Rouge Forum Dispatch: State Smashes Self. No Left to Replace it.
January 20th, 2018 / Author: rgibsonWe Say Fight Back!
The Pentagon Papers: Secrets, lies and leaks (Audio–on eve of Tet Anniversary)
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What MSU knew: 14 were warned of Nassar abuse
8 women reported abuse claims, at least one of which reached president
Reports of sexual misconduct by Dr. Larry Nassar reached at least 14 Michigan State University representatives in the two decades before his arrest, with no fewer than eight women reporting his actions, a Detroit News investigation has found.
Among those notified was MSU President Lou Anna Simon, who was informed in 2014 that a Title IX complaint and a police report had been filed against an unnamed physician, she told The News on Wednesday.
“I was informed that a sports medicine doctor was under investigation,” said Simon, who made the brief comments after appearing in court Wednesday to observe a sentencing hearing for Nassar. “I told people to play it straight up, and I did not receive a copy of the report. That’s the truth.”
Among the others who were aware of alleged abuse were athletic trainers, assistant coaches, a university police detective and an official who is now MSU’s assistant general counsel, according to university records and accounts of victims who spoke to The News.
Collectively, the accounts show MSU missed multiple opportunities over two decades to stop Nassar, a graduate of its osteopathic medical school who became a renowned doctor but went on to molest scores of girls and women under the guise of treating them for pain.
Nassar, 54, pleaded guilty to assaulting nine girls in Ingham County but faces more than 150 civil suits that also involve MSU and others. Already sentenced to 60 years in prison for child pornography in federal court, Nassar will be in Ingham County Circuit Court on Thursday for the third day of his sentencing hearing for seven counts of criminal sexual conduct. www.detroitnews.com/story/tech/2018/01/18/msu-president-told-nassar-complaint-2014/1042071001/
Full Text “Decline of Capitalism,” by E. A. Preobrazhensky : libarch.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handle/GenofondUA/2537/1625b6c123ba41045061cb219b9516a1.pdf?sequence=1
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Sarah Huckabee Sanders Offers to Lie for Free During Shutdown
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Calling it “the least I can do for my country,” the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said on Saturday morning that she would lie for free during the government shutdown.
“Now more than ever it’s important that the stream of falsehoods and distortions from this White House continues to flow in a steady and uninterrupted fashion,” Sanders said. “To achieve that, for the duration of the government shutdown I will be lying on a pro-bono basis.”
Sanders said that Donald Trump had asked that she keep a full accounting of the lies she told during the shutdown so that she could be reimbursed for them later, but she turned down that offer. “I’ve often said that I like to lie so much I would do it for free,” she said. “This is a chance to put my money where my mouth is.”
The press secretary said that her offer had already inspired other top Administration figures to lie for free during the shutdown, including Vice-President Mike Pence, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and White House doctor Ronny Jackson.
After making her announcement, Sanders moved on to a broad range of other topics, including her assertion that the government had not shut down. www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/sarah-huckabee-sanders-offers-to-lie-for-free-during-shutdown?mbid=social_facebook
The Little Red Schoolhouse
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Florida spends $420k to justify its obsession with flawed tests
Two years ago, Seminole County school officials made a sensible suggestion — replace Florida’s unreliable tests with nationally respected tests like the SAT.
Also, cut back on testing in general.
The idea was roundly praised — by parents, teachers and school administrators around the state.
After all, Florida’s testing and “accountability” system has been ever-changing and often-flawed.
One year, the state lost some tests. Another year, the state gave the wrong grades to more than 200 schools — and saw so many kids flunk a fourth-grade writing test (more than 70 percent) that the state simply lowered the bar for “passing” so that more students would.
Another year, there were widespread computer problems. And many years, the validity of the state tests has been challenged.
That’s why Seminole leaders wisely suggested that Florida instead rely more on such nationally accepted tests as the SAT, PSAT and ACT.
But it hasn’t happened. Why? Well, Rick Scott’s Education Department just spent $420,000 on a “feasibility” study that said using nationally accepted tests couldn’t possibly work.
Yes, the study ignored evidence that proves it can work www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-forida-testing-sat-seminole-solution-scott-maxwell-20180115-story.html
FBI Hack Comey to teach ethical leadership course at College of William & Mary
Former FBI Director James Comey is joining the faculty at his alma mater, the College of William & Mary, and will teach a course on ethical leadership starting this fall, the school announced Friday morning.
