Rouge Forum Dispatch: In the US, History is Unpredictable
February 14th, 2015 / Author: rgibson“Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.” (Orwell, 1984)
We Say Fight Back!
“The prize for best South African documentary went to Rehad Desai’s Miners Shot Down, which also won the Amnesty Intl. (Durban) Human Rights Award, accompanied by a prize of R10,000 ($951) sponsored by the Artists for Human Rights Trust. The film was selected for its profoundly moving portrayal of the Marikana miners’ massacre.”
Coming in one month:
Exactly one month from today (2/20), Andrews McMeel Publishing will release “Exploring Calvin and Hobbes: An Exhibition Catalogue” by Bill Watterson, from last year’s exhibit at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=771PqdmnDNc&app=desktop
Workers Mobilize for Self Defense in Guerrero A former cattle trader juggles two cellphones to direct truckloads of armed volunteers who have replaced the meager police forces across a swath of small towns.
A potential mayoral candidate plans to campaign almost entirely from his apartment, risking little of the usual glad-handing with voters on the street, because he fears for his life.
Protesters rattle the gates of military bases and have evicted mayors from about half the state’s town halls.
As election season begins in Guerrero, what has been at best a tenuous hold on order in Mexico’s most violent state is fast disintegrating.
After the disappearance of 43 students from a rural teachers college last September — believed to be the victims of an alliance among drug gangs, local politicians and the municipal police — activist groups have sworn to disrupt the June elections in the name of the missing students.
“The no-election movement could gather strength,” said Juan Angulo Osorio, the editor of El Sur, a Guerrero newspaper. “It’s seen as the only way to punish the politicians.”
At the same time, frustration with the inability of the authorities to rein in organized crime groups, which traffic heroin and create terror through kidnapping and extortion, is leading a growing number of communities to take control of their own security.
Fueling the anger is evidence that neither the state of Guerrero nor the federal government acted on repeated warnings of the connection between a local cartel and the mayor of the city of Iguala, where police officers fired at and killed some students before dozens of them disappeared.
The case “is the detonator of a crisis of institutions,” said Rogelio Ortega, the state’s interim governor.
“The issue of organized crime and its penetration into institutions isn’t just the heritage of Iguala,” he said. “It’s broader, it’s more extensive — in Guerrero and the country.” www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/world/mexican-towns-galvanized-by-tragedy.html
from the past–
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLqpJ-0VLio
To the Editor:
Suspending Brian Williams is a very healthy event in the history of television news. I do not think it should stop with Mr. Williams. The entire industry has been corrupted by news managers and performers who have made a travesty of what once was an honorable enterprise.
Purging the industry of those who have corrupted it would help restore confidence. The next to go should be the news managers, nationally and locally, who have transformed the industry from honest and accurate news gathering to a charade, a clown show.
ED RABEL
Charleston, W.Va.
The writer is a former correspondent for NBC News.
The Little Red Schoolhouse
Justin Williams Speaks to the Uniondale BOE My two oldest children, one in 9th grade, the other in 4thgrade, do not attend school here in Uniondale. They love going to school. A big reason why is because their parents understand the intricacies of the educational system. Another reason is that we, as parents, do not allow our children to take any tests that are used for the purpose of evaluating their teachers. This includes all state exams given in grades 3 through 8. This also includes locally designed exams given in K through grade 11 at the beginning and end of each school year, commonly referred to as SLOs. In addition, I do not allow my 9th grader to take any field test exams, which are practice tests used to help the State Education Department determine future questions for the high school Regents examinations. My children will only take exams in school that impact their report card grades and academic transcripts. My job as a father and husband is to protect my family. Protecting our children from excessive, abusive testing should be of paramount concern to every single person in this room and in our community. But why? www.facebook.com/notes/10153024894618389/
Detroit Schools Offer Monster Jam Tix to get Kids to Come to Count Day (other days?) Through a partnership with Feld Motor Sports, all DPS students who attend school Wednesday will receive two free tickets to attend Monster Jam at Ford Field on Feb. 28. www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2015/02/10/dps-count-day-monster-jam-tickets/23210033/
San Diego State, Hits Violence Jackpot California state auditor Elaine Howle strongly criticized San Diego State University last June for not having a so-called confidential advocate for victims of sexual violence. “When UC Berkeley establishes its new position, all of the four universities we reviewed except San Diego State will have a confidential resource advocate in place,” noted Howle’s report. SDSU officials initially balked, saying, “the advocate duties are dispersed across campus,” then later told auditors that the university was “in the process of identifying a current employee or, as necessary, a funding source” for the position.
