Rouge Forum Dispatch: Passion and Wisdom for Equality and Democracy
Saturday, November 16th, 2019We Say Fight Back!
Little Rock teachers to go on strike after state strips collective bargaining power
Teachers will go on strike for one day this week over a state panel’s decision to strip their collective bargaining power and complaints about state control of the 23,000-student district, union officials said Monday.
The strike set for Thursday will be only the second time teachers have walked out of the job in the city’s history. The Little Rock Education Association’s announcement came after the state Board of Education voted in October to no longer recognize the union when the contract expired Oct. 31.
Union leaders call for the state to give them back their bargaining power. Before the contract ended, the Little Rock School District had been the only one in Arkansas where a teachers union had collective bargaining power.
The union wants to see full local control of the district restored. Arkansas has run Little Rock’s schools since the state board took over the district in January 2015 because of low test scores at several schools. www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2019/11/11/little-rock-teacher-strike-date-announced-bargaining-power-stripped/2563148001/?fbclid=IwAR3OsBJVtj3sm7qDGqxz-qL64EqDyRo-wZ9DReNSdDAeSFxKIy7NI2jjwPQ
More Than 100 West County Teachers And Staff To Go On Strike
More than 100 west Sonoma County High School Teachers and Staff are going on strike. The West Sonoma County Teachers Association will begin their strike tomorrow as they fight for new contracts that include more pay among other terms. The association represents 110 teachers and staff at Analy, El Molino and Laguna High Schools. Association officials say west county teacher salaries are lagging behind the state average. www.ksro.com/2019/11/12/more-than-100-west-county-teachers-and-staff-to-go-on-strike/?fbclid=IwAR3KW4A56KugR0pB7lyhKtDCy-X1u08aDEItC3Z9ZVStxTdM1nKsyLTnM5M
Iraq protests: Top Shia cleric gives support to protests
Iraq’s top Shia cleric has given his support to protests calling for an end to rampant corruption and mass unemployment.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, 89, said the government was deluded if it believed it could avoid real reform through stalling and delaying tactics.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have taken to the streets since 1 October with wide-ranging demands.
An explosion in central Baghdad killed at least two people on Friday.
Iraqi security officials said the blast happened near Tahrir square, the centre of the anti-government demonstrations. More than a dozen others were injured.
At least 319 people have been killed at the protests, where security forces have fired live rounds and tear gas.
Protesters are demanding more jobs, an end to corruption, and better public services. www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50440110
Uprisings in Bolivia: Coup after failure of mix of identity politics and social democracy
Can a Nationalist Hong Kong Battle against China’s Social Fascists Morph into a mass class conscious movement vs tyranny?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=k22OhaaRF5Q
Asylum officers rebel against Trump policies they say are immoral and illegal
It took Doug Stephens two days to decide: He wasn’t going to implement President Trump’s latest policy to restrict immigration, known as Remain in Mexico. The asylum officer wouldn’t interview any more immigrants, only to send them back across the border to face potential danger.
As a federal employee, refusing to abide by policy probably meant that he’d be fired. But as a trained attorney, Stephens told The Times, the five interviews he’d been assigned were five too many. They were illegal.
“They’re definitely immoral,” Stephens said he told his supervisor in San Francisco. “And I’m not doing them.”
A spokesman for the union that represents some 13,000 Citizenship and Immigration Services employees said Stephens is believed to be the first asylum officer to formally refuse to conduct interviews under the program officially known as Migrant Protection Protocols. But across the country — according to asylum officers, including Stephens, as well as government officials — asylum officers are calling in sick, requesting transfers, retiring earlier than planned and quitting — all to resist Trump administration immigration policies. www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-11-15/asylum-officers-revolt-against-trump-policies-they-say-are-immoral-illegal
Nov. 15, 1969 | Anti-Vietnam War Demonstration Held (reminder)
On Nov. 15, 1969, the Vietnam Moratorium Committee staged what is believed to be the largest antiwar protest in United States history when as many as half a million people attended a mostly peaceful demonstration in Washington. Smaller demonstrations were held in a number of cities and towns across the country.
The rally featured speeches by antiwar politicians, including Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern and Charles Goodell, the only Republican to take part. It also included musical performances by Peter, Paul and Mary, Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger, who led the crowd in the singing of John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance.”
The New York Times described the crowd as “predominantly youthful” and “mass gathering of the moderate and radical Left … old-style liberals; Communists and pacifists and a sprinkling of the violent New Left.” learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/nov-15-1969-anti-vietnam-war-demonstration-held/?fbclid=IwAR1HmGZtSdc58MJPzN4z68LyHGTdDBf_4GnjZ0bH2PShH-skFZB6eZHuyEE
The Little Red Schoolhouse
Students cleared, advisors found at fault in ASO election controversy (Identity politics run amok )
Investigators who examined accusations of racism and unfair treatment in the spring Associated Student Organization election concluded that advisors supervising the ASO were at fault for the chaos and racial tension that followed when members of an all-African-American ticket accused a mostly-Latino ticket of racism and character assassination. Students were mostly cleared of wrongdoing and the results of the election were upheld.
