We Say Fight Back!

75 Thousand Students Protest Austerity in Montreal Over 130,000 students were on strike across Quebec on Apr. 2, and according to the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante, the crowd in Montreal reached around 75,000 at its peak. Based on my calculations, that’s a reasonable estimate. Other media outlets reported a number of 25,000, attributing it to police scanners, but that may have been prior to the demonstration’s peak.

Alongside students there was a strong labour presence, with public sector employees joining Montreal’s firefighters, labour federation Confédération des syndicats nationaux and dozens of other unions in the streets. McGill University’s law department was on strike for the first time in the history of that institution, and their banner was greeted with cheers wherever it went.

Nine student leaders are currently facing expulsion for strike-related activities at Université du Québec à Montréal, and the teachers’ union there also went on strike for the day, the faculty of that institution sending a strong message by joining their students in the streets.

Throughout the morning a steady stream of buses rolled in, bringing students and activists alike from places like Rimouski, Quebec City, Saguenay, Lévis and points beyond. By the time the march departed, the square was packed, and new arrivals continued to replace those departing for at least another half hour.

Montreal Professors Stare Down Coppers Small in number, confined to a few Montreal campuses and now with renewed violence from a police force that has stooped to new lows of brutality this spring, Quebec’s student strikers needed a win.

Today, on the campus of the Université du Québec à Montréal, facing a court order demanding that classes be held and the threat of expulsion issued by their administration, hundreds of students turned up to disrupt classes and enforce their democratically voted strike mandate.

In response, the university administration called in the Montreal police, who arrived in full riot gear with pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets and batons at the ready. Paradoxically enough, their stated role there was to ensure that classes could occur as scheduled.

The students were shortly boxed in and it was clearly about to get very, very ugly. There were numerous reports of police violence on social media, and the bulk of the reported 22 arrests happened as riot police swept onto campus. Students then set up barricades, and police formed a line and prepared to move in.

Then a funny thing happened. A single man, a prof in a paperboy cap, walked out into the no man’s land between the lines and gestured to police that he was staying there. As students thunderously chanted “les profs! avec nous! les profs! avec nous!” a second prof came forward, and then a third, and in moments a line of professors had formed, linking arms and standing between students and police.  For those unfamiliar with Quebec, it is worth noting that there was precious little guarantee this gambit would work. Police truncheons have been indiscriminate on the streets this spring, and teachers have suffered from police brutality too, including a case where a police dog mauled a teacher in Quebec City. But on this day the zeal of the police quickly melted under the withering gaze and moral authority of a line of middle-aged educators. ricochet.media/en/390/montreal-professors-stare-down-riot-cops

On the once-liberals-with-bombs, now grant sucking liberals…..add some police agents….

On the origin of the most famous underground revolutionaries, the Weather Underground

They were a spin-off of the dominant white protest group the Students for a Democratic Society and in January 1970 the leadership of that group went underground with the intent of triggering this second American Revolution. Unfortunately while they knew a lot about politics they didn’t know much about bomb-making and at about their third or fourth attempt to blow something up they ended up in an infamous explosion in Greenwich Village in New York City in March 1970, killing three of their own.

On the myth that the Weathermen never intended to kill anyone

Especially when you look at the Weather Underground the myth has arisen, largely propagated by alumni of the Weather Underground, that they never intended to hurt a soul; that they only bombed … symbols of American power. In fact I think I show persuasively through on-the-record interviews with former Weatherman leaders that the first 90 days up until that explosion, it’s very clear now that they had intended to kill — not just anyone, but their intent was to kill policemen.

After that townhouse bombing the group then did swear off murderous violence, if you will. So they became kind of conventional protest bombers for the last six years of their existence.  www.npr.org/2015/04/05/396359930/explosive-protests-u-s-bombings-during-days-of-rage

New York officials remove statue of Edward Snowden in Park Dressed in reflective yellow construction gear while working under the cover of darkness early Monday, a small group of artists installed a tribute to NSA-leaker Edward Snowden in a Brooklyn park.

But it was gone by midday.

