We Say Fight Back!

Protests rage around the world – but what comes next?

Unrest is seemingly everywhere. We look at the some of the reasons for and responses to it in Hong Kong, Lebanon, Chile, Catalonia and Iraq

In Lebanon they are against a tax on WhatsApp and endemic corruption. In Chile, a hike in the metro fare and rampant inequality. In Hong Kong, an extradition bill and creeping authoritarianism. In Algeria, a fifth term for an ageing president and decades of military rule.

The protests raging today and in the past months on the streets of cities around the world have varying triggers. But the fuel is familiar: stagnating middle classes, stifled democracy and the bone-deep conviction that things can be different – even if the alternative is not always clear.

Few corners of the world have been spared significant protests in 2019. Russia, Serbia, Ukraine and Albania have all seen major demonstrations. So have the UK, against Brexit, France, with its yellow vest movement, and Spain, in the restive region of Catalonia. The Middle East has convulsed with so much dissent that some are calling it a second wave of the Arab spring. In South America, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela have experienced popular unrest. The list goes on.  www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/25/protests-rage-around-the-world-hong-kong-lebanon-chile-catalonia-iraq?fbclid=IwAR1JaIXhhdWVtDedeLChcNS1859o4I4DBvadr6slg7Ra_sOOlOop29H6DM0

“The data shows that the amount of protests is increasing and is as high as the roaring 60s, and has been since about 2009,” says Jacquelien van Stekelenburg, a professor who studies social change and conflict at Vrije University in Amsterdam.

Not all the protests are driven by economic complaints, but widening gulfs between the haves and have-nots are radicalising many young people in particular. Oxfam said in January that the world’s 26 richest individuals owned as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population. Billionaires grew their combined fortunes by $2.5bn a day in 2018, while the relative wealth of the world’s poorest 3.8 billion people declined by $500m a day.

Pocketbook items have become the catalysts for popular fury across the globe in recent weeks.

In Chile, the spark was an increase in subway fares. In Lebanon, it was a tax on WhatsApp calls. The government of Saudi Arabia moved against hookah pipes. In India, it was about onions.

Small pocketbook items became the focus of popular fury across the globe in recent weeks, as frustrated citizens filled the streets for unexpected protests that tapped into a wellspring of bubbling frustration at a class of political elites seen as irredeemably corrupt or hopelessly unjust or both. They followed mass demonstrations in Bolivia, Spain, Iraq and Russia and before that the Czech Republic, Algeria, Sudan and Kazakhstan in what has been a steady drumbeat of unrest over the past few months.

At first glance, many of the demonstrations were linked by little more than tactics. Weeks of unremitting civil disobedience in Hong Kong set the template for a confrontational approach driven by vastly different economic or political demands.

Yet in many of the restive countries, experts discern a pattern: a louder-than-usual howl against elites in countries where democracy is a source of disappointment, corruption is seen as brazen, and a tiny political class lives large while the younger generation struggles to get by.   www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/world/middleeast/global-protests.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Protesters are demanding a larger share of the nation’s prosperity — a reality check for its celebrated economic model.

Chile: The revolt generalizes despite brutal State repression: this Monday, Oct. 21st, we go on a strike against everything.

It’s been a week since the Santiago Metro fare reached the astronomical price of $830 [Chilean pesos] and the uncontrollable student youth proletarians – which bears the virtue of negating this world through practice, avoiding any type of dialogue with power – launched an offensive calling on a “massive [fare] evasion” which self-organized a massive disobedience movement, that had from its inception the sympathy of many in our class, since this mode of collective transportation is used by at least 3 million people everyday. The State responded by deploying hundreds of special forces police to protect stations which provoked clashes within the system of subterranean trains, leaving hundreds injured and arrested. On Oct. 18th there was a rupture: in the middle of a new day of protest against the fare hikes, there began a total shutdown around 3PM, one by one, of the Metro Santiago lines which provoked a collapse hitherto unseen in the metropolitan urban transport.

On that day the spark began and the proletarian class demonstrated its power, when thousands of people took the streets, overwhelming the repressive forces and participated in large riots in the city-center that exceeded any expectations. The ENEL corporate building (an electrical company that operates in Chile) burned in flames and various Metro stations met the same fate. Capital & the State showed their true face to the population, declaring a “State of Emergency,” which brought out the military to the streets, for the first time since the end of the Dictatorship as part of the social conflict.