“I am thrilled to have the chance to engage with William & Mary students about a vital topic — ethical leadership,” Comey said in a statement. “Ethical leaders lead by seeing above the short term, above the urgent or the partisan, and with a higher loyalty to lasting values, most importantly to the truth.” www.politico.com/story/2018/01/19/james-comey-william-and-mary-349309
Yes, Dan Gilbert wants to use school money to fund his new downtown projects
Quicken Loans owner Dan Gilbert — who is Michigan’s richest man and worth an estimated $6.2 billion — is requesting $618 million of state taxpayer money to help fund four downtown Detroit projects that he’s developing.
Fleisher made similar statements in a “fact sheet” sent to Metro Times, but an investigation into the funding source found the claims to be misleading at best. While it’s true that Gilbert’s project wouldn’t use money that’s specifically designated for Detroit Public Schools, it would use tax money intended to fund schools statewide.
We spoke about Gilbert’s claims with officials from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, city of Detroit, and State Rep. Yousef Rabhi (D-Ann Arbor), who used to work with the Washtenaw County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority. They all confirmed that Gilbert is indeed requesting tax money meant for schools.
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation will likely consider his request in March. As part of the PR push to gain support for the plan in the meantime, Gilbert’s team is claiming that their public money haul won’t impact Detroit Public Schools.
“There’s no impact on the school district. It’s a very positive day all around for the city,” Quicken Loans vice president of government affairs Jared Fleisher told the Detroit News just after the Detroit City Council approved $250 million of public money for Gilbert in November. www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2018/01/11/yes-dan-gilbert-wants-to-use-school-money-to-fund-his-new-downtown-projects
State Grades on K-12 Education: Map and Rankings
Examine the grades and scores that states and the nation earned on Quality Counts 2018 with this interactive map, grade-summary table, and top-to-bottom ranking. For a description of what these education indicators mean, view the grading scale and methodology. www.edweek.org/ew/collections/quality-counts-2018-state-grades/report-card-map-rankings.html
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
U.S. military puts ‘great power competition’ at heart of strategy: Mattis
The U.S. military has put countering China and Russia at the centre of a new national defence strategy unveiled on Friday, the latest sign of shifting priorities after more than a decade and a half of focusing on the fight against Islamist militants.
In presenting the new strategy, which will set priorities for the Pentagon for years to come, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called China and Russia “revisionist powers” that “seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models.”
The “National Defense Strategy” represents the latest sign of hardening resolve by President Donald Trump’s administration to address challenges from Russia and China, at the same time he is pushing for improved ties with Moscow and Beijing to rein in a nuclear North Korea.
“We will continue to prosecute the campaign against terrorists that we are engaged in today, but great power competition…af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKBN1F820H
In Kabul, Gunmen Storm Intercontinental Hotel
Armed insurgents stormed Kabul’s largest hotel on Saturday, setting off an explosion and sparking a fire, trapping an unknown number of hotel guests inside, Afghan officials confirmed.
There was no information on the number of casualties, as the armed attackers kept authorities at bay.
Military and civilian ambulances stood by at the scene, and helicopters circled overhead hours after the standoff first began around 9 p.m. local time.
“Our special forces are entering the building,” said Gen. Afzal Aman, commander of the Kabul Garrison, an elite unit of police and soldiers that is responsible for security in the capital, who was reached by cellphone at the scene. “The attackers are at one side of the building. There are guests trapped in their rooms. We do not know who are the attackers. There could be two or three of them.”
Najib Danish, the spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, confirmed the attack and said he believed there were two or three attackers in the main building of the hotel, which has hundreds of guest rooms. www.nytimes.com/2018/01/20/world/asia/kabul-afghanistan-intercontinental-hotel-attack.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
72 Turkish Jets Bomb U.S.-Backed Kurdish Militias in Syria
Turkish jets bombed the Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin on Saturday as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey vowed to crush Kurdish militant forces across northern Syria to remove what he said was a terrorist threat.
The Turkish news agency Anadolu reported that jets bombed more than 100 targets, including an air base, in the first day of air operations against Kurdish militias. Fighters of the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army also crossed the border into the enclave and engaged Kurdish militants, the agency reported.
Mr. Erdogan has pressed ahead with the offensive despite warnings from the United States that it would further destabilize war-torn Syria. Syria and Russia expressed milder objections.
The Turkish president said “no one can say a word” about the operation.
“Beginning from the west, step by step, we will annihilate the terror corridor up to the Iraqi border,” Mr. Erdogan told a local congress of his Justice and Development Party in the city of Kutahya on Saturday.