The Snowden bust stood atop a column at the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in Fort Greene Park, a site built to honor more than 11,000 AmerWhile others have created Snowden statues before, they’ve primarily been mobile installations. The sculpture that stood in Fort Greene Park was meant to be permanent. The artists had hoped the city would have considering leaving the sculpture where it was, but they were prepared for the inevitable.ican prisoners of war who died aboard British ships during the American Revolutionary War. …mashable.com/2015/04/06/snowden-sculpture-fort-greene-brooklyn/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DgWsARwgK8

Germany files war crimes charges against Bush, Cheney, et al  If President Obama won’t do it, someone else will. Thankfully, a human rights group in Berlin, The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, has begun the process of indicting members of the Bush Administration by filing criminal complaints against the architects of the Admin’s torture program.

Hacktivists from the Anonymous group have attacked hundreds of pro-Islamic State websites and thousands of social networks’ accounts used by the terrorist group. ISIS has hit back though, threatening another 9/11 terror act against the US.

A faction of the Anonymous group, called GhostSec, is carrying out a cyber campaign called #OpISIS against the Islamic State (IS). They are looking to target members and supporters of the terrorist organization, who want to spread propaganda over the internet.

Anonymous are monitoring social media accounts as well as websites operated by the group formerly known as ISIS/ISIL to disrupt their online operations as they try to “cure the ISIS virus.”  rt.com/news/248845-anonymous-opisis-warring-terrorism/

March on Mayday!!!!

UC Doc Prols on Strike Uionized doctors began a rolling strike Thursday at student health clinics on UC campuses, accusing the university of unfair labor practices during negotiations for the physicians’ first contract.
The walkout started early Thursday morning at five Northern and Central California campuses — Berkeley, Davis, San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Merced — and is scheduled to last four days.

On Saturday, the doctors, dentists and podiatrists are expected to begin a four-day strike at the southern UC campuses at UCLA, San Diego, Irvine, Riverside and Santa Barbara.

UC officials said management doctors and others would provide replacement services so that the walkout would affect students as little as possible. Some nonurgent appointments already had been shifted to other days. The union said it gave the campuses plenty of notice so the clinics could plan to minimize the walkout’s effect on students.

The 130 or so members of the Union of American Physicians and Dentists previously held a one-day strike in late January at all 10 UC campuses. The UC doctors were unionized in 2013.  www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-ln-uc-strike-20150409-story.html

Luis Estrada’s political satire The Perfect Dictatorship was the top-grossing Mexican film this year, yet many will remember it as an uncomfortable reminder of all that’s gone terribly wrong in the country.

The controversial movie is a biting look at political corruption, drug-related violence and the mainstream media’s collusion with the government — the very issues that now have thousands of people marching in Mexico’s streets every week.

The title refers to a famous quote from Nobel Prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa, who once called Mexico’s ruling party, known as the PRI, a “camouflaged dictatorship,” thereby making it “the perfect dictatorship.”

The Little Red Schoolhouse

The Return of School Segregation in the US in Eight Charts www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/education/separate-and-unequal/the-return-of-school-segregation-in-eight-charts/

Teacher Morale at All time Low. Why (there is no left and their leaders collaborated, and..)

how did this happen? While the answers to the current problems are long and complex, some of them can be traced back to the road to reform starting in the 1980s when measurable academic standards were set up for students.

As a researcher and author of a 2012 book on education reforms in the US on top of being the father of children who are attending public schools, I have seen how these reforms have led to a situation in which teacher job satisfaction is at an all-time low and university graduates are less inclined to join the profession. theconversation.com/crisis-in-american-education-as-teacher-morale-hits-an-all-time-low-39226

Michigan Schools Shift Gears with new way to fashion children into Cannon Fodder A new era in statewide standardized testing begins Monday when students start taking a mostly online assessment that replaces a pencil-and-paper exam — the Michigan Educational Assessment Program —used for more than 40 years.

State education officials say they expect a smooth rollout of the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, which will be administered to students in grades 3-8, plus 11th grade. Districts have eight weeks to complete the exams.

Test runs of the online system have been done with districts, said state Superintendent Mike Flanagan. “We want schools to be ready,” he said in a statement.