After that night nothing will ever be the same.

On Saturday afternoon a call to assembly at Plaza Italia quickly devolved into a generalized revolt with insurrectionary tinges, reaching all corners of the city, despite the strong military presence in the streets. The uprising literally spread across all the cities in the Chilean region. Like an oil spill there spread cacerolazos, barricades, attacks on financial buildings, strategic sabotage on infrastructure necessary for the circulation of capital (tollbooths destroyed, tags on highways, 80 Metro stations destroyed and 11 totally reduced to ashes, dozens of busses burned),  ediciones-ineditas.com/2019/10/21/chile-the-revolt-generalizes/?fbclid=IwAR2UtkGUDBbs7xU9v8qNnamtDH2vV_ImfUkn5fqnh5Ww09-HLOYd8GvsIyg

Haitians say the violence and economic stagnation stemming from a clash between the president and the opposition are worse than anything they have ever experienced.

LÉOGÂNE, Haiti — The small hospital was down to a single day’s supply of oxygen and had to decide who would get it: the adults recovering from strokes and other ailments, or the newborns clinging to life in the neonatal ward.

Haiti’s political crisis had forced this awful dilemma — one drama of countless in a nation driven to the brink of collapse.

A struggle between President Jovenel Moïse and a surging opposition movement demanding his ouster has led to violent demonstrations and barricaded streets across the country, rendering roads impassable and creating a sprawling emergency.

Caught in the national paralysis, officials at Sainte Croix Hospital were forced to choose who might live and who might die. Fortunately, a truck carrying 40 fresh tanks of oxygen made it through at the last minute, giving the hospital a reprieve.  www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/world/americas/Haiti-crisis-violence.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Barcelona below:

www.facebook.com/xevi.salvareca/videos/10220417773184313/?t=14

Class Struggle is Still the Issue

The Manifesto of the Communist Party by Marx and Engels famously begins with: “The history of all hither existing societies is the history of class struggles.” The United States is no exception, although for many decades it was depicted as a classless society. Later they add: “The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.”

One might add that the basic categories with which we formulate our ideas also come from the ruling class. If these categories are uncritically adopted, they can deflect our social reflections and blunt our criticisms.

In particular, the corporate media either avoid the concept of “class” or make it virtually meaningless. The New York Times restricts “working class” to workers who lack a college education and typically perform manual work, while “middle class” designates more educated workers performing “white collar” jobs. The “middle class” is then situated between the “working class” and the rich.

But this division only obscures the deep convergence in the life experiences and interests of these workers. Those who lack higher education can make more money than those with college degrees, if they have a strong union. Many teachers with college degrees are barely scraping by. All workers share fundamental interests: the desire for job security, a comfortable wage, full health care benefits, a secure pension, job safety, and to be treated with dignity at work. It makes much more sense to merge these groups into a single working-class category.  www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/14/class-struggle-is-still-the-issue/

In 2018 there were more labor strikes in the US that in any time since 1986 (npr)

Kurds with Red Stars

www.facebook.com/SputnikNews/videos/669883500201706/?t=11

Reminder: VVAW

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Betsy DeVos Could Face Jail After Judge Rules She Violated 2018 Order on Student Loans

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has been threatened with the possibility of jail after a judge deemed she was violating a court order for continuing to collect student debts on a now-defunct school.

That ruling, handed down in June of 2018, was made by U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim and prevented DeVos and her Department of Education for going after former students at the bankrupt Corinthian Colleges Inc.   www.newsweek.com/betsy-devos-could-face-jail-after-judge-rules-violated-2018-order-1463764?fbclid=IwAR1rTIFSHZCvLf3XZHPeRaHzgXE2uEZgZ1tYJgKKYlf7bUNnt8pjs8j7XU0

Limousine services and lavish meals: Cal State San Marcos review of executive travel widens

Michael Schroder, the dean who traveled first class, stayed at Ritz-Carlton hotels and bought a $110 Bruno-style bone-in filet was not the only one at Cal State San Marcos using state tax money to cover luxury expenses.

So were the people responsible for approving his expense reports.