In the meantime, a spate of rapes and other sexually related incidents broke out on campus, drawing national headlines. Two weeks ago, the school finally announced it has managed to come up with “a full-time sexual assault victim advocate on campus.” The $200,000 annual tab is being funded by a three-year grant from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. “It will also allow for a part-time police officer dedicated to sexual assault prevention, training and investigation.” In addition, “The grant will also allow the university to expand its Sexual Violence Task Force to include representatives from community agencies and local law enforcement.” What happens when the grant runs out was not mentioned. www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2015/feb/11/radar-violence-jackpot/
That Pesky Ipad Problem–Defeating filters, watching porn The Encinitas Union School District failed to install filters on iPads it sent home with elementary school students, making it more likely children can use the devices to download inappropriate content, a group of parents told the school board Tuesday.
The parents also complained that Superintendent Tim Baird has been aware of the problem for a long time, but has failed to take any action.
In an interview Tuesday afternoon, Baird said he is addressing the concerns — the district is already testing an app called “Meraki”that may ultimately be used to block inappropriate content on the iPads.
“It’s a relatively new tool, but we expect to push out different filters to the devices,” Baird said…. The district has about 5,400 iPads in its so-called one-to-one digital learning program. The devices were purchased after voters in 2010 approved Proposition P, a $44.2 million bond measure the district said would be used to acquire, construct, upgrade and equip school facilities. In 2012, Encinitas Union launched its iPad program, equipping each third- through sixth-grade student with a device. Since then, this district has put iPads into the hands of all of its 5,400 students, at a cost of $2.7 million.www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/feb/11/encinitas-parents-worried-by-content-downloads-on/
Taylorism in Capital’s Schools Doesn’t work for kids—or does it? A new University of Virginia study found that kindergarten changed in disturbing ways from 1999-2006. There was a marked decline in exposure to social studies, science, music, art and physical education and an increased emphasis on reading instruction. Teachers reported spending as much time on reading as all other subjects combined.
The time spent in child-selected activity dropped by more than one-third. Direct instruction and testing increased. Moreover, more teachers reported holding all children to the same standard.
How can teachers hold all children to the same standards when they are not all the same? They learn differently, mature at different stages – they just are not all the same especially at the age of 4-6.
Is this drastic shift in kindergarten the result of a transformation in the way children learn? No! A 2011 nationwide study by the Gesell Institute for Child Development found that the ages at which children reach developmental milestones have not changed in 100 years. truthabouteducation.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/the-disturbing-transformation-of-kindergarten/
“Top Teacher” Quits Stacie Starr, a veteran Elyria, Ohio, teacher who was chosen as the winner of the “Live with Kelly and Michael” 2014 Top Teacher Search, announced her retirement on Monday, citing the increasing pressures on students and teachers under the mandated Common Core standards.
The Chronicle-Telegram reported:
Gasps of disbelief followed the announcement made during an education forum aimed at unraveling for parents the intricacies of the standardized testing system. Starr was at the podium, delivering a talk on how special education students are suffering under the new system based on Common Core standards and more rigorous assessments. She said as a veteran intervention specialist at Elyria High School, she could no longer watch silently from within the confines of a structured school day.
Instead, she is leaving education in the traditional sense.
“I am going to teach in a different way,” she proclaimed.
Starr wants to start an after-school mentoring program for at-risk students in hopes of saving them from the school-to-prison pipeline. pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/02/10/gasps-of-disbelief-as-live-with-kelly-and-michael-top-teacher-winner-resigns-over-common-core-testing/#ixzz3RTkx2i7o
Read more: pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/02/10/gasps-of-disbelief-as-live-with-kelly-and-michael-top-teacher-winner-resigns-over-common-core-testing/#ixzz3RUnFtqEY
High Stakes Arne Says We can Teach (in segregated schools) Our way out of Capital’s Racism Ferguson, I also saw a willingness to reflect and a commitment to long-term action. While there is a great deal of hurt and anger, there’s also great interest among the young people, community leaders and educators to work together to turn around a very tough situation—to ensure trust and to build strong relationships among law enforcement and other officials and the communities they serve. The students I met with at Clyde C. Miller Career Academy High School, for example, are reviewing their old classroom notes on the civil rights movement of the 1960s in hopes of organizing their own movement toward social justice in 2015. They’re seeing and sensing that they are a part of rewriting the history of their own community.