But some districts and parents are feeling anything but reassured and prepared. At least one Oakland County district was still waiting Friday for copies of the pencil-and-paper version of the exam, being distributed to schools that were granted waivers from the online test.  www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2015/04/10/michigan-standardized-test-schools/25615287/

Millionaire Children of Chinese Communists Flood Greedy MSU with Maseratis, Leo Di zipped into the strip mall, ducked into a laundromat to pick up his clothes and left his 2014 Maserati running outside.

It’s a good life at Michigan State University, the 20-year-old student from China said before jumping back into his $150,000 car to return to campus.

“I like the people and their culture,” said Di, a sophomore who’s studying general management and lives in a campus apartment. “Maybe I’ll even find a job and stay here.”

Most college towns don’t have a lot of students cruising around in luxury vehicles. But around MSU’s campus, it is not uncommon to see students behind the wheel of a Porsche, Mercedes-Benz or Hummer. Often, the student is a 20-something from China — home to MSU’s largest group of international students, which has grown almost tenfold over the past decade.

The high-end cars signal how the students are changing East Lansing. From Chinese restaurants and specialty grocers to karaoke and pool halls, the influx of Chinese students is slowly reshaping the community neighboring the state capital. Students are buying condos and houses. Even Bank of America has a sign in Chinese welcoming students.  www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/04/07/east-asian-influx-slowly-changes-east-lansing/25443757/

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

ISIS controlled area in world’s second richest oil region

Despite Tikrit Loss, IS still holds large swaths of Iraq and Syria  Iraqi forces took control of Tikrit from the Islamic State on Tuesday after weeks of ground attacks and airstrikes. Iraqi military leaders are now vowing to move to liberate Anbar Province, the Sunni heartland in western Iraq. The militants hold more than half of Anbar Province, including the city of Falluja and large areas around the capital, Ramadi. (many maps here www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/the-iraq-isis-conflict-in-maps-photos-and-video.html)

Rashid on ISIS and the US : Explain what you think the West has wrong about the Islamic State, both as a movement and a military opponent.

The biggest mistake has been not understanding that the Islamic State has launched a war within the Muslim world. This is not a war against the West in the way that we saw with 9/11 and al-Qaeda, where the priority was to bomb the United States or Europe. The priority of the Islamic State is to set up a caliphate across the Middle East. That means that the broader Muslim world should have a much greater responsibility in dealing with this crisis. This is not America’s war as such. America has to be involved, obviously, providing military support, logistics, et cetera. But the Arab regimes, not the West, should be taking the lead.

Is there the capacity and consensus in the Arab world for an Arab-led coalition against the Islamic State?

Unfortunately, I’m not seeing that. Where the Arabs are coming together [involves] the wrong target, and that is Yemen. The Houthis, who are the main rebel group, have been oppressed and marginalized for a long time. They are asserting themselves, which makes this a civil war. The main target for the Arab regimes should be the Islamic State, rather than a side show in Yemen.

What is the relationship between Islamic State and Saudi Arabia?

If you go back to the 1980s, all the Sunni extremist groups that have emerged, starting with al-Qaeda, have Wahhabism as their base. Unfortunately, these groups have been admired by Saudis because they are reflecting the views of the Wahhabi doctrine in Saudi Arabia. Now, the Saudis are trying distance themselves. They’ve denounced al-Qaeda, they’ve denounced the Islamic State, but they’re not making any real changes in their own curricula and religious schools. As long as this doesn’t happen, we’re going to see more and more extremist Sunni groups emerge around the world owing their pedigree to Wahhabism.  www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/ahmed-rashid-on-islamic-state-this-is-not-americas-war/article23788074/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_us-YBMZM

Taylorism in Boot Camp: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm2mPhp3b60&feature=youtu.be

The Pentagon’s $10 Billion Star Wars Swindle  SBX “represents a capability that is unmatched,” the director of the Missile Defense Agency told a Senate subcommittee in 2007.

In reality, the giant floating radar has been a $2.2-billion flop, a Los Angeles Times investigation found.

Although it can powerfully magnify distant objects, its field of vision is so narrow that it would be of little use against what experts consider the likeliest attack: a stream of missiles interspersed with decoys.