“No one can say a word,” he went on. “Whatever happens, we do not care anymore at all. Now we only care about what happens on the ground.” www.nytimes.com/2018/01/20/world/middleeast/turkey-bombs-kurds-syria.html
Airwars annual assessment 2017: civilians paid a high price for major Coalition gains
By the end of 2017, almost all the territory so-called Islamic State (ISIS) had once controlled in Iraq and Syria had been captured, but at significant cost. The year in many respects was a watershed for popular conceptions of modern warfare. Sold as the “most precise campaign in history” by US officials, the urban battlefields laid waste by bombs, artillery and improvised explosives told another story.
ISIS took every opportunity to endanger civilians, even as the Coalition increased the intensity of its own actions. The Coalition-backed assault on Mosul also grew bloodier in 2017 as fighting moved into denser pockets of the city, leaving thousands dead. In June, after months of bombing the vicinity, Coalition-support ground forces also began battling inside Raqqa. The ferocity of these simultaneous campaigns yielded the largest civilian casualty total from likely Coalition strikes ever monitored by Airwars.
Non-combatant deaths from Coalition air and artillery strikes rose by more than 200 per cent compared to 2016, rising to between 3,923 and 6,102 civilians estimated killed during the year according to Airwars tallies. By another measure, roughly 65% of all civilian deaths from Coalition actions tracked by our team since 2014 occurred over the last 12 months. This unprecedented death toll coincided with the start of the Trump presidency, and suggested in part that policies aimed at protecting civilians had been scaled back under the new administration.
The huge ramp up in Coalition actions came in parallel with a relative reduction in Russian operations in Syria. From January 2017, for eight straight months until September, Airwars tracked many more allegations per month against the Coalition than against Moscow’s forces. airwars.org/news/airwars-annual-assessment-2017/
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Tillerson signals deeper US military commitment in Syria
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled deeper U.S. commitment to Syria on Wednesday, saying America would maintain its military presence there to prevent an Islamic State resurgence. He said the U.S. also would push for broader political changes in the Middle East country.
Speaking at Stanford University after being introduced by former top diplomat Condoleezza Rice, Tillerson said the Trump administration was determined not to repeat President Barack Obama’s “mistake” when he withdrew U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. Republicans for years have argued the withdrawal created the opening for IS’ rapid expansion.
Instead, Tillerson stressed that U.S. forces would remain in Syria for the foreseeable future as President Donald Trump and his aides implement a new strategy to stabilize Syria, where a civil war has killed as many as a half-million people and created millions of refugees since 2011. There are currently some 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria, mainly training local forces to root out remaining extremist strongholds.
“Let us be clear, the United States will maintain a military presence in Syria focused on ensuring ISIS cannot re-emerge,” Tillerson said. Recounting what he said went wrong in Iraq, Tillerson said: “We cannot allow history to repeat itself in Syria. ISIS presently has one foot in the grave and by maintaining an American military presence in Syria until the full and complete defeat of ISIS is achieved, it will soon have two.” www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2018/01/18/tillerson-signals-deeper-us-military-commitment-in-syria/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow
Ex-commanders face negligent homicide charges over deadly Navy collisions (and remember Fat Leonard)
The US Navy announced Tuesday that the former commanding officers of the USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain — the ships involved in two deadly 2017 collisions that killed 17 sailors — will face criminal charges including dereliction of duty, hazarding a vessel and negligent homicide.
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
Dow has first close above 26,000 points
Stocks are closing higher on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones industrial average to its first close above 26,000 points.
The Dow had traded above that level on Tuesday but wound up closing lower that day. The Dow’s surge on Wednesday was driven in part by a big gain in Boeing.
With the stock market reaching records so often, 1,000-point moves in the Dow have become increasingly commonplace. It’s been just eight trading days since the Dow had its first close above 25,000.
Technology stocks were again some of the biggest winners. Microsoft rose 2 percent.
The Dow rose 332 points, or 1.3 percent, to 26,115.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 26 points, or 0.9 percent, to 2,802.
The Nasdaq composite gained 74 points, or 1 percent, to 7,298. www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2018/01/17/dow-first-close-points/109551300/
Homeless in Orange County
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The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement and The War on Reason
1889 editorial cartoon “Bosses of the Senate” by Joseph Keppler resonates still. Notice the ‘People’s Entrance’ door on the upper left: It is boarded shut.
Senate, Rebuffing Privacy Concerns, Clears Path to Extend Surveillance Law
The Senate cleared the path on Tuesday for Congress to extend the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program for six years with minimal changes, rejecting bipartisan calls to first vote on amendments that would have imposed significant new privacy protections when the program sweeps up Americans’ emails.
