Rouge Forum Dispatch: In 2015 We Remember Joe Hill and the best of the IWW
January 10th, 2015 / Author: rgibsonWe Say Fight Back!
Joe Hill: 1879 to 1915
Tariq Ali on “The Maximum Horror” It was a horrific event. It was condemned in most parts of the world and most poignantly by many cartoonists. Those who planned the atrocity chose their target carefully. They knew that such an act would create the maximum horror. It was quality, not quantity they were after. The response will not have surprised or displeased them. They don’t care a damn for the world of unbelievers. Unlike the medieval inquisitors of the Sorbonne they do not have the legal and theological authority to harass booksellers or printers, ban books and torture authors, so they go one step further and order executions.
What of the foot-soldiers? The circumstances that attract young men and women to these groups are creations of the Western world that they inhabit – which is itself a result of long years of colonial rule in the countries of their forebears. We know that the Parisian brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi were long-haired inhalers of marijuana and other substances until (like the 7 July bombers in this country) they saw footage of the Iraq war and, in particular, of the torture taking place in Abu Ghraib and the cold-blooded killings of Iraqi citizens in Fallujah. www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/09/maximum-horror/
Rushdie: “Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms,”
170 Years Ago, Marx wrote, too gently: “For Germany, the criticism of religion has been essentially completed, and the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism.
The profane existence of error is compromised as soon as its heavenly oratio pro aris et focis [“speech for the altars and hearths,” i.e., for God and country] has been refuted. Man, who has found only the reflection of himself in the fantastic reality of heaven, where he sought a superman, will no longer feel disposed to find the mere appearance of himself, the non-man[Unmensch], where he seeks and must seek his true reality.
The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. Butman is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm
Engels went Further “persecutions are the best means of promoting disliked convictions” and that “the only service, which may still be rendered to God today, is that of declaring atheism an article of faith to be enforced.” Frederick Engels, “The Program of the Blanquist Fugitives from the Paris Commune”, www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/06/26.htm.
170 Years is too long to wait to confront barbarism in all forms.
Heads of the Western Empires declare their defense of Free Speech: The Jailers of Bradley Manning, those who forced Edward Snowden into Exile, the murderers of Reuters’ and other journalists, the persecutors of James Risen, the French who once banned Hebdo, the Catholic fanatics in Opus Dei who helped organize the Mujahedeen to fight the Communists (who weren’t Communists). No, this is about class and empire’s wars, exploitation, racism, un-reasonable savagery, and the rise of fascism from every conceivable, and inconceivable, angle.
We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our bodies.
— Bernard Shaw: Ellie, in Heartbreak House, act 2
Congratulations on the Publication of
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What if Nobody Voted? Our cautious guess is that turnout in this year’s Congressional races will finally weigh in at around 36 percent of the potential electorate that had legal rights to cast a ballot. That’s a shocking statistic. Across the whole sweep of American history, the momentous dimensions of what has just happened stand out in bold relief. The drop off in voting turnout from the presidential election of 2012 to 2014 is the second largest of all time — 24 percentage points. And the turnout decline this year is broad and to levels that boggle the mind — rates of voting that recall the earliest days of the 19th century, before the Jacksonian Revolution swept away property suffrage and other devices that held down turnout. Turnout in Ohio, for example, fell to 34 percent — a level the state last touched in 1814, when political parties on a modern model did not exist and it had just recently entered the Union. ” www.accuracy.org/
above, Detroit graffiti, treated by police as “terrorism”
Three (Count ’em–3) Teachers Refuse to Proctor High Stakes Exams Three teachers from P.S. 364 Earth School in New York have informed their administration and Chancellor Carmen Fariña that they will not proctor Common Core state standardized tests this year — or ever — saying in a letter (see below) that they “can no longer implement policies that seek to transform the broad promises of public education into a narrow obsession with the ranking and sorting of children.” They join a small but growing number of educators who are taking a strong stand against high-stakes testing, in Seattle last year, Chicago this year and in other places. www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/04/04/teachers-refuse-to-administer-standardized-tests/
Fighting Corruption and Murder–the Bus Tour In Mexico Inside a large, open-air bus, a corrupt politician quarrels over the loudspeakers with a fed-up citizen who tells the passengers about the millions of pesos lost in a series of corruption scandals.
As the scripted recording plays, three security guards sitting on a bench watch in awe at the passing bus before cracking up in laughter, pointing at the bright red and yellow insignia on its side: the “Corruptour.”