SBX was supposed to be operational by 2005. Instead, it spends most of the year mothballed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

The project not only wasted taxpayer money but left a hole in the nation’s defenses. The money spent on it could have gone toward land-based radars with a greater capability to track long-range missiles, according to experts who have studied the issue.

Expensive missteps have become a trademark of the Missile Defense Agency, an arm of the Pentagon charged with protecting U.S. troops and ships and the American homeland.

Over the last decade, the agency has sunk nearly $10 billion into SBX and three other programs that had to be killed or sidelined after they proved unworkable, The Times found.

“You can spend an awful lot of money and end up with nothing,” said Mike Corbett, a retired Air Force colonel who oversaw the agency’s contracting for weapons systems from 2006 to 2009. “MDA spent billions and billions on these programs that didn’t lead anywhere. graphics.latimes.com/missile-defense/

Ukraine Moves Ne0-Nazi to Top Spot Ukraine’s Interpol-wanted leader of extremist group Right Sector, Dmitry Yarosh, has been appointed as an adviser to the country’s Chief of General Staff. He has agreed to legalize thousands of fighters as an assault team subordinate to the regular army.

“Colonel General Viktor Muzhenko, Chief of General Staff, and Dmytro Yarosh agreed the format of cooperation between ‘Pravy Sector’ [Right Sector] and the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” Ukraine’s defense ministry said in a statement.  rt.com/news/247001-ukraine-army-adviser-yarosh/#.VSdGD8js6Zk.facebook

Seven Things you may not have know about the US/|Iran relationship 1) Nasir al-Din Shah, Shah of Iran from 1848-1896, sold Baron Julius de Reuter the right to operate all of Iran’s railroads and canals, most of the mines, all of the government’s forests, and all future industries. The famous British statesman Lord Curzon called it “the most complete and extraordinary surrender of the entire industrial resources of a kingdom into foreign hands that has probably ever been dreamed of.” Iranians were so infuriated that the Shah had to rescind the sale the next year.  2) If the Reuters thing weren’t enough to give Iranians a grudge against the Western media, the BBC transmitted a secret code to help Kermit Roosevelt (Teddy’s grandson) lay the groundwork for an American and British coup against Mosaddegh. (BBC Persian also assisted by broadcasting pro-coup propaganda on the orders of the British government.) Soon enough the U.S. was training the regime’s secret police in how to interrogate Iranians with methods a CIA analyst said were “based on German torture techniques from World War 2….firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/07/10-things-didnt-know-weve-done-iran/

Frontline’s Who’s Who in the Fight for Yemen www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/frontline-fight-for-yemen/whos-who-in-the-fight-for-yemen/

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

One floor In NYC sells for 

$47,367,491

A full-floor aerie near the apex of the Extell Development Company’s blue-glass bastion of billionaires, One57, which offers nonpareil park, water and cityscape vistas, sold for $47,367,491.39 and was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records.

The residence, No. 88, on the 88th floor at 157 West 57th Street, was purchased through the limited liability company Pac Wholly Own, which records show is associated with the Pacific American Corporation, a New York subsidiary of the HNA Group, one of China’s largest private airline companies. In February, Guoqing Chen, a founder along with his brother, Chen Feng, of HNA’s Hainan Airlines, paid $47,366,989.64 for a floor-through apartment on the 86th floor of the 90-story skyscraper — almost the exact amount as No. 88 when factoring in taxes and fees.

The monthly carrying charges for the recently purchased apartment, which has four bedrooms and five and a half baths over 6,231 square feet, are $12,683.

The week’s runner-up, at $20,110,437.50, which includes taxes and other fees, is another full-floor condominium — unit No. 43A in the Baccarat Hotel and Residences at 20 West 53rd Street.  www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/realestate/full-floor-at-one57-sells-for-47367491.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=0

IMF: Stagnation is the Future, at best Since the onset of the global financial crisis, many economies have faced lower growth in their productive capacity, which may slow the rise of living standards in the future, according to a new study by the IMF.