Christian Sanchez of the mostly-Latino Team Green slate won the ASO presidency. Bamba Chibweth was elected executive vice president. Juliette Garcia was named VP of Finance and Juan Carlos Sandoval Rodriguez VP of Club Affairs. Dimitrius Loa, a central figure in the controversy, was seated as VP of Public Relations. Dae’vion Randal is the Executive Secretary and Eddie Alexander Barbarin the Social VP. Students elected as senators are Samantha Valdivia, Isaiah Atkins, Terry Conklin Jr, Mckenzie Dawkins, Jenai Funk and Albert Robinson.
Ayona Hudson, the presidential candidate on the all-black Team Elite ticket, was named to a newly-created position called VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. www.theswcsun.com/students-cleared-administrators-found-at-fault-in-aso-election-controversy/
College Apologizes for Threats to Paper
Southwestern College’s president and governing board issued official apologies to The Sun and its faculty adviser following an illegal attempt to use the California Public Records Act (CPRA) to obtain a video shot by a student journalist.
Former Title IX Director Gloria Chavez signed a two-page letter drafted by an attorney at the Erickson Law Firm demanding The Sun turn over a video shot by a staff photographer of a contentious ASO meeting in May. Chavez told an SCEA faculty union investigator that college lawyers wrote the letter and that she was forced against her wishes to sign it by her supervisor, Vice President of Human Resources Rose DelGaudio.
Chavez also said DelGaudio ordered her to have the letter hand-served to Professor of Journalism Dr. Max Branscomb at his home. Branscomb was on medical leave at the time recovering from four surgeries for life-threatening oral cancer, and seven weeks of radiation treatments and chemotherapy. Chavez originally denied that an HR employee delivered the letter to Branscomb, then later said DelGaudio ordered her to have Branscomb served at his home. The letter reads “hand-delivery/Branscomb” in bold type across the top. …
Adam Steinbaugh, a director at the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, sent a six-page letter to Murillo condemning the college’s attempts to coerce Branscomb and The Sun. He ridiculed the college for attempting to use CPRA.
“The district’s use of a directive under the California Public Records Act is an astonishing affront to the rights of student journalists, betraying the institution’s obligations under the First Amendment and California law,” he wrote. www.theswcsun.com/college-apologizes-for-threats-to-paper/
Del Mar insurance exec gets longest sentence yet in college bribery scheme (capitalist school corruption endemic)
As a driven yet financially-strapped teenager, Toby Macfarlane knew his family couldn’t afford to send him to the University of Southern California. But he was enamored with the private school and determined to make it there.
He did — in that pull-oneself-up-by-the-bootstraps kind of way — through a combination of scholarships, grants, loans and part-time jobs.
Decades later, Macfarlane, a successful title insurance executive living in Del Mar, wanted to ensure his children had a significantly easier path to his alma matter — one that ended up taking them through the “side door.”
It cost Macfarlane $450,000 in fees and bribes at the time. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/courts/story/2019-11-13/del-mar-toby-macfarlane-prison-college-bribery-sentence
City officials identify ‘significant issues’ with SDSU’s offer for the Mission Valley stadium site (Grifters on all sides, it’s all about the $)
A number of concerns recently identified by top San Diego officials could act as speed bumps in San Diego State University’s quest to buy the city’s stadium property in Mission Valley early next year.
Wednesday evening, the City Attorney’s Office and the Office of the Independent Budget Analyst released separate reports analyzing the university’s offer to purchase 135 acres of land for a new football stadium and satellite campus. The proposed deal terms, which will be contemplated in public by the City Council next week, are lacking in much-needed specificity, expose the city to legal risk and may still be inconsistent with a voter-approved ballot measure, the reports conclude.
Moreover, both offices question whether SDSU’s desired timetable — to close escrow no later than March 27 — is doable. The schedule, which depends on approval by the California State University Board of Trustees in late January, is seemingly dictated by the university’s desire to finish a 35,000-person stadium to replace SDCCU Stadium in time for the 2022 college football season.
“Numerous significant issues must be resolved before the parties can finalize a (purchase and sale agreement) on mutually agreeable terms,” City Attorney Mara Elliott wrote in her report www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/growth-development/story/2019-11-14/city-officials-identify-significant-issues-with-sdsus-offer-for-the-mission-valley-stadium-site
A.S. SDSU President, students react to proposed student fee increases
The proposed increase in the Health Services Fee and Instructionally Related Activity Fee in fall 2020 have raised concerns and questions among San Diego State students due to the uncertainty about its future impact on student finances.
Associated Students President Christian Onwuka said he hopes to put those worries at ease and understands the reason for concern.
“Me, being a student, I don’t care what anybody says,” Onwuka said. “Fees going up scares me, and I wanted to make sure that we were taking that into consideration.”
Application of Fees
Studio art sophomore Ashley Meru said she is unsure if the proposed fees were part of new fees or if they were increasing existing ones. Onwuka said the proposed fees would be in addition to the already existing fees.
“They’re increasing fees that are already in place,” Onwuka said. “The Instructionally Related Activity Fee is a fee that students already pay and there is already a student health fee that would also be increasing from there.”