Like civil rights leaders who came before them, these students and educators see education as a means of addressing inequities and injustices. They noted that they are tired of the disparities in their local school systems—whether it’s a lack of access to quality early-childhood education, to Advanced Placement classes, to adequately funded schools, to strong instruction or to after-school programs. Education is—and must continue to be—the great equalizer that overcomes differences in background, culture and privilege. Educational opportunity represents a chance at a better life, and no child should be denied that chance. Where our children lack that opportunity, it’s not just heartbreaking; it is educational malpractice. It is morally bankrupt, and it is destructive to our nation’s future. I don’t believe that we’re going to solve the challenges in Ferguson and other communities from Washington, D.C., alone, but we can be part of the solution if we listen closely to the people living in these communities. Making things better for kids, their families and their schools will take all of us working together. We can—and we must—get to a better place. www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/02/education_secretary_arne_duncan_visits_ferguson.html
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nPJgeg6hpA
above, Sir No Sir, a great corrective to the advancing Vietnam Anniversary lies
Against the Lies Coming about our victory in Vietnam “Strikes at population targets (per se) are likely not only to create a counterproductive wave of revulsion abroad and at home but greatly to increase the risk of enlarging the war with China and the Soviet Union. Destruction of locks and dams, however, if handled right, –might–offer promise. It should be studied. Such destruction does not kill or drown people. By shallow flooding the rice, it leads after time to widespread starvation (more than a million?) unless food is provided–which we could offer to do at the conference table.” (Pentagon Papers v4 p43)
“We sure are pleased with those backroom boys at Dow. The original product wasn’t so hot–if the gooks were quick they could scrape it off. So the boys started adding polystyrene. Now it sticks like shit to a blanket. But if the gooks jumped under water it stopped burning so they started adding Willie Peter (white phosphorus) to make it burn better. It will even burn under water now. And just one drop is enough. It’ll keep burning right down to the bone so they die anyway from phosphorous poisoning. (“Vietnam Inc by Phillip Jones Griffin)
Classroom Summary: The Vietnam Wars and Beyond www.richgibson.com/vietnam/
Christian Appy on Teaching the Vietnam Wars In the post-Vietnam decades, our culture has buried so much of the history once considered essential to any debate about that most controversial of all American wars that little of substance remains. Still, oddly enough, most of the 180 students who take my Vietnam War class each year arrive deeply curious. They seem to sense that the subject is like a dark family secret that might finally be exposed. All that most of them know is that the Sixties, the war years, were a “time of turmoil.” As for Vietnam, they have few cultural markers or landmarks, which shouldn’t be surprising. Even Hollywood—that powerful shaper of historical memory—stopped making Vietnam movies long ago. Some of my students have stumbled across old films likeApocalypse Now and Platoon, but it’s rare for even one of them to have seen either of the most searing documentaries made during that war, In the Year of the Pig and Hearts and Minds. Such relics of profound antiwar fervor simply disappeared from popular memory along with the antiwar movement itself.
– See more at: portside.org/2015-02-12/why-don%E2%80%99t-americans-know-what-really-happened-vietnam#sthash.HroNfkUN.dpuf
Searchable Data Base: The 935 Orchestrated Lies About the Iraq Wars 2001 to 03 www.publicintegrity.org/politics/white-house/iraq-war-cardWhat did Brian Williams Lie About? Everything. He was Always embedded. Brian Williams, the talking hair-do at NBC Nightly News, is stepping down for a few days after reluctantly admitting he lied about being in a helicopter that was shot down while reporting in Iraq. Williams apologized, stating he was mistaken about the events that took place 12 years ago and that his chopper wasn’t hit and didn’t make an emergency landing in the Iraq desert. His real intentions, Williams exclaimed, were only to recognize the heroics of our “brave military men and women”.
Even so, Williams is still mangling the facts. He contends his helicopter was right behind the one that was actually damaged and that both crafts landed together after being shot at. In reality, the helicopter Williams was on landed up to an hour after the first one made a crash landing.
Like many CounterPunch readers, I’ve never taken Williams as a serious journalist. The fabricated story of the chopper he was in being “forced down after being hit by an RPG” took place while he was embedded with U.S. forces in the early days of the Iraq invasion. It was these embedded reporters, with few exceptions, that presented a very distorted view of events that were taking place on the ground. As Patrick Cockburn, one of the great unembedded journalists, writes, “[embedding] leads reporters to see the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts primarily in military terms, while the most important developments are political or, if they are military, may have little to do with foreign forces.”
In short, embedded journalists often serve as conduits for government propaganda. www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/09/brian-williams-shot-down/
IS Closes in on Anbar n Iraqi tribal leader said Saturday that ISIS militants are gaining ground in Anbar province, predicting a “collapse within hours” of Iraqi army forces there if tribal forces withdraw.