Graham Oberem, former provost and most frequent signer of Schroder’s expense reports, stayed at a $639-a-night hotel in Spain in 2017 and paid $472 for Half Moon Limos to take him to and from Los Angeles International Airport for a recruiting trip to various countries in Europe in November 2018.

Karen Haynes, former president of the university, stayed in the same hotel in Spain for $762 a night. She accumulated more than $9,100 in charges for chauffeured transportation from September 2017 to June this year. She billed the school for rides from her home to the university and was chauffeured to Long Beach routinely, documents show.   …

Haynes, who retired in June after 15 years as university president, was paid $404,000 last year, according to Transparent California, an online database of public sector salaries.

The new batch of documents obtained this month by the newspaper show that Haynes and other senior university leaders spent more than $300,000 on travel that included upgraded airline tickets, fine dining and stays at international resorts that charge more than what the U.S. Government allows for its employees, among other costs.

The school officials’ spending on lavish meals, limousines and luxury hotels went well beyond the $82,000 featured last month by The San Diego Union-Tribune, which examined two years of expense reports submitted by Schroder. The article noted that a food pantry on campus for needy students has a budget of about $80,000 per year.   www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/story/2019-10-24/limousine-services-and-lavish-meals-cal-state-san-marcos-review-of-executive-travel-widens

Former Vista Superintendent Linda Kimble resigns with a year’s pay

When the Vista Unified School Board accepted the resignation of former Superintendent Linda Kimble last week, it committed to paying her a year’s salary and health benefits, and agreed to part ways with no liability on either side.

Kimble was placed on administrative leave on Sept. 25, and the school board formalized her departure at its board meeting on Oct. 17.

The board agreed to pay her $281,000, her contracted annual salary, within 30 days, and to pay her medical coverage for one year, or until she gets health insurance from a new job. The district also agreed to place part of that payment in Kimble’s retirement accounts, through deposits of $25,000 to Kimble’s 403B plan and $16,000 to her 457 plan.

The document states that the severance is a no-fault agreement, with neither Kimble nor the district admitting or asserting any wrong-doing.  www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/north-county/story/2019-10-22/former-vista-supe-linda-kimble-resigns-with-a-years-pay

Facing prospect of added bribery charge, four parents plead guilty in admissions scandal

Charged with felonies and excoriated by the public, the ex-bond fund manager, the philanthropist, the venture capitalist and his wife nevertheless maintained their innocence for months, even after prosecutors in the college admissions case threatened — and made good on their threat — to charge them with a second crime if they didn’t cut a deal.

But facing the prospect last week of being charged with a third felony, Douglas Hodge, Michelle Janavs and Manuel and Elizabeth Henriquez buckled, their reversals affirmed in Boston federal court on Monday when all four pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering.

Their guilty pleas marked a potential turning point in the closely watched admissions scandal that, until last week, appeared to have settled into two camps: Parents who had admitted their guilt early on and resigned themselves to spending some amount of time in prison, and parents who had vowed to clear their names at trial.

Court papers filed on Monday show that a fifth defendant, Martin Fox, an alleged conspirator of the admissions scam’s ringleader, William “Rick” Singer, will change his plea to guilty and cooperate with the government.  www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-21/college-admissions-scandal-ex-pimco-chief-guilty

‘Segregated City’

Producer/Director Sweta Vohra

Two teenagers — one black, the other white — growing up a few miles apart have had two very different experiences in the New York City public school system. The gap in the quality of their education has likely put them on unequal paths for the rest of their lives.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way in New York, one of the country’s most diverse cities with more than 8 million people and 800 languages. And yet, it has one of the most segregated school systems in the nation.

Our reporters Eliza Shapiro and Nikole Hannah-Jones follow a group of students fighting for a better, more just education in a new episode of “The Weekly.” And Nikole sits down with the schools chancellor, Richard A. Carranza, who says he’s on a mission to finally integrate the city’s schools. Can he deliver on a decades-long promise of integration?

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

Under President Trump, there are now more troops in the Middle East than when he took office, and he has continued the mission for tens of thousands of others far from the wars of 9/11.

Turkey, Syria, the Kurds, and Trump’s Abandonment of Foreign Policy

The President’s ignorance of the world has never been so blatant—or produced such bipartisan opposition.