The Health and Wellness Fee increase is being proposed in tiers, with fee increases of $55, $61 or $73 during the fall and spring and increases of $20, $22 or $27 during summer, according to SDSU’s Finance and Budget website.
For the Instructionally Related Activity Fee, students are being asked to vote on a proposed increase of $40 for the fall and spring and $17 for the summer. thedailyaztec.com/96763/news/a-s-president-students-react-to-proposed-student-fee-increases/
News or ‘Trauma Porn’? Student Journalists Face Blowback on Campus
Incidents at Northwestern and Harvard reveal a growing tension between traditional journalistic practices and the demands of student activists.
Jeff Sessions, President Trump’s former attorney general, was speaking to a packed lecture hall on Northwestern University’s campus last week, but the real action was unfolding offstage.
Student protesters were pushing through a back door of the building. The police confronted them and tried, unsuccessfully, to block their entrance. Colin Boyle, a student photographer for The Daily Northwestern, the campus newspaper, captured it all.
After the event, Ying Dai, one of the students, saw a photo of herself on his Twitter feed — sprawled painfully on the floor — and addressed him directly.
“Colin please can we stop this trauma porn,” she wrote on Twitter. “I was on the ground being shoved and pushed hard by the police. You don’t have to intervene but you also didn’t have to put a camera in front of me top down.”
By the end of the night, Mr. Boyle had deleted the picture, and not long after, editors at The Daily Northwestern published a statement apologizing for their journalists having posted photographs of protesters on social media, and for using the school directory to attempt to contact students.
The newspaper’s response set off a national firestorm this week www.nytimes.com/2019/11/13/us/college-campus-journalists-newspapers.html
USC student deaths: Possible drug overdoses, tainted narcotics probed, sources say
USC President Carol L. Folt confirmed Wednesday that police investigators are looking into drug overdoses as a potential cause of death among some of the nine students who have died this semester.
While Folt would not elaborate on the scope of the inquiries or circumstances of the individual deaths, citing federal student privacy laws, she said USC is working with the Los Angles Police Department on the cases and “doubling down” on education and outreach over drug abuse.
Three of the nine deaths have been ruled suicides, but the cause or causes in the remaining cases have not been officially determined.
Investigators are trying to determine whether any student deaths are connected with tainted drugs, said sources who spoke to The Times on the condition on anonymity because they were not authorized to comment. www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-13/some-usc-student-deaths-appear-to-be-linked-to-drug-overdoses-tainted-narcotics-probed-sources-say
Oakland Unified Schools may separate public from board meeting 2nd time this month
Oakland Unified School District may for a second time this month separate the public from its board meeting Wednesday night. If everyone is well behaved, school officials said there would be no need for the public to gather in a nearby auditorium where they could use a microphone to comment on agenda items.
The move comes after protesters at last month’s meeting jumped over and pushed through a barricade that was in place for the board’s safety.
Protesters and police clashed before six people were arrested and some protesters were injured. Some posted photos of their bruises and of the violent altercation partially captured on video. www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-unified-schools-may-separate-public-from-board-meeting-2nd-time-this-month?fbclid=IwAR35lxxvfRv2fd9zKM03rdW9wI39H2xizARSQEt4Zx3j_Zoq9sW-yN-jWOA
Where Civility Is a Motto, a School Integration Fight Turns Bitter (Segregated Capitalist schooling is inevitable)
A plan to desegregate schools in a liberal Maryland suburb founded on values of tolerance has met with stiff resistance.
The planned community of Columbia, southwest of Baltimore, has prided itself on its ethos of inclusion ever since it was founded more than half a century ago. Racially integrated. Affordable apartments near big homes. “The Next America” was its optimistic, harmonious motto.
But a recent proposal to restore some of that idealism by balancing the number of low-income children enrolled in schools across Howard County, including those in Columbia, has led to bitter divisions. Protesters in matching T-shirts have thronged school board meetings. Thousands of letters and emails opposing the redistricting plan, some of them overtly racist, have poured in to policymakers. One high school student made a death threat against the superintendent of schools, Michael J. Martirano.
The plan, announced by Dr. Martirano in August, would transfer 7,400 of the district’s 58,000 students to different schools in an effort to chip away at an uncomfortable truth: Some of the county’s campuses have become havens for rich students, while others serve large numbers of children whose families are struggling. www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/us/howard-county-school-redistricting.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
U.S. Has Spent Six Trillion Dollars on Wars That Killed Half a Million People Since 9/11, Report Says
The United States has spent nearly $6 trillion on wars that directly contributed to the deaths of around 500,000 peoplesince the 9/11 attacks of 2001.
Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs published its annual “Costs of War” report Wednesday, taking into consideration the Pentagon’s spending and its Overseas Contingency Operations account, as well as “war-related spending by the Department of State, past and obligated spending for war veterans’ care, interest on the debt incurred to pay for the wars, and the prevention of and response to terrorism by the Department of Homeland Security.”