Global output growth fell sharply during the global financial crisis, and a new study published in the IMF’s April 2015 World Economic Outlook report suggests that a considerable portion of this slowdown is due to economies facing lower “speed limits”. An economy’s speed limit—referred to as potential output growth—dictates how rapidly it can expand its production of goods and services without increasing inflation.

The evidence presented in the study suggests that absent policy action to encourage innovation, promote investment in productive capital, and counteract the negative impetus from aging, countries will have to adjust to a new reality of lower speed limits.

Potential output measures a country’s productive capacity with stable inflation. It depends on the supply of two factors of production—labor and capital inputs—and how productively they are used. For potential output to grow, either the supply of these factors or productivity has to grow.

In the years since the global financial crisis many economies have witnessed slower expansions in one or more of these key components of potential output growth (see chart 1). Lower potential growth in advanced economies has been driven in roughly equal measure by slower capital accumulation and labor growth—due primarily to adverse demographics. In emerging market economies much of the decline is attributable to slower productivity growth.  www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2015/new040715a.htm

Demagogue Fearful of China Inching in, sucks up to Caudillo

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbvU8HFROwI

Glenn Ford: The War on Black America 

“Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival….”

– Frederick Douglass

The United States produced a bumper crop of what Billie Holiday would call “Strange Fruit,” in March: at least 111 bodies, the majority of them unarmed men of color, shot down by police in the blood-fertilized streets of American cities. If one just counts the unarmed victims, that’s a rate of about two extrajudicial executions per day, roughly twice the “one every 28 hours” cited by the Malcolm X Grassroots Network’s 2012 report, Operation Ghetto Storm.

Yet, in the same month, President Obama declared Venezuela a threat to the national security of the United States, based largely on the death of 14 “dissidents” during a period of anti-government disturbances back in 2014. Many of the dead were pro-government activists killed by “dissidents.” By contrast, Philadelphia police have been shooting an average of one person a week for the last eight years, the overwhelming majority of them Black and brown, according to a new U.S. Justice Department report. As Frederick Douglass said, “for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”  www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/09/the-war-on-black-america/

No Charges for Cop who killed black Pace U student The Justice Department will not bring civil rights charges against a white police officer who fatally shot a black Pace University football player outside a Westchester County bar in 2010, the United States attorney in Manhattan announced on Tuesday.

Officer Aaron Hess of the Pleasantville Police Department shot Danroy Henry Jr. of Easton, Mass., on Oct. 18, 2010.

Mr. Henry, 20, was driving away from a bar in Thornwood, N.Y., where an altercation had broken out. Officer Hess was struck by Mr. Henry’s car and landed on the hood, where he fired several shots through the windshield. Mr. Henry was pulled from the car and died on the pavement; a 20-year-old passenger, Brandon Cox, was wounded.

After a lengthy investigation, prosecutors determined that the evidence in the case did not meet the stringent standard of criminal intent required for prosecution. www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/nyregion/no-charges-for-officer-who-killed-pace-university-student-in-2010.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEKCJlYtUwc

Thousands Murdered by Coppers–few prosecuted This analysis, based on a wide range of public records and interviews with law enforcement, judicial and other legal experts, sought to identify for the first time every officer who faced charges­ for such shootings since 2005. These represent a small fraction of the thousands of fatal police shootings that have occurred across the country in that time.

above, Archangel Michael, patron saint of the 82nd airborne

Come to San Diego Padres’ MILITARY Sunday! MILITARY APPRECIATION SUNDAYS
Every Sunday home game, the Padres wear camouflage jerseys and honor San Diego’s service members, veterans and their families, to include a game for each branch of the armed forces and special salutes for military kids, military spouses and m

SING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM OR GOD BLESS AMERICA AT A SUNDAY MILITARY APPRECIATION HOME GAME:
Active duty, reservists, retirees, veterans, and family members who are interested in singing the National Anthem and/or God Bless America at a Padres Sunday Military Appreciation home game should send a CD recording of themselves performing the traditional version of the National Anthem and God Bless America a capella.

The National Anthem can be no longer than one minute and fifteen seconds (1:15) and God Bless America can be no longer than one minute (1:00).