Sheikh Naim al-Gaoud, a Sunni Muslim leader of the Albu Nimr tribe, called for more U.S. intervention — including ground troops, arming tribes directly or at least pressuring the Iraqi government to give the tribes more firepower.
While U.S. officials have said that ISIS, which calls itself the Islamic State, is on the defensive in Iraq and Syria, al-Gaoud says that’s definitely not the case where he is.
“In Anbar, we are losing ground, not gaining,” he said.
Thousands of families had been under siege in the town of Jubbat al-Shamiya until getting help Friday from U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and Iraqi forces, according to al-Gaoud.
But he said Iraqi troops had pulled out of Jubbat al-Shamiya on Saturday, at which time ISIS was shelling the town.
If the Islamist extremist group’s fighters go in, al-Gaoud predicted a massacre. www.cnn.com/2015/02/14/middleeast/isis-iraq-syria/index.html
Key base attacked
Anbar province is just west of Baghdad, meaning a decisive ISIS victory would put militants on the footsteps of the Iraqi capital. It’s home to the strategic Ayn al-Assad Air Base, which came under attack Friday.
They’re Everywhere! ISIS is Coming! ISIS is Coming! From the same people who brought us the Shah, Saddam, Mubarek, Karzai, Diem, Pinochet and many more The Islamic State is expanding beyond its base in Syria and Iraq to establish militant affiliates in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt and Libya, American intelligence officials assert, raising the prospect of a new global war on terror.
Intelligence officials estimate that the group’s fighters number 20,000 to 31,500 in Syria and Iraq. There are less formal pledges of support from “probably at least a couple hundred extremists” in countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Yemen, according to an American counterterrorism official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information about the group. www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/world/middleeast/islamic-state-sprouting-limbs-beyond-mideast.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
The Governing Coup in the Fake Ukraine The new cabinet includes Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, the chief executive of a private-equity fund and a former U.S. diplomat, as well as two other nonnatives: Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius, a former investment banker from Lithuania; and Health Minister Alexander Kvitashvili, who held a similar post in Georgia. …
The government’s immediate task is to stabilize Ukraine’s shaky finances. The currency, the hryvnia, has lost nearly half of its value against the dollar this year and the central bank’s foreign-currency reserves are at their lowest in almost a decade, at $12.6 billion. Ms. Jaresko, a Harvard graduate who grew up near Chicago, said the cabinet would prepare a budget by Dec. 20.
Ukraine is dependent on the International Monetary Fund for financing, and officials and analysts say it will need more than the current $17-billion program from the lender.
European Union finance ministers will discuss Ukraine’s financing needs at a meeting Dec. 9, in particular what additional loans the bloc could give on top of €1.6 billion ($2 billion) already approved, diplomats said Tuesday. No decisions are expected, they said, but talks will focus on possible conditions.
Ukraine has requested an additional €2 billion for 2015—an amount that EU officials have privately said is probably too high.
Deputies in the Ukrainian parliament in Kiev applaud the newly appointed ministers on Tuesday. Reuterswww.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-goes-abroad-for-government-ministers-1417552835Ths US’ Gangster Military Censures Three Admirals in Massive Corruption Scam The Navy announced Tuesday that it has censured three admirals for ethics violations as part of a historic corruption scandal that has already tarred several other high-ranking officers and is threatening to spread further through the ranks.
Navy officials said the three admirals improperly accepted “extravagant dinners” and other gifts from Leonard Glenn Francis, a Malaysian defense contractor who made a fortune by supplying Navy vessels at Asian ports until his arrest in 2013.
The three officers — Rear Adm. Michael Miller, Rear Adm. Terry Kraft and Rear Adm. David Pimpo — were sanctioned for misconduct committed in 2006 and 2007, when they were assigned to the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier strike group.
The admirals’ actions surfaced during a long-running federal bribery investigation into Francis’s company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia. Prosecutors with the Justice Department decided not to press criminal charges against the three admirals but referred the cases to the Navy for further review.
Francis, known as “Fat Leonard” in Navy circles for his girth, pleaded guilty in federal court last month and could face up to 25 years in prison. He admitted to bribing “scores” of Navy officials with prostitutes, envelopes stuffed with cash, luxury travel and other enticements in exchange for classified information that he used to cinch federal contracts.