The final count revealed, “The United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $5.9 trillion (in current dollars) on the war on terror through Fiscal Year 2019, including direct war and war-related spending and obligations for future spending on post 9/11 war veterans.”
“In sum, high costs in war and war-related spending pose a national security concern because they are unsustainable,” the report concluded. “The public would be better served by increased transparency and by the development of a comprehensive strategy to end the wars and deal with other urgent national security priorities.”https://www.newsweek.com/us-spent-six-trillion-wars-killed-half-million-1215588?fbclid=IwAR2IA7YGeEa4CuR5_v4qHOD8XWMqc8IFH_kPpAsDIG-Xn2vovSNOawQdbd4
Top Bolivian coup plotters trained by US military’s School of the Americas, served as attachés in FBI police programs
The United States played a key role in the military coup in Bolivia, and in a direct way that has scarcely been acknowledged in accounts of the events that forced the country’s elected president, Evo Morales, to resign on November 10.
Just prior to Morales’ resignation, the commander of Bolivia’s armed forces Williams Kaliman “suggested” that the president step down. A day earlier, sectors of the country’s police force had rebelled.
Though Kaliman appears to have feigned loyalty to Morales over the years, his true colors showed as soon as the moment of opportunity arrived. He was not only an actor in the coup, he had his own history in Washington, where he had briefly served as the military attaché of Bolivia’s embassy in the US capital.
Kaliman sat at the top of a military and police command structure that has been substantially cultivated by the US through WHINSEC, the military training school in Fort Benning, Georgia known in the past as the School of the Americas. Kaliman himself attended a course called “Comando y Estado Mayor” at the SOA in 2003.
At least six of the key coup plotters are alumni of the infamous School of the Americas, while Kaliman and another figure served in the past as Bolivia’s military and police attachés in Washington. thegrayzone.com/2019/11/13/bolivian-coup-plotters-school-of-the-americas-fbi-police-programs/amp/?fbclid=IwAR1aBDN3nkTaJK8n2wppftjl4P44zpddGf7B3LC8MaMo7GMjGCmAAq02kTA
White House responsible for delayed decision on new Agent Orange diseases, documents show
/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-mco.s3.amazonaws.com/public/BMCAPZYEM5BFTNNKZG35WHE2KQ.jpg)
Marines on patrol in Vietnam in March 1967. James Stogner, the fourth Marine in the patrol, was awarded the Navy Cross for heroism during the Vietnam War. (Courtesy photo)
Two years ago, then Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin decided to add three health conditions to the list of diseases eligible for Agent Orange benefits, but White House officials challenged his authority and impeded enactment, according to internal documents obtained by a veteran through the Freedom of Information Act.
Now tens of thousands of veterans are still waiting.
Shulkin decided to add three health conditions — bladder cancer, Parkinson’s-like symptoms and hypothyroidism — to the list of diseases eligible for Agent Orange benefits. Heavily redacted emails and briefings released recently to former Army Spc. Jeff O’Malley, of Pearland, Texas, show Shulkin made the decision sometime before Oct. 3, 2017 — a move that would have given ailing veterans faster access to disability compensation and health benefits.
But the Office of Management and Budget, including Director Mick Mulvaney, and other White House officials objected, according to the documents www.militarytimes.com/pay-benefits/2019/10/23/white-house-responsible-for-delayed-decision-on-new-agent-orange-diseases-documents-show/?fbclid=IwAR1dssc5VfOqd3qOVYdrM_B7HjPzbZrWl-8VJd_OTzm6syt-uV4zkpoiwfQ
/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-mco.s3.amazonaws.com/public/KPMIEDDW6NHXJE7SUALWJEGEDY.jpg)
Russia establishes helicopter base in Syrian city as US pulls out
Russian Defence Ministry’s Zvezda station reported Thursday that Russia has established a helicopter base in the northern Syrian city of Qamishli.
Video of the air base shows a pair of Mi-35 Russian attack helicopters and an Mi-8 landing at the base, along with an air defense system, among other systems and vehicles.
Russia’s move into the strategic Kurdish-controlled city comes as the U.S. continues to withdraw American troops from the region. Secretary of Defense Esper has said at least 500 to 600 U.S. troops will remain in the country to assist anti-ISIS efforts and to protect oil from falling into the hands of a resurgent ISIS. www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2019/11/15/russia-establishes-helicopter-base-in-syrian-city-as-us-pulls-out/?utm_campaign=Socialflow+MIL&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR1xiuVPWHmyoN0zgf_5lRCnU-pEIBZ1yW8vzignkmxjXhya15R7A90a2Vw
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
Hillary Clinton slams Bernie Sanders’ and Elizabeth Warren’s wealth-tax plans as ‘incredibly disruptive’ and ‘unworkable’
- Hillary Clinton called the wealth taxes proposed by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren “unworkable” and said they would be “incredibly disruptive” if enforced.