The broadside includes caricaturized faces of the state’s former and current governors. Both grin at passers-by, drawing stares at each of the 11 “corruption landmarks” that the bus tour aims to spotlight, including the casino where gunmen started a fire that killed 52 people.
“We have failed to place the issue of corruption at the center of political debate,” said Miguel Treviño, the head of the Corruptour project and founding member of Via Ciudadana, one of many local groups pushing to raise political and social awareness here inMexico’s richest city.
“We need to make it tangible and understandable to people, and to explain its direct implications on our everyday lives so they will want to fight it,” he said.
Obamagogue Hugs Nieto While Protests vs Murders of Red Students Continue This week’s White House meeting between President Barack Obama and Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto had much symbolism but little substance. The empty speeches, handshakes and promises of mutual support served two embattled leaders eager to use the meeting as a publicity stunt but left nothing in terms of concrete outcomes. Obama highlighted his halfhearted efforts to fix, as he put it, “our broken immigration system” and Peña Nieto desperately tried to appear statesmanlike amid the storm that has arisen from the Sept. 26 student massacre in the state of Guerrero and the accusations of conflicts of interest against him, his wife and his finance minister over homes purchased from a government contractor.
In fact, perhaps the only noteworthy part about the meeting was that it sparked dozens of protests throughout the United States against Washington’s blind support for Peña Nieto and the bloody drug war in Mexico. “USA puts the guns and consumes the drugs, Mexico puts the dead!” one protest sign read, summing up a growing sentiment on both sides of the border. america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/1/mexico-pena-nietocorruptionstudentsayotzinapa.html
The Little Red Schoolhouse
Murdering JSOC Commander Now Runs U Texas System (say, “the education agenda is a war agenda, liberals) Retired Admiral William McRaven, the former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, has only been chancellor of the University of Texas System for four days, but he already has a lot on his plate. The legislative session opens in less than one week, a search is underway for a new president for the system’s flagship university and there are years’ worth of conflicts to resolve.
64 Dartmouth Students Charged with Cheating in Ethics “Class” Dartmouth College has charged 64 students accused of cheating in a sports ethics class with violating the Ivy League school’s honor code.
College officials confirmed the number of students charged but declined to comment further until the appeals process ends later this month. Professor Randall Balmer told the Valley News ( bit.ly/1BEkTnn ) that most of the students involved have been suspended for a term.
Balmer, chairman of the religion department, said the class was originally created to help student athletes. The class involves hand-held devices known as “clickers” that allow students to answer questions. Students are accused of either giving their clickers to classmates instead of attending class themselves or helping others cheat by using the clickers to submit answers on their behalf. www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/08/dartmouth-cheating_n_6439620.html
How One Coach Conducted a Massive College Cheating Scam for Athletes He did most of his work in college basketball, but he has also helped football players, baseball players, and golfers, among others. The vast majority of his clients never made it big. But, according to records he shared with The Chronicle, his fraud reached the highest levels. A handful of the players listed in his notes were drafted to play in the NBA. At least two are the children of former professional athletes. One is a back-up catcher in Major League Baseball.
The fixer’s name is Mr. White. He spoke to The Chronicle on the condition that his first name not be used, for fear of retribution. He is a married, 42-year-old father of two. Over a nearly 20-year career, he worked for four colleges, from the mid-Atlantic region to the South. http://chronicle.com/article/Confessions-of-a-Fixer/150891/#
Find the Good Guy(s): Ex-L.A. Unified teacher wins $3.35 million after firing from JROTC job After Archie Roundtree and Gerardo Loera clashed at John H. Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley, their careers quickly diverged. Roundtree lost his job and his teaching certification. Loera rose to become chief academic officer for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest school system.
This month, however, Roundtree, 57, received a measure of vindication regarding the events that ended his career.
After a three-week trial, a Superior Court jury found that Loera had targeted Roundtree for blowing the whistle on problems with the Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program at Polytechnic. Loera was the school principal at the time. The verdict was $3.35 million in damages, including more than $1 million for Loera’s conduct.
L.A. Unified has denied that Loera or anyone else did anything improper and may appeal.
The lawsuit arises from events that occurred three years ago, when Roundtree headed the JROTC at the San Fernando Valley campus. Loera had hired Roundtree in 2009, after the retired Air Force major left an Apple Valley school that had discontinued the program. www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-lausd-lawsuit-20141227-story.html
Kaplan Gets