PADRES MILITARY LOGO MERCHANDISE
The Padres are the only MLB team with a Military Logo. Visit the Padres Store for merchandise featuring the Padres Military Logo. The Padres military logo is based on the official United States military aircraft insignia used on aircraft of all branches of the US armed forces and the US Coast Guard. A portion of all sales will benefit a San Diego non-profit organization focused on supporting the military community.

ON APRIL 12 Meet the WIFE of the AMERICAN SNIPER! WATCH NAVY FLYOVERS! 

The New Emperor over Chinese Social Fascism–clinging to power, readying for war

The Communist Party dedicated itself to a classless society but organized itself in a rigid hierarchy, and Xi started life near the top. He was born in Beijing in 1953, the third of four children. His father, Xi Zhongxun, China’s propaganda minister at the time, had been fomenting revolution since the age of fourteen, when he and his classmates tried to poison a teacher whom they considered a counterrevolutionary. He was sent to jail, where he joined the Communist Party, and eventually he became a high-ranking commander, which plunged him into the Party’s internal feuds. In 1935, a rival faction accused Xi of disloyalty and ordered him to be buried alive, but Mao defused the crisis. At a Party meeting in February, 1952, Mao stated that the “suppression of counterrevolutionaries” required, on average, the execution of one person for every one thousand to two thousand citizens. Xi Zhongxun endorsed “severe suppression and punishment,” but in his area “killing was relatively lower,” according to his official biography.  www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/06/born-red

In San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies were placed on paid administrative leave Friday after TV news video showed them beating and kicking a suspect.Sheriff John McMahon announced the move to place the deputies — including a sergeant and a detective — on leave during a news conference Friday afternoon. He said some of the actions on the tape appeared “excessive.”

“I am disturbed and troubled by what I see,” he said. “It does not appear to be in line with our policies and procedures.”

Also on Friday, the FBI opened a civil rights investigation into the incident, The Times has learned. vide0 below

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWiUnMXim7s

Two More Detroit Coppers Indicted: Stealing/Selling Drugs  Two suspended Detroit cops who are accused of stealing drugs, money and property during warrantless raids and bogus arrests were indicted Wednesday and face up 20 years in prison.

Federal prosecutors allege that Lt. David Hansberry and Officer Bryan Watson embarked on a four-year crime spree that targeted innocent people, alleged drug dealers and marijuana dispensaries. They are accused of threatening people with arrest and then stealing anything of value.

The pair belonged to a now-disbanded narcotics unit and used their authority to intimidate marijuana dispensary owners, storming in with guns and pocketing the money, cannabis, surveillance equipment and paraphernalia, according to the indictment.

Also under investigation was Detective James Napier, 35, who fatally shot himself in front of his parent’s home in January.

Last year, Police Chief James Craig would only say that the narcotics unit was suspended after members were caught removing property during a drug raid and failing to log it as evidence. But Motor City Muckraker revealed in August that the allegations were much more serious and involved the FBI.

According to the feds, the cops would “identify themselves as law enforcement officers performing official law enforcement duties in order to coerce their victims into complying with their demands and to encourage their victims to flee, leaving behind their controlled substances, money or personal property.”  motorcitymuckraker.com/2015/04/09/feds-2-detroit-cops-terrorized-dealers-and-dispensaries-stealing-money-drugs-for-years/

Solidarity for Never

Rahm Emanuel Teaches Hillbillary how to smash the fake “whole world is watching” left A win by Jesús “Chuy” García in the Chicago mayor’s race this week would have sent a signal that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party would be a decisive force in 2016, and that Hillary Clinton better do what they want or get out of the way.

But Garcia lost. Big. And Rahm Emanuel, the combative former chief of staff to President Barack Obama who spent the race being hammered for caring more about big donors from Big Business than unions or working people, will be sworn in again next month for a second term as mayor.

To many Democrats, there are two possible lessons: First, that the professional left talks a much better game than it delivers even as it starts to make big promises about the presidential race. And second, that focusing voters on the progressive elements of a candidate’s record, as Emanuel did during his runoff, can blunt a challenge from an ineffective opponent.read more: www.politico.com/story/2015/04/lessons-rahm-emanuel-win-116800.html#ixzz3X3oWE4O3

Fake Teachers’ Group sues Fake unions to halt real money for fake voting campaigns

An advocacy group has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop teachers unions in California from using member dues for political purposes unless individual instructors provide their permission.