- “I don’t see other examples anywhere else in the world where it has actually worked over a long period of time,” Clinton said. www.businessinsider.com/hillary-clinton-slams-elizabeth-warren-bernie-sanders-wealth-tax-2019-11?fbclid=IwAR0MC1oaPbQfX7aEl_HC7ygViFmg7qUzWM_d-bf6padAjV3sxH6DKo48Wpc
Obamagogue warns Democrats of moving too far left in the presidential race and alienating voters
Former President Obama on Friday warned the Democratic field of White House hopefuls not to veer too far to the left, a move he said would alienate many who would otherwise be open to voting for the party’s nominee next year.
Though Obama did not mention anyone by name, the message delivered before a room of Democratic donors in Washington was a clear word of caution about the candidacies of Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. The two have called for massive structural changes — and in Sanders’ case “revolution” — that would dramatically alter the role of government in people’s lives.
The centrist wing of the party has warned for months that a far-left nominee could alienate moderate Republicans and independent voters needed to oust President Trump.
“The average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it. www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-11-16/obama-cautions-democratic-hopefuls-on-tacking-too-far-left
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who made $31 million last year, thinks wealth inequality is a problem
- “I think the wealthy have been getting wealthier too much in many ways, so middle class incomes have been kind of flat for maybe 15 years or so, and that’s not particularly good in America,” Dimon says.
- Dimon’s remarks come amid increased criticism of the rich by certain U.S. presidential hopefuls, particularly Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
- But while J.P. Morgan’s Dimon is worried about growing wealth inequality, he reprimanded Warren and others for their criticisms of the wealthy.
- Dimon also deflected questions about him making $31 million in 2018, saying: “I have nothing to do with it.” www.cnbc.com/2019/11/11/jpmorgan-chase-ceo-jamie-dimon-wealth-inequality-is-a-huge-problem.html
Ailing ex-telecom executive Ebbers seeks release from prison (Lock em up!)
A former telecommunications executive convicted in one of the largest corporate accounting scandals in U.S. history is asking a judge to shorten his prison sentence so he can be released as his health deteriorates.
Bernard Ebbers led WorldCom, once one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies. The Mississippi-based WorldCom collapsed and went into bankruptcy in 2002, causing losses to stockholders, including people who had invested through retirement plans. The collapse happened after revelations of $11 billion in accounting fraud that included pressure by top executives on lower-level employees to use inflated numbers to make the company look more profitable. www.chicagotribune.com/sns-bc-us–worldcom-ebbers-20191115-story.html
McDonald’s Pays CEO $41 Million For Firing Him While Paying Workers A Poverty Wage
“Former McDonald’s CEO Stephen Easterbrook is getting an exit package of almost $42 million after his relationship with an employee was found to violate company policy. The size of his compensation puts a new focus on the widening gap between the pay at the top and the bottom of the corporate ladder.
According to an analysis by executive-compensation experts at Equilar, Easterbrook’s exit package totals $41.8 million, which includes six months of severance pay, shares he can cash out in the future and other equity. And that amount is in addition to $23.8 million in stock options that Easterbrook can exercise now.
‘Wow, he is walking away with a lot of money,’ says Cornell Law School professor Stewart Schwab, an expert on employment law. ‘And it comes out as part of the story of just, wow, [the] 1% gets a lot more money than the rest of the workers in this economy . . .’http://labor411.org/411-blog/mcdonalds-pays-ceo-41-million-for-firing-him-while-paying-workers-a-poverty-wage/?fbclid=IwAR3zxY2bTjTmgDDeaDDUBK9fptIliv1AL6cGy4IkWt_9lwCWRUA2QC9bJ3w#
The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement and
The War on Reason
Trump pardons 2 ex-military officers, promotes Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher
President Donald Trump on Friday issued full pardons to two former military officers implicated in improper killings.
The pardon of former Green Beret Maj. Mathew Golsteyn — who is accused of murdering a suspected bomb-maker while deployed in Afghanistan — circumvents a court martial that had been scheduled for February at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Golsteyn has argued that the Afghan was a legal target because of his behavior at the time of the shooting.
Trump has tweeted in the past that Golsteyn is a “US Military hero” who could face the death penalty “from our own government.”
Trump also issued a full pardon for Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, who’d been found guilty of second-degree murder after nine members of his platoon testified he ordered soldiers to open fire on three men, also in Afghanistan.
In the same statement issued by the White House Friday, Trump ordered a promotion for Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Edward R. Gallagher. nypost.com/2019/11/15/trump-pardons-2-ex-military-officers-promotes-navy-seal-eddie-gallagher/
‘Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims–Xi’s Social Fascist Tyranny deepens
More than 400 pages of internal Chinese documents provide an unprecedented inside look at the crackdown on ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region.
The students booked their tickets home at the end of the semester, hoping for a relaxing break after exams and a summer of happy reunions with family in China’s far west.
Instead, they would soon be told that their parents were gone, relatives had vanished and neighbors were missing — all of them locked up in an expanding network of detention camps built to hold Muslim ethnic minorities.
The authorities in the Xinjiang region worried the situation was a powder keg. And so they prepared.
The leadership distributed a classified directive advising local officials to corner returning students as soon as they arrived and keep them quiet. It included a chillingly bureaucratic guide for how to handle their anguished questions, beginning with the most obvious: Where is my family? www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Judge says mass arrest of Marines accused of human smuggling, drug offenses was unlawful
The July arrests of 16 Camp Pendleton Marines in front of their 800-person battalion was unlawful and a violation of their rights, a Marine Corps judge ruled Friday.