Much of the world watched aghast, last week, as President Donald Trump shattered any notion of an informed or sane U.S. foreign policy. He paved the way for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of Turkey, to invade Syria, abandoning America’s Kurdish partners in the Syrian Democratic Forces, who had eliminated the Islamic State’s caliphate in March, after five years of gruelling warfare. (The S.D.F. lost eleven thousand soldiers; the U.S. lost six.)

Erdoğan views Kurds—the world’s largest ethnic group without a state—as terrorists, because of a Kurdish separatist campaign in Turkey. After a phone call with Erdoğan, Trump ordered the withdrawal of a thousand U.S. Special Forces soldiers, who had been backing the S.D.F., even though ISIS sleeper cells are still waging an insurgency in Syria and Iraq. The retreat was so abrupt that the U.S. had to bomb a depot full of arms that it didn’t have time to remove.  www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/28/turkey-syria-the-kurds-and-trumps-abandonment-of-foreign-policy

youtu.be/X5dyWr7NAhY

VIDEO: Russian forces record videos taking over abandoned US base in Syria

The Shattered Afghan Dream of Peace

Trump upended peace talks. Civilian casualties keep climbing. After eighteen years of war, Afghans are suffering more than ever.

In 2008, when Zubair was seventeen years old, he left the refugee camp in Pakistan where he’d grown up, crossed into Afghanistan, and joined the war against the Americans. Although he and his family had fled the country during the Taliban regime, everyone Zubair knew seemed to agree that it was his religious duty to resist the foreign occupation of his homeland. One of his teachers arranged his enlistment in the Taliban. Zubair underwent a brief training program in Kunar Province, in northeastern Afghanistan, where his father had died during the war against the Soviet Union. He was deployed to his native village, in the Korengal, a narrow, cedar-forested valley that harbored one of the U.S. Army’s remotest outposts. For more than a year, Zubair conducted ambushes, engaged in firefights, and hid from jets and drones. He lost eight friends.

Forty-two Americans were killed and hundreds were wounded in the Korengal, which became known as the Valley of Death. In 2010, the Americans surrendered it to the Taliban. Some of Zubair’s comrades remained to launch attacks on Afghan government forces; Zubair asked to be sent to neighboring Nangarhar Province, where there were still foreigners to fight. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/28/the-shattered-afghan-dream-of-peace

U.S. to Deploy Hundreds of Troops to Guard Oil Fields in Syria, Pentagon Officials Say

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said the American strategy remains unchanged, although President Trump has said American forces are withdrawing,

The United States will deploy several hundred troops to guard eastern oil fields in Syria against the Islamic State, defense officials said Friday, another lurch in President Trump’s zigzagging military policy in the country.

Speaking at a news conference in Brussels, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said that the United States would “maintain a reduced presence in Syria to deny ISIS access to oil revenue.” Mr. Esper also said that the additional steps could include some “mechanized forces,” which other defense officials have said would include tanks that are not already there.

The plan includes a combination of Special Operations troops already in Syria and other units arriving from elsewhere in the Middle East, according to three defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The officials said the total number of American troops would be around 500.  www.nytimes.com/2019/10/25/world/middleeast/esper-troops-syria.html

The identity of the target was not confirmed, but President Trump was scheduled to make a statement on Sunday morning.

United States Special Operations commandos carried out a risky raid in northwestern Syria on Saturday against a senior terrorist leader there, two senior administration officials said late Saturday.

A senior American official said commandos and analysts were still seeking to confirm the identity of the terrorist, who the officials said was killed in the operation when he exploded his suicide vest.

But a person close to President Trump said that the target of the raid was believed to be the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. A senior administration official said that the president had approved the mission.

Officials said the raid was in Idlib Province, hundreds of miles from the area where Mr. Baghdadi was long believed to be hiding along the Syrian-Iraqi border. Idlib is dominated by jihadist rebel groups hostile to him.  www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/us/politics/special-operations-raid-terrorist-syria.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Toy company debuts female toy soldiers after 6-year-old girl’s letter

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor                           

How a Tax Break to Help the Poor Went to NBA Owner Dan Gilbert

Billionaire Dan Gilbert has spent the last decade buying up buildings in downtown Detroit, amassing nearly 100 properties and so completely dominating the area, it’s known as Gilbertville. In the last few years, Gilbert, the 57-year-old founder of Quicken Loans and owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, has also grown close to the Trump family.