The effort, if successful, could weaken the influence of these unions by limiting their spending.

The lawsuit was filed Friday in federal court by StudentsFirst, a Sacramento-based organization that has opposed candidates and measures backed by teachers unions nationwide, while also working to pass laws that curtail union power.  In the suit, four teachers, including two from the Los Angeles Unified School District, assert that union rules and state laws violate their 1st Amendment rights to free speech because they cannot belong to the union unless they allow a portion of their dues to be spent on political activity. The teachers claim they should be able to join without subsidizing viewpoints they may oppose. www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lawsuit-union-dues-20150408-story.html

Spy versus Spy

Former CIA Boss Insists Torture is not Torture  HAYDEN: I mean, even today at Guantanamo there are people there on hunger strikes. And they’re forced to go through forced feeding, with a tube put down through their nasal cavity. That’s very horrific, too.

In the case of several of our detainees — Mahjit Khan was one of them. We were trying to rehydrate him through a needle, and he was ripping the needles out. He was also not allowing us to put the tube in through the nasal cavity. And so the medical decision that was made at the time was made at the time, is that we will rehydrate him rectally. And then that was, that’s what was done.  www.orrazz.com/2015/04/former-cia-director-says-rectal.html

The Secret Service has placed a high-ranking supervisor on administrative leave and suspended the employee’s security clearance after what it called “allegations of misconduct and potential criminal activity.” A spokesman for the agency, Brian Leary, would not provide details of the allegations but said that the Secret Service took them “extremely seriously.  www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/us/secret-service-supervisor-is-put-on-leave.html?nlid=2254121&src=recpb

Below–Alice with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

The electoral shell game, picking the best oppressor, is about to begin!

CIA Interrogation Manual

1) An elicitation is a monologue, not a dialogue

2) Cultivate short-term thinking

3) Do no harm

4) Good cop/bad cop

5) “Enhanced interrogation”

www.theguardian.com/us-news/shortcuts/2015/mar/31/cia-self-help-book-how-to-win-friends-and-interrogate-people

 

The Magical Mystery Tour

That is Jesus in Kym Ackerman’s dental xrays! www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3025537/Jesus-Christ-seen-dental-x-rays-Arizona-woman-pre-Easter-surprise.html

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

Violo Liuzzo finally honored

…Liuzzo’s killers escaped punishment except in federal court (one was an FBI informant and testified against the others), and her children tried for years through the courts to get the FBI to admit everything it knew about the murder.

In the immediate aftermath of their mother’s death, the family had to deal with their grief, while enduring taunts at school in Detroit, ugly, anonymous letters, and stories they later traced to the FBI, trying to paint Viola as a neglectful mother. Because of threats, Liuzzo’s Teamster colleagues had to guard the house for a time.  www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2015/04/10/wsu-honor-slain-civil-rights-activist-viola-liuzzo-posthumous-degree/25565521/

Coming–the 50th Anniversary of the Fifth Estate

Bill Blank on the Clash in the Fifth Estate Now: As proclaimed by the late bandleader Strummer, “We’re anti-fascist, anti-violence, we’re anti-racist and pro-creative. We’re against ignorance.”

More succinctly, the band frequently hyped as “The Only Band That Matters,” was also the apex of political rock or protest music. Although not explicitly anarchist, naming one of their albums after the left nationalist Nicaraguan Sandinistas and making catchy power chord statements about the Spanish Civil War (not Revolution, as anarchists define it) in “Spanish Bombs,” or how capitalism creates the obedience required for submission to daily life in “Clampdown,” are samples of how unusually subversive The Clash were at the time–and how timeless they remain.  www.fifthestate.org/archive/393-spring-2015/a-brief-story-of-the-clash-radio-the-fifth-estate/

So Long

Dennis Carlson, a good man who helped others become better still miamioh.edu/ehs/_files/documents/edl/faculty-cv/carlsodl-cv.pdf