The ruling was handed down at the end of an all-day motions hearing that saw the battalion commander, a sergeant major and some Camp Pendleton-based Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents testify about the decision to conduct the mass arrest during a battalion formation on July 25.
On that day, 16 Marines were called to the front of their unit — 1st Battalion, 5th Marines — and they were accused of human smuggling and arrested by a swarm of 40 to 50 law enforcement agents.
Another eight Marines suspected of unspecified drug offenses were also taken out of the formation. Some of those eight were detained by battalion personnel and taken to the Camp Pendleton brig, said Lt. Col. Eric Olson, the battalion commanding officer, during testimony from the witness stand. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/story/2019-11-15/judge-says-mass-arrest-of-marines-accused-of-human-smuggling-drug-offenses-was-unlawful-2?utm_source=SDUT+News+Alerts&utm_campaign=084d308ed5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_11_16_05_14&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d8e1c88c4e-084d308ed5-85921965https://youtu.be/fjYf5iCAktc
Remember Fat Leonard!
The Navy has censured a pair of commissioned officers for their roles in the Fat Leonard public corruption scandal.
The letters of censure issued to the captains by Navy Secretary Richard Spencer serve as both a public rebuke of their actions and shine more light into the web of kickbacks, payoffs and port contracts spun by the portly Leonard Glenn Francis that cost U.S. taxpayers at least $35 million.
At least 10 captains and admirals have received similar written reprimands in recent years.
Capt. Heedong Choi’s infractions took place from 2008 to 2013, as he served in several leadership positions in the Western Pacific, including as commanding officer of the guided-missile destroyer Chafee, according to the April 26 letter.
But Spencer concluded that his relationship with Francis went back to 2001, when Choi was a flag aide to the commander of 7th Fleet. www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/05/16/two-more-navy-officers-censured-for-fat-leonard-related-infractions/
Depraved Ruling Elite File: Epstein Estate Seeks to Form scam Fund to Compensate Accusers
The estate of Jeffrey Epstein wants to set up a fund using the late financier’s fortune to compensate women willing to forgo a spate of lawsuits seeking damages for sexual abuse, according to a court document filed on Thursday.
In the papers in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the co-executors of the estate asked the court to approve a voluntary program committed to giving the plaintiffs “compassion, dignity and respect” while sparing them “the rigors and publicity of litigation.” The papers say there are 12 pending suits in New York alone accusing Epstein of sexual misconduct.
The program would be managed attorney by New York City-based attorney Jordana Feldman with the help of Kenneth Feinberg, a well-known mediator who has overseen compensation funds for victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and of clergy sex abuse within New York’s Roman Catholic archdiocese.
Any accuser who accepts a confidential payment — determined by the fund’s administrator with no say from the estate — would have to give up “her right to litigate any claims she may have against any person or entity arising from or related to Mr. Epstein’s conduct,” the papers said. If the plan is approved, the payments could begin early next year.
… Two days before his death, Epstein signed a will valuing his estate at $577 million, including more that $56 million in cash. (which cane from where and where is Ms Maxwell?) www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/11/14/us/ap-us-jeffrey-epstein-victim-compensation.html
San Francisco’s new D.A. learned he won the job while visiting his dad in prison (Typical of Weatherman: progeny becomes “good cop”)
Boudin was just 14 months old when his left-wing activist parents were incarcerated for their role in an armed robbery that killed three men. His close-up view of the criminal justice system shaped his career as a public defender who vowed to make sweeping reforms if elected to serve as the city’s top prosecutor.
He entered the race as the underdog but wound up with more votes than interim Dist. Atty. Suzy Loftus, who had the backing of California’s Democratic establishment. After several days of ballot counting, Boudin had 36% of the vote to Loftus’ 31%. (Two other candidates split the remainder of the vote.) www.google.com/search?q=weatherman+cops+sds&client=firefox-b-1-d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwigitDnq_DlAhUCoZ4KHcY6DxwQ_AUIEygD&biw=698&bih=482#imgrc=N3kcG8rUmvh6TM:
Solidarity for Never
The reforms come five weeks after The Detroit News reported that federal agents were investigating whether Detroit automakers indirectly paid to build a lakefront home for retired UAW’s President Dennis Williams at the union’s northern Michigan compound on Black Lake. And the ethics moves follow a series of charges, delivered amid national contract talks, that implicate leaders at the highest levels in alleged embezzlement and stealing of member dues. www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2019/11/13/uaw-enacts-reforms-include-independent-ethics-officer/4180152002/
UAW pay raises not retroactive, workers forfeit money each day until contract ratification
Every day that passes without a ratified UAW contract is a day of delayed pay raise for hourly auto industry workers.
“Will there be back pay until September, when the contract should have passed?” is among frequently asked questions on the UAW website devoted to contract talks. The response: “No, it is effective upon ratification.”