Quicken gave $750,000 to Trump’s inaugural fund. Gilbert has built a relationship with Ivanka Trump, who appeared at one of his Detroit buildings in 2017 for a panel discussion with him. And, last year, he watched the midterm election returns at the White House with President Donald Trump himself, who has called Gilbert “a great friend.”

Gilbert’s cultivation of the Trump family appears to have paid off: Three swaths of downtown Detroit were selected as opportunity zones under the Trump tax law, extending a valuable tax break to Gilbert’s real estate empire.

Gilbert’s relationship with the White House helped him win his desired tax break, an email obtained by ProPublica suggests. www.propublica.org/article/how-a-tax-break-to-help-the-poor-went-to-nba-owner-dan-gilbert

Which country spends more than 1/2 its budget on the military?

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

Rumanian Iron Guard Rakolta off to U.A.E. for tough, new job

When John Rakolta Jr. began talking with the Trump administration about where he might fit in, he had one request:

Whatever job he got, he wanted it to be tough. The Detroit builder wasn’t interested in a ceremonial post. So when the White House asked him to consider an ambassadorship, he hoped it would be to a country with real diplomatic challenges. No tea in the afternoon, please.

Wish granted.

After a confirmation process delayed for more than a year by the Democratic resistance movement, Rakolta is off to the United Arab Emirates, a country vital to U.S. interests and one at the center of a roiling region.

Typically, the U.A.E. ambassadorship, because of the sensitivity of the relationship, would go to a veteran career diplomat. Rakolta, a Republican fundraiser, is a political appointee.   (Rakolta’s wife, Terry, won fame trying to ban “Married With Children”)  www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/nolan-finley/2019/10/25/finley-rakolta-off-u-a-e-tough-new-job/4083553002/

WikiLeaks founder Assange struggles to recall his name and age at London court hearing

Solidarity for Never

UAW rams through sellout, shuts down strike at General Motors

The shutdown of the strike, the longest national walkout in the American auto industry in 50 years, exposes the UAW as an agent of corporate management, organically hostile to the interests of autoworkers.

The sellout at General Motors is the greatest warning to workers at Ford and Fiat Chrysler, who are next in line in the UAW’s “pattern bargaining” process. The UAW announced on Friday that it had selected Ford as its next “target” company. Ford is already demanding even deeper cuts than General Motors, in particular to healthcare.

The treachery of the UAW is also a warning to 3,500 workers at Mack-Volvo Truck whose strike was abruptly shut down this week by the UAW after it announced a tentative agreement. The UAW felt compelled to keep workers on strike during balloting at General Motors. At Mack Truck, it shut the strike before even releasing details of the tentative agreement, making clear it is moving even more aggressively to force through concessions at the heavy truck manufacturer.    www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/10/25/auto-o26.html

Feds inch closer to ex-UAW VP Ashton in corruption probe

Federal prosecutors closed in on former United Auto Workers Vice President Joe Ashton by securing the conviction Tuesday of a second union leader involved in a bribery and kickback conspirac

Ashton’s former top aide, Jeff Pietrzyk, pleaded guilty to his role in a conspiracy involving Ashton and former UAW official Mike Grimes and admitted receiving kickbacks and bribes from UAW vendors. The vendors, including Ashton’s personal chiropractor, received rigged contracts to produce more than $15.8 million worth of UAW-branded watches, jackets and backpacks, according to prosecutors.

Pietrzyk, 74, of Grand Island, New York, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies seven weeks after Grimes struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors. Both men are believed to be cooperating with an ongoing investigation targeting Ashton and corruption within the UAW and domestic auto industry.

Prosecutors agreed not to seek more than a 27-month prison sentence for Pietryzk.

“When two of your co-conspirators plead guilty and agree to cooperate, it makes it very difficult for you to avoid charges,” said Peter Henning, a Wayne State University law professor and former federal prosecutor. “That’s where the danger is for Ashton — he’s likely the next one on the list.”   www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2019/10/22/uaw-vp-joe-ashton-corruption-probe/4056840002/

GM worker on strike struck by car, dies at Tennessee plant

A General Motors Co. employee was struck by a car and killed Tuesday while out picketing on the strike line near the automaker’s Tennessee plant, according to police.