Five current and former Navy officials have also pleaded guilty in the case; two others are facing federal criminal charges. Prosecutors say more indictments are likely, especially now that Francis has agreed to cooperate with investigators. www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/navy-censures-3-admirals-for-accepting-gifts-amid-corruption-probe/2015/02/10/4f7a1612-b17b-11e4-886b-c22184f27c35_story.html?hpid=z4
How’s the VA Doing? “That’s characteristic of your glossing over the extraordinary problems confronted by your department,” Coffman told McDonald. “This is a department mired in bureaucratic incompetence and corruption. I fundamentally believe … when this president ends his term, you will not have made a dent in changing the culture of VA.”
McDonald called that attack “highly offensive” and told Coffman he was more concerned about reliving years-old missteps than fixing problems.
“I’ve been here six months,” McDonald said. “You’ve been here longer than I have. If there’s a problem in Denver, you own it more than I do.”
The response — unusual for any congressional witness, let alone a high-ranking administration official unanimously confirmed by the Senate just a few months ago — drew gasps and chuckles from the crowd of veterans advocates and VA staff in attendance. www.navytimes.com/story/military/benefits/veterans/2015/02/11/bob-mcdonald-blasts-mike-coffman-veterans-affairs/23233117/
Who Lost Yemen? The United States, Britain and France moved to close their embassies in Yemen on Wednesday, increasing the isolation of Shiite rebels who have seized power. In a show of bravado against the Americans, the rebels seized the cars of U.S. diplomats left at the airport on the way out.
At the same time, the rebels — known as the Houthis — attacked demonstrators holding protests against their power grab in various parts of the capital, Sanaa, witnesses said. The fighters beat protesters and stabbed them with knives, arrested more than a dozen.
The increasing turmoil comes almost four years to the day since the start of Yemen’s 2011 Arab Spring uprising that ousted the longtime autocratic ruler but then opened a political transition that crumbled between the country’s grinding forces of tribal politics, sectarian divisions, al-Qaida militancy and succession movements.
The crisis reached a new peak when the Houthis — widely believed to have Iranian support — overran the capital Sanaa late last year. They have since taken over larger parts of the country. In January, the rebels put U.S.-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and all his Cabinet ministers under house arrest, leading to their resignations. Subsequently, the Houthis, who are followers of the Shiite Zaydi sect in the Sunni-majority Yemen, dissolved parliament and declared they were taking over the government. www.navytimes.com/story/military/2015/02/11/us-france-and-uk-close-embassies-in-yemen-amid-turmoil/23224081/
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
Detroit’s First Week of February: 2 Dead. 26 homes. 2 buildings In the first week of February, fires claimed the lives of two brothers, injured at least three others and damaged or destroyed 26 houses and two commercial buildings.
During that time, five fire rigs malfunctioned on the way to fires or at the scene, and at least two fire hydrants were broken, causing more extensive damage.
And that was a slow week.
During the first seven days of February, there were 28 structure fires, compared to 63 during the first week of January. Traditionally, February is the slowest month for fires in Detroit.
Although the numbers weren’t as high, likely because of heavy snow, the fires were destructive. motorcitymuckraker.com/2015/02/09/first-week-of-february-fires-kill-2-brothers-burn-26-houses-rigs-malfunction/
Detroit: Stench From Lamb Bodies in Farmers Market makes reporter vomit
The stench was so foul that I vomited.
A dumpster at the Eastern Market was brimming with scores of rotting lamb carcasses Sunday afternoon, plainly visible to motorists along Gratiot Avenue in what is a clear violation of state law and a risk to public health. The Bodies of Dead Animals Act of 1982 requires carcasses to be burned, buried or passed off to a licensed processor within 24 hours of being slaughtered.
Witnesses said the dumpster has been full of lamb carcasses for several weeks – or longer – but it’s unclear how often they are being picked up. Images from Google Maps appear to show the dumpster full of animal carcasses in October 2014.
Whatever the case, the stench could induce gags from Gratiot. motorcitymuckraker.com/2015/02/08/rotting-lamb-carcasses-from-eastern-market-slaughterhouse-spew-out-gag-inducing-stench/
above, West Fresno Darling Plant
Hell’s Zip Code: West Fresno By almost any measure, the quality of life in West Fresno is far from ideal. Though it is located in the San Joaquin Valley, one of the world’s most plentiful sources of fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables, this community is plagued by environmental and health problems. As one indication, a 2012 study found that life expectancy for residents of West Fresno was nearly 10 years lower than for people living in Northeast Fresno, about a dozen miles away, and nearly 20 years lower than for people living in Huron, a small city about an hour’s drive away. As another, an estimated one in four middle school children in the area have asthma, more than double the state average.