Raises are not retroactive to Sept. 14, the date labor contracts expired with General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. GM workers lived on $275 a week strike pay and delayed their pay raises by six weeks. That accounts for the beefy $11,000 bonus upon ratification, to make up for lost ground.
Also, the UAW voting period on the GM contract was compressed because both the workers and the company wanted to get beyond the conflict and return to the factories. Union leadership decided to continue the strike until the deal was ratified.
Meanwhile, Ford workers are headed into their eighth week of delayed pay raises as local union halls hold elections that will end Nov. 15. www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2019/11/09/uaw-ford-contract-pay-raises-ratification/2543484001/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdKwqhq6drE
UAW Just Agreed to Let Ford Use Technology to Monitor Assembly Workers
Somehow it was left out of the contract highlights the United Auto Workers prepared for members: the tentative new agreement with Ford will allow the company to use new technologies to take time-and-motion studies to a whole new level.
The new language falls under the heading of “production standards” and states that the union and company will choose “pilot locations” to use new technology tools such as “digital video recording and walk path mapping devices” as well as “motion tracking systems and additional productivity implementing tools.”
On Facebook, workers discussed all the ways that management could use technology to target and harass workers and find new ways to eliminate jobs. “If we allow this kind of technology in now, there’s no telling how bad it could get by next contract… just like the tiers!” wrote one worker. portside.org/2019-11-09/uaw-just-agreed-let-ford-use-technology-monitor-assembly-workers?fbclid=IwAR0a4X_dKGw1VwCHPAvZv80evFHIHeu5MvW0Fpl6tHaPskwF5cWBsh0tOBY
Chicago Teachers Union ratifies new–sold out DSA contract, avoiding another walkout after 11-day strike
The Chicago Teachers Union has voted to ratify its tentative contract agreement with Chicago Public Schools, averting the prospect that the city’s longest teachers strike in decades could resume.
With about a fifth of ballots still to be counted late Friday, the union said the measure was passing by an overwhelming margin, with about 80% so far voting yes.
President Jesse Sharkey of DSA said in a statement that members “understand that we won the best contract that we were able to get given the balance of forces that we have.” www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-cps-strike-teachers-union-vote-contract-chicago-20191116-rcbxrifhgva7rkbvhmwxe2vcum-story.html
Spy versus Spy
How a CIA analyst, alarmed by Trump’s shadow foreign policy, triggered an impeachment inquiry
He wove this material into a nine-page memo outlining evidence that Trump had abused the powers of his office to try to coerce Ukraine into helping him get reelected. Then, on Aug. 12, the analyst hit “send.”
His decision to report what he had learned to the U.S. intelligence community’s inspector general has transformed the political landscape of the United States, triggering a rapidly moving impeachment inquiry that now imperils Trump’s presidency. www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/how-a-cia-analyst-alarmed-by-trumps-shadow-foreign-policy-triggered-an-impeachment-inquiry/2019/11/15/042684a8-03c3-11ea-8292-c46ee8cb3dce_story.html
Facebook and YouTube remove posts naming CIA impeachment whistleblower
The World Socialist Web Site has independently confirmed that Facebook is deleting posts containing the name of alleged CIA whistleblower Eric Ciaramella. www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/11/face-n11.html
The Magical Mystery Tour
Bishop Named by Pope to Investigate Abuse Is Accused Himself
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who was recently chosen to lead an inquiry into clergy abuse in Buffalo, faces an accusation of molesting an altar boy in Jersey City in the 1970s.
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, the longtime leader of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, sexually abused an 11-year-old altar boy during his tenure as a young priest in Jersey City in the 1970s, according to a lawyer who helped unleash Boston’s priest abuse scandal.
The lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, told Catholic officials in New Jersey this week that he was preparing a lawsuit on behalf of a client who says he was molested by Bishop DiMarzio more than 40 years ago, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press, which reported the accusation.
In the letter, according to The A.P., Mr. Garabedian says that his client, Mark Matzek, 56, claims that as an altar boy at St. Nicholas Church and a student at St. Nicholas School he was repeatedly abused by Bishop DiMarzio and a second priest, Albert Mark. Father Mark is dead, the letter says.
Bishop DiMarzio, who has led the Brooklyn diocese since 2003, denied the accusation unequivocally www.nytimes.com/2019/11/13/nyregion/brooklyn-bishop-dimarzio-sex-abuse.html
5 recently charged priests reported to Michigan police, prosecutors years ago
After resigning from Holy Redeemer Parish in 2002, the Rev. Vincent DeLorenzo penned a letter to Burton parishioners admitting to “inappropriate sexual contact with a minor” in the 1980s.
The former Flint area priest was removed from ministry and moved to Florida a little less than six years later, free of charges because the statute of limitations barred prosecution.
More than 17 years later, DeLorenzo was arrested in the backyard of his Summerfield, Florida, home on remarkably similar allegations by the Michigan attorney general’s office.