Roy A. McCombs died while on strike with the United Auto Workers outside the Spring Hill Manufacturing plant. The union confirmed his identity in a statement.

Lt. Jeremy Haywood, of the Columbia Police Department, said he could not confirm the victim’s identity because, “we’re still waiting to identify the next of kin.”

“All I can say is we are still investigating a motor vehicle accident that happened on an overpass that leads to the south gate of the GM plant around 6:15 this morning,” said Haywood. “A passenger car struck a pedestrian and sadly, the person succumbed to his injuries and passed away.”   www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-motors/2019/10/22/general-motors-worker-uaw-strike-hit-by-car-dies-picketing-plant/4063133002/

Waiting for the DSA sellout: CPS strike updates: Chicago Teachers Union, city to stay at bargaining table Saturday night; Chance the Rapper gives shout-out to union on SNL

Union Report: Whom Will the Teachers Unions Endorse for President? 2 Political Case Studies May Offer Some Clues

…there never was a chance the teachers unions would endorse anyone other than Hillary Clinton. AFT had endorsed her in October 2007 and was even quicker for her second run, endorsing her in July 2015.

NEA didn’t endorse Clinton until October 2015, but hacked emails published by Wikileaks revealed that the highest levels of the union were working on it and coordinating with the Clinton campaign even before she officially announced her candidacy.

Both unions had a long history with Clinton, they very much liked the idea of supporting the candidate who would have been the first female president, and although Bernie Sanders had strong and vocal support, he was never able to overtake her in national polling. Had Clinton won, as everyone expected, NEA and AFT would have cited their early endorsements as a key reason.

But she didn’t, and the unions were bound to be gun-shy approaching the 2020 primaries   …www.the74million.org/article/union-report-whom-will-the-teachers-unions-endorse-for-president-2-political-case-studies-may-offer-some-clues/

Spy versus Spy

The FBI Has a Long History of Treating Political Dissent as Terrorism

While terrorism in the U.S. is relatively rare, over the last decade most politically motivated violence has come at the hands of far-right extremists. Despite that reality, the FBI has devoted disproportionate resources to the surveillance of nonviolent civil society groups and protest movements, particularly on the left, using its mandate to protect national security to target scores of individuals posing no threat but opposing government policies and practices.

Since 2010, the FBI has surveilled black activists and Muslim Americans, Palestinian solidarity and peace activists, Abolish ICE protesters, Occupy Wall Street, environmentalists, Cuba and Iran normalization proponents, and protesters at the Republican National Convention. And that is just the surveillance we know of — as the civil liberties group Defending Rights & Dissent documents in a report published today.

The report is a detailed catalog of known FBI First Amendment abuses and political surveillance since 2010, when the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General published the last official review of Bush-era abuses. The incidents the report references, many of which were previously covered by The Intercept, were largely exposed through public records requests by journalists, activists, and civil rights advocates. The FBI relentlessly fought those disclosures, and the documents we have were often so heavily redacted they only revealed the existence of initiatives like a “Race Paper” or an “Iron Fist” operation, both targeting racial justice activists, while giving away little detail about their content.  theintercept.com/2019/10/22/terrorism-fbi-political-dissent/

The Magical Mystery Tour

Opinion: Will Mitt Romney fulfill a Mormon ‘prophecy’ and save the Constitution?

Mitt Romney has emerged as the Lone Ranger Republican, willing to speak out about our corrupt president. When the news of Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky broke, Romney said the situation was not just “troubling” but “appalling.” He insisted we needed to know more and encouraged the impeachment inquiry to go forward.

Not surprisingly, Romney’s rationality called down the wrath of our testy and profane leader, who labeled him “a pompous ass” and suggested that it was the junior senator from Utah who should be impeached (he meant “expelled,” but as usual projected his own issues onto the situation).   www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-19/mitt-romney-white-horse-prophecy-mormon-joseph-smith

Catholic priests in Colorado sexually abused at least 166 children in the past 70 years

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

Mugshots show White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham after drunk driving arrests in 2013 and 2015