Moreover, an exhaustive study of 8,000 census tracts in the state by the California Environmental Protection Agency, identified West Fresno as the most disadvantaged place to live in the state, based on 12 pollution and environmental factors and seven population characteristics. Half of California’s 10 most disadvantaged census tracts are located in the West Fresno ZIP code, 93706.
Mexico’s Rich and Connected buying US Homes In the fall of 2013, one of Mexico’s top housing officials posted an item on Twitter about an advertising campaign promoting mortgages for low-income Mexicans. The campaign’s message was simple: “The most important thing in life is in your house.”
It carried the tag line, “Homes with value.”
The official, Alejandro Murat Hinojosa, knows something about homes with value, especially across the border.
Over the years, he and members of his immediate family — starting with his father, José Murat Casab, a former governor of Oaxaca — have bought at least six properties in the United States, including two condominiums near a ski resort in Utah, another at the beach in South Texas and at least one in Manhattan, according to records and interviews. In New York, José Murat’s children have also lived for periods of time in one of the more modest condos at the luxurious Time Warner Center overlooking Central Park.
Ownership of the homes was often obscured through variations on family names listed on deeds or through shell companies, according to records examined by The New York Times. In fact, on the day the younger Mr. Murat tweeted about the housing program, public filings in Florida recorded the transfer of a $750,000 Boca Raton condo that had been purchased in his wife’s name to an entity called IMRO 2013 Trust.
The Murats’ real estate holdings stand in contrast to the Everyman image that José Murat, renowned for his political might and booming personality, worked to project as governor. www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/nyregion/jose-murat-casab-mexico-pri-luxury-condos-us.html
The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement
Investigators in Washington State were reviewing video taken with a cellphone that appears to show the fatal police shooting of a man who threw rocks at police officers before running across a crowded intersection, law enforcement officials said.
The man, Antonio Zambrano-Montes, 35, died during his confrontation on Tuesday with police officers in Pasco, who were responding to a call about a man throwing rocks at cars in a grocery store parking lot, the police said. The 22-second video, taken by a motorist, was uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday. The police said investigators were reviewing the video but could not confirm its authenticity.
above blurry only at the beginning
CIA Torture Whistleblower Finishes 2 Year Sentence, Would do it again Mr. Kiriakou, who first came to public attention in 2007 when he spoke publicly about waterboarding, is one of eight current or former government employees prosecuted by the Obama administration for disclosing secrets to reporters; only three such cases were prosecuted under all previous presidents….
“I have maintained from the day of my arrest that my case was never about leaking,” he said. “My case was about torture. The C.I.A. never forgave me for talking about torture.”
He said that although he regretted being separated from his family while he was in prison, he was proud to have played a role in exposing torture. “And I would do it all over again,” he said….
“I have maintained from the day of my arrest that my case was never about leaking,” he said. “My case was about torture. The C.I.A. never forgave me for talking about torture.”
He said that although he regretted being separated from his family while he was in prison, he was proud to have played a role in exposing torture. “And I would do it all over again,” he said. ….
When Mr. Kiriakou pleaded guilty, David H. Petraeus, who was then the C.I.A. director, praised the conviction. “Oaths do matter, and there are indeed consequences for those who believe they are above the laws that protect our fellow officers and enable American intelligence agencies to operate with the requisite degree of secrecy,” he said.
Since then, Mr. Petraeus, who resigned after admitting to an extramarital affair, has himself come under criminal investigation over accusations that he disclosed classified information to the woman with whom he was having an affair, Paula Broadwell. www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/us/former-cia-officer-released-after-nearly-two-years-in-prison-for-leak-case.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
A federal judge is demanding that the government explain, photo-by-photo, why it can’t release hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of pictures showing detainee abuse by U.S. forces at military prison sites in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In a courtroom in the Southern District of New York yesterday, Judge Alvin Hellerstein appeared skeptical of the government’s argument, which asserted that the threat of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda exploiting the images for propaganda should override the public’s right to see any of the photos.
He was “highly suspicious” of the government’s attempt to declare the whole lot of the photos dangerous. “It’s too easy and too meaningless,” he said.
Since 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union has been fighting for the release of photos from military investigations into prisoner abuse beyond those that were leaked from Abu Ghraib. The additional pictures reportedly show sexual assault, soldiers posing with dead bodies, and other offenses. The exact number of photos has not been disclosed in court, though former Senator Joe Lieberman has previously said that there are nearly 2,100.