On May 23, police collected the 80-year-old priest’s medicine and took him to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, where he waived his Miranda rights and allowed police to search his phone, according to a Michigan State Police report obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
DeLorenzo is one of at least five priests charged this year with sexual misconduct in Michigan who had been reported by the state’s dioceses to police or prosecutors years before — in some cases multiple times by multiple victims www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/11/12/5-priests-charged-nessel-were-reported-years-ago/2453229001/
Mom sues Archdiocese of Detroit, priest over son’s funeral service
The mother of a Michigan teenager who killed himself is suing the Archdiocese of Detroit for alleged harm she suffered during his funeral when a priest questioned whether her son would go to heaven.
The lawsuit filed Thursday in Wayne County on behalf of the teen’s mother, Linda Hullibarger, names as defendants the archdiocese, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish and the Rev. Don LaCuesta.
The Toledo Blade reports that Hullibarger and her husband say they met with LaCuesta to plan funeral services for their 18-year-old son, Maison, and made it clear they wanted the priest to deliver a positive, uplifting message.
But LaCuesta allegedly turned his Dec. 8, 2018, homily instead into a message regarding suicide, questioning whether the teen would go to heaven.
A message seeking comment on the lawsuit was left Thursday for the archdiocese. www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/11/14/archdiocese-detroit-priest-sued-over-maison-hullibarger-funeral/4194365002/
The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World
Skip to one minute in:
Ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (The racists’ fave mayor)stays behind bars as court tosses biased-judge claim
Kilpatrick claimed U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds had a conflict of interest and should have recused herself. Edmunds presided over the six-month trial and sentenced Kilpatrick to 28 years in federal prison in 2013 for orchestrating a criminal enterprise out of City Hall.
The order is the latest rejection in a six-year quest to overturn the conviction that will keep Kilpatrick behind bars until August 2037. Kilpatrick, 49, also has sought clemency from President Donald Trump.
The former Detroiter asserted that a wedding card from Edmunds to defense attorney James Thomas showed they had a personal relationship that compromised his right to a fair trial. The Cincinnati appeals judges scoff, as Snell quotes from their order: www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/23716/ex-detroit_mayor_kwame_kilpatrick_stays_behind_bars_as_court_tosses_biased-judge_claim?fbclid=IwAR3R4-WOGC4ZQxr9Bynq4pXAuKTSZ16l4_69sQvUu4PTQGaPbB3WKER1LGk
by Huck below
5-Hour Workdays? 4-Day Workweeks? Yes, Please
Sick of round-the-clock work emails and Slack messages? Here’s some hope.
A German entrepreneur named Lasse Rheingans has become a subject of attention since The Wall Street Journal recently reported on a novel idea he has put in place at his 16-person technology start-up: a five-hour workday. Mr. Rheingans is not just reducing the time his employees spend in the office; he’s reducing the total time they spend working altogether. They arrive at 8 a.m. and leave at 1 p.m., at which point they’re not expected to work until the next morning.
This distinction between time in the office and time spent working is critical. In our current age of email and smartphones, work has pervaded more and more of our waking hours — evenings, mornings, weekends, vacations — rendering the idea of a fixed workday as quaint. We’re driven to these extremes by some vague sense that all of this frantic communicating will make us more productive.
Mr. Rheingans is betting that we have this wrong. His experiment is premised on the idea that once you remove time-wasting distractions and constrain inefficient conversation about your work, five hours should be sufficient to most of the core activities that actually move the needle.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ_lgo5JvDw
November snowfall breaks 94-year record in Detroit, sets new one in Flint
Two Michigan cities are making the record books after a November snowstorm blew through the state.
According to the National Weather Service forecast office for Detroit/Pontiac, a record daily maximum snowfall of 8.5 inches at Detroit Metro Airport on Monday, Nov. 11, broke a record that had stood for nearly 94 years.
So Long
Noel Ignatiev, scholar who called for abolishing whiteness, dies at 78 (good guy, even with those who disagreed)
Noel Ignatiev, a former steelworker who became a historian known for his work on race and class and his call to abolish “whiteness,” died at Banner-University Medical Center Tucson on Saturday. He was 78. The cause was an intestinal infarction, according to Kingsley Clarke, a longtime friend.
Ignatiev’s best-known book, “How the Irish Became White,” was immediately influential and controversial upon its publication in 1995. It touched off a firestorm of debate at the time at academic conferences and in the pages of newspapers. In time his view that whiteness is a social and political construction — and not a phenomenon with a biological basis — has become mainstream. The resurgence of white identity politics and white nationalism in recent years made Ignatiev’s arguments relevant to a new generation of readers who argued the notion that race is more about power and privilege rather than about ancestry, or even identity.
The book detailed how the Irish, who had first come to North America as indentured servants and were reviled by the more settled populations of English and Dutch Americans, became, by the mid-19th century, accepted as white. Sadly, Ignatiev argued, the Irish became incorporated into whiteness just before the Civil War, through support for slavery and violence against free African Americans. To become white, Ignatiev wrote, did not mean to be middle class, much less rich, but rather to be accepted as equal citizens and to have access to the same neighborhoods, schools and jobs as others. www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2019-11-11/noel-ignatiev-dies-race-whiteness?fbclid=IwAR3qBonL3njDqCod8CaNtXKd_pTvpZywUdAsRjnv2Y0M-OQK57-LBkcQZJk