour

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

www.facebook.com/NBCMontana/videos/422273765332350/?t=11

1963: Crime of the century

All of “Z” with Subtitles:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBiT0_poxEU&fbclid=IwAR2eby2Yb_vN0UxLI4DpBoGQTx4kexCFnw0rED4Nk6rwTNiphczi_gH5qsQ

 

 

So Long

Jack O’Dell, King Aide Fired Over Communist Past, Dies at 96

By mid-1963, Jack O’Dell had been working for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for about 18 months, raising funds and helping to register voters.

He brought a diverse résumé to the job, having worked as a merchant seaman, union activist and insurance salesman. But he had also been a member of the Communist Party, which alarmed President John F. Kennedy and the director of the F.B.I., J. Edgar Hoover.

So when civil rights groups gathered at the White House on June 22, 1963, two months before the March on Washington, Kennedy pulled King aside in the Rose Garden. The president told King that he had to fire Mr. O’Dell and Stanley Levison, a white businessman and King aide, for ties to the party, according to multiple historical accounts. Mr. Levison was under F.B.I. surveillance at the time.   www.nytimes.com/2019/11/19/us/jack-odell-dead.html

William Loren Katz, Historian of African-Americans, Dies at 92

The fountainhead of the historian Bill Katz’s immersion in African-American culture was his father’s passion for jazz. Ben Katz had derived more pleasure from the music and its historical roots than from his day job as an art director for an advertising agency.

Bill also inherited his father’s lust for learning and political consciousness. Before he was 10 he marched in a May Day rally to support the Scottsboro Boys, nine young African-Americans falsely charged with rape in the early 1930s.

His empathy for black Americans only grew. As a high school teacher and in some 40 books written under the name William Loren Katz, he awakened his readers to the integral roles that African-Americans — from rebellious slaves to cowboys who tamed the West — had played in their nation’s history. He popularized their contributions in nonfiction narratives for young adults, helping to refashion social studies curriculums across the country.    www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/books/william-loren-katz-dead.html

Gahan Wilson, Vividly Macabre Cartoonist, Dies at 89