Hellerstein first ordered the government to hand over a subset of the pictures in 2005. President Obama decided to release them in 2009, but Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the top American general in Iraq implored him not to. Congress then passed a law amending the Freedom of Information Act to allow the Secretary of Defense to certify that publishing the pictures could put American lives at risk, which then-secretary Robert Gates did. firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/05/line-sand-fight-release-thousands-photos-prisoner-abuse/
Freed From Nazis, into hands of Patton I ran across Harrison’s report a few years ago while researching a book on the flight of Nazis to the United States after the war. As I examined the path the Nazis took out of Europe, I struggled to understand how so many of them had made it to America so easily while so many Holocaust survivors were left behind.
One answer came in a copy of Gen. George S. Patton’s handwritten journal. In one entry from 1945, Patton, who oversaw the D.P. operations for the United States, seethed after reading Harrison’s findings, which he saw — quite accurately — as an attack on his own command.
“Harrison and his ilk believe that the Displaced Person is a human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly to the Jews who are lower than animals,” Patton wrote. He complained of how the Jews in one camp, with “no sense of human relationships,” would defecate on the floors and live in filth like lazy “locusts,” and he told of taking his commander, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, to tour a makeshift synagogue set up to commemorate the holy day of Yom Kippur.
“We entered the synagogue, which was packed with the greatest stinking mass of humanity I have ever seen,” Patton wrote. “Of course, I have seen them since the beginning and marveled that beings alleged to be made in the form of God can look the way they do or act the way they act.” www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/sunday-review/surviving-the-nazis-only-to-be-jailed-by-america.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0
Solidarity for Never
above, NEA boss Eskelsen with vacillating reactionary religious patriot Ravitch
NEA Bosses Love Obamagogue’ s Education Budget (wars?what wars? tests? what tests?) President Barack Obama’s budget request for federal fiscal year (FY) 2016 (school year 2016-17) proposes to replace the stringent spending caps currently in place as a result of sequestration. Doing so would free up additional dollars for the President’s domestic priorities, especially education. ED’s discretionary funding would increase by $3.6 billion (+5.4 percent) compared to the current fiscal year funding. Funding for elementary and secondary education, including special education and career and technical education, would increase by $3.3 billion (+8.8 percent) compared to 2015.
“Since taking office, President Obama has consistently called for investing in education,” said NEA President Lily Eskelsen García in a statement applauding Obama’s budget’s priorities as smart and pragmatic. “He knows what educators know: An investment in education is a direct investment in our students and our nation’s future. That’s why educators have for years called for funding increases to support programs that improve opportunities for all students. We are pleased the Obama administration is leaning in and investing much-needed resources to help high-needs students in his latest budget.” http://view.email.nea.org/?j=fe8a1779766705747c&m=fe8e1570706d037873&ls=fdeb15747d600d7e72137874&l=ff2b13787561&s=fe1d16797c620478731c75&jb=ff981576&ju=fe5c117975650c7e751d&r=0
Wisconsin Education Association Finances (Mike Antonucci, EIA)
The Wisconsin Education Association Council’s membership numbers after Act 10 speak for themselves, however, the union was able to stay in front of the financial consequences with immediate and deep layoffs.
Total membership – 65,743, down 16,084
Total revenue – $18.8 million (90% came from member dues), down $2.8 million
Budget surplus – $2.5 million
Net assets – $11.5 million
Total staff – 186
Staff salaries and benefits – $10.4 million
Highest paid employee – Dan Burkhalter, executive director, $179,249 base salary
Highest paid contractor – Godfrey & Kahn, $189,625
Spy versus Spy
CIA Bugging out of Yemen The closure of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen has forced the CIA to significantly scale back its counterterrorism presence in the country, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said the evacuation represents a major setback in operations against al-Qaeda’s most dangerous affiliate.
The spy agency has pulled dozens of operatives, analysts and other staff members from Yemen as part of a broader extraction of roughly 200 Americans who had been based at the embassy in Sanaa, officials said. Among those removed were senior officers who had worked closely with Yemen’s intelligence and security services to target al-Qaeda operatives and disrupt terrorism plots that have often been aimed at the United States.
The departures were triggered by mounting concerns over security in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, where Houthi rebels have effectively toppled the government. www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-scales-back-presence-in-yemen-base-for-potent-al-qaeda-affiliate/2015/02/11/9ad11c52-b219-11e4-827f-93f454140e2b_story.html?hpid=z3
The Magical Mystery Tour
Wee Will Kill on Orders of Our Fantasy Controller A gunman fired shots on Saturday into a Copenhagen cafe that was hosting a public event on freedom of speech, featuring a Swedish artist who had received death threats for a 2007 cartoon he drew caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad.
One man, age 40, was killed and three police officers were wounded, the Danish police said, adding that the gunman had been unable to enter the Krudttoenden cafe.