The vote, 60 to 38, narrowly overcame a procedural obstacle to an up-or-down vote on the surveillance extension bill, showing that there is probably sufficient support in the Senate to give it final approval and send it to President Trump’s desk this week.
The bill passed last week in the House, which first rejected an amendment that would have required government officials to get warrants in most instances to search for Americans’ messages in the program’s repository.
The vote centered on a law known as Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. It permits the government to, without a warrant, collect from American companies, like AT&T and Google, the emails, phone calls, text messages and other communications of foreigners abroad who have been targeted for intelligence surveillance — even when they communicate with Americans. www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/us/politics/senate-vote-section-702-fisa-amendments-surveillance.html
Clubbable, but in the Worst Way
Well, it’s official. He isn’t crazy. “I’ve found no reason whatsoever to think the president has any issues whatsoever with his thought processes,” Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, the rear admiral who conducted President Trump’s physical, said this week.
That comes as no surprise to me. Because if you observe him through the filter of class, rather than the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders frame, you can reach some very different — and I think more apposite — conclusions.
Donald Trump is a man of his class — the nouveau-riche, country-club class. Louder and more obnoxious, certainly, but of that class. www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/opinion/clubbable-but-in-the-worst-way.html
It’s a class I know well.
My father was a prominent physician, and I grew up in comfortable circumstances at the Jewish end of Philadelphia’s Main Line. My friends’ parents ran midsize family businesses; had seats on the stock exchange; were lawyers and doctors, senior corporate executives and entrepreneurs who rode the postwar economic boom to wealth. We were a very specific class in America’s allegedly classless society.
In high school, I got to know people who were several classes above us — living on the remains of Gilded Age fortunes. One way social sorting among the various classes took place was via country clubs. The Jews had their country clubs, the Catholics had theirs, and the fallen-on-hard-times WASPs had theirs, whose thresholds we Jews were not allowed to cross.
Solidarity for Never
At Bourgeoisie Women’s Marches nationwide, setting sights on the black hole of the ballot box and hailing #MeToo
Dusting off pink-knit hats and brandishing colorful signs, marchers gathered in the shadow of the capital’s Lincoln Memorial, in midtown Manhattan and in scores of other venues across the country.
…hundreds of thousands of marchers in dozens of cities staged a reprise of last year’s massive Women’s March, seeking to not only deliver a powerful rebuke to the policies of President Trump, but also mount a crucial mobilization for this year’s midterm election.
“Because of you, the revolution is rolling!” actress Natalie Portman told marchers in downtown Los Angeles, drawing — like many speakers in the #MeToo movement and the drive to hold powerful men accountable for sexual misconduct — a galvanizing force at many of the rallies.
“Everything is at stake,” actress Jane Fonda told marchers in snowy Park City, Utah, scene of the Sundance Film Festival, in another nod to the #MeToo movement. “We’ve got to give it all we’ve got. Time is up!”
In addition to the roll call of major American cities where marches took place — including New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta — protesters also raised their voices in suburbs and small towns, reflecting the aim of coalescing a broad-based movement on the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration to oppose the president’s stance on immigration, healthcare, racial divides and an array of other issues. www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-womens-march-20180120-story.html
Marine being held in connection with fatal stabbing of another Marine at Camp Pendleton
Officials from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service are looking into to what led to the fatal stabbing of a Marine at the base’s School of Infantry.
Another Marine is being held in a jail on base in connection with the fatal stabbing.
The stabbing happened Tuesday, Jan. 16, and left Marine Private First Class Ethan Andrew Barclay-Weberpal, 18, dead at the scene, said Capt. Joshua Pena, from the U.S. Marine Corps Training Command in Quantico, Va. First responders were called to Area 52 near the north end of the base at 7:45 a.m. after reports of an injured person. www.ocregister.com/2018/01/18/marine-being-held-in-connection-with-fatal-stabbing-of-another-marine-at-camp-pendletons-school-of-infantry/
VA Says It Will Not Study Effects Of Medical Marijuana On PTSD And Chronic Pain
The Department of Veterans Affairs will not conduct research into the effects of medical cannabis on post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain — some of the very ailments veteran patients rely on the drug to treat.
In a Dec. 21 letter to Minnesota Democrat Rep. Tim Walz, VA Secretary David Shulkin said that the department is unable to research medical cannabis due to federal restrictions. “VA is committed to researching and developing effective ways to help Veterans cope with post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain conditions.
“However, federal law restricts VA’s ability to conduct research involving medical marijuana, or to refer veterans to such projects,” he added. taskandpurpose.com/va-will-not-study-medical-marijuana-ptsd-chronic-pain/?bsft_eid=84147d9c-0e0c-4afc-a55d-6073a249a29f&utm_campaign=tp_daily_tuesday_pm&utm_source=blueshift&utm_medium=email&utm_content=tp_daily_pm_ricks&bsft_pid=8fcc8737-f9b1-4800-8c4d-90743f328834&bsft_clkid=10d09373-1d7b-4cb3-b3e7-a857d9ea27e2&bsft_uid=7c674a6c-ae11-4ec4-84f1-aef0c34e44e5&bsft_mid=1c35ffad-f791-4679-afd8-a689b388212c&bsft_pp=1
Reminder: NEA RA continues the con game policies of its very very well-paid leadership…’All That is Pretense Dissolves into Delusions: The NEA Representative Assembly 2017’…
In 2016, National Education Association president, Lily Garcia, took in a total of $512,504 from the fake union. Not bad, and well up from the approximately $466,000 her predecessor, Dennis Van Roekel made, but not nearly the $686,949 the bulbous empty suit and former NEA president Reg Weaver made in his last year in office.
NEA Vice President, Becky Pringle, made $434,738 in total.
Pringle may be unhappy as the Secretary-Treasurer Princess (sic) Moss took home slightly more at $436,423. The trio earned their keep at the NEA’s annual Representative Assembly (RA) that concluded on July 5th in Boston.
Aided by hundreds of staff and that national budget of nearly $400 million, they protected capital and empire from the 2,968,722 members of NEA, the largest union in the USA, by far. These union members are centripetally positioned in the struggle for knowledge as well as material life for themselves and their 50.5 million students in America’s schools. www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=6780
Spy versus Spy
Ex-C.I.A. Officer Suspected of Compromising Chinese Informants Is Arrested
A former C.I.A. officer suspected by investigators of helping China dismantle United States spying operations and identify informants has been arrested, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. The collapse of the spy network was one of the American government’s worst intelligence failures in recent years.
The arrest of the former officer, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 53, capped an intense F.B.I. inquiry that began around 2012, two years after the C.I.A. began losing its informants in China. Investigators confronted an enduring mystery: How did the names of so many C.I.A. sources, among the agency’s most dearly held secrets, end up in Chinese hands?
Some intelligence officials believed that a mole inside the C.I.A. was exposing its roster of informants. Others thought that the Chinese government had hacked the C.I.A.’s covert communications used to talk to foreign sources of information.
Still other former intelligence officials have also argued that the spy network might have been crippled by a combination of both, as well as sloppy tradecraft by agency officers in China. The counterintelligence investigation into how the Chinese managed to hunt down American agents was a source of friction between the C.I.A. and F.B.I.
Mr. Lee, who left the C.I.A. in 2007, has been living in Hong Kong and working for a well-known auction house. He was apprehended at Kennedy Airport in New York on Monday and charged in federal court in Northern Virginia with the unlawful retention of national defense information. www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/us/politics/cia-china-mole-arrest-jerry-chun-shing-lee.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r
The Magical Mystery Tour
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Pope’s Defense of Chilean Bishop in Sex Abuse Scandal Causes Outrage
A number of Chilean Catholics reacted with disappointment and anger on Friday, a day after Pope Francis spoke in defense of a bishop who they say protected a pedophile priest. The remarks, made on Thursday just before Francis left Chile for Peru, upended his efforts to rehabilitate the Catholic Church’s reputation while visiting South America.
Francis told reporters Thursday there was not a shred of evidence against Bishop Juan Barros Madrid, who victims of the Rev. Fernando Karadima, Chile’s most notorious priest, have accused of being complicit in his crimes.
“The day someone brings me proof against Bishop Barros, then I will talk,” Francis said before celebrating Mass outside the northern Chilean city of Iquique. “But there is not one single piece of evidence. It is all slander. Is that clear?”
The pope’s comments set off a storm in Chile, raising questions about his commitment to repairing the damage from sexual abuse scandals and improving the decline in the church’s image and following in the traditionally devout country.
Benito Baranda, coordinator of the pope’s visit to Chile, told a radio station in Santiago that Bishop Barros “should have ceased to be bishop a long time ago.” He added: “The damage he is inflicting on the church is big.” www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/world/americas/pope-sex-abuse-chile.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World
In Case you missed her…
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