Hours later, the police reported that one person was shot in the head and two police officers were wounded in an attack on a synagogue in central Copenhagen, acccording to Reuters and other reports. But they said that it was too early to tell whether the second shootings were connected to the earlier attack at the arts cafe. www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/world/europe/copenhagen-cafe-event-is-shattered-by-gunfire.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Equal Opportunity Molestation: The Imam When the imam, Mohammad Abdullah Saleem, came into the office where she worked, she said, he would sometimes touch her cheek or put an arm around her shoulder. Mr. Saleem was revered in her close-knit community, and she did not object at first. But simply being alone together represented a forbidden intimacy, and looking back, she said those first gestures should have been more alarming.
“It’s not something that gets done,” the 23-year-old woman said recently. “Men and women don’t even shake hands.”
Over time, she said the touching became more aggressive, reaching a point that she did something almost unheard-of in her community. She told people: her family, a social worker, an Islamic scholar. Recently, she went to the police. As word spread of what she had told them, three other women came forward, telling detectives that as young girls they had been molested by Mr. Saleem. www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/us/sexual-assault-suit-against-illinois-imam-highlights-a-communitys-divisions.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Who else burns people alive?
Fanatic who has a bank, a state, and a funny hat, wants more people to send money Less than a month after sparking controversy for saying Catholics don’t have to multiply “like rabbits,” Pope Francis has once again praised big families, telling a gathering in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday that having more children is not “an irresponsible choice.”
He also said that opting not to have children at all is “a selfish choice.”
A society that “views children above all as a worry, a burden, a risk, is a depressed society,” Francis said.
Citing European countries where the fertility rate is especially low, the pope said, “They are depressed societies because they don’t want children. They don’t have children. The birth rate doesn’t even reach 1%.”
He once again praised the 1968 encyclical of Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, that reiterated the ban against artificial contraception while enjoining Catholics to practice “responsible parenthood” by spacing out births as necessary. www.freep.com/story/news/nation/2015/02/11/pope-francis-catholics-children/23230329/
The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World
Counterfeit Child Little Leaguers? Little League Baseball has stripped the U.S. championship from Chicago-based Jackie Robinson West and suspended its coach for violating a rule prohibiting the use of players who live outside the geographic area that the team represents, it was announced Wednesday.
Jackie Robinson West must vacate wins from the 2014 Little League Baseball International Tournament — including its Great Lakes Regional and United States championships.
The team’s manager, Darold Butler, has been suspended from Little League activity, and Illinois District 4 administrator Michael Kelly has been removed from his position.
The organization found that Jackie Robinson West used a falsified boundary map and that team officials met with neighboring Little League districts in Illinois to claim players and build what amounts to a superteam. espn.go.com/chicago/story/_/id/12308988/little-league-strips-chicago-team-us-championship-suspends-coach
So Long
Anne Moody, whose memoir “Coming of Age in Mississippi” gave a wrenching account of growing up poor in the segregated South and facing violence as a civil rights activist, died Thursday at her home in the small town Gloster, Mississippi. She was 74.
Moody had dementia the past several years and stopped eating two days before she died in her sleep, her sister, Adline Moody, told The Associated Press on Saturday.
On May 28, 1963, Anne Moody was among the students from historically black Tougaloo College who staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in downtown Jackson, Mississippi. A white mob attacked the integrated group of peaceful students, dousing them with ketchup, mustard and sugar and beating one of the men.
A photograph from the sit-in shows Moody sitting stoically at the five-and-dime counter with food on her head. Moody’s eyes are downcast as a man pours more food on one of her fellow students, Joan Trumpauer.
Moody wrote in her 1968 memoir that “all hell broke loose” after she and two other black students, Memphis Norman and Pearlena Lewis, prayed at the lunch counter.
“A man rushed forward, threw Memphis from his seat, and slapped my face,” Moody wrote. “Then another man who worked in the store threw me against an adjoining counter.”
The Jackson sit-in occurred more than three years after a more famous one in Greensboro, North Carolina. The one in Jackson happened just after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision that legalized sit-ins. But, Jackson police provided little protection to the protesters as about 300 whites screamed at and jostled them. www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2015/02/anne_moody_mississippi_civil_r.html
She was born Anita Margaret Esgandarian in Detroit on April 26, 1927, to Anna and Garo Esgandarian, Armenian immigrants. She shortened her name when she went into show business. She graduated from Cooley High School in Detroit and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and later studied at the Juilliard School. www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/arts/music/anita-darian-a-singer-with-an-eclectic-range-dies-at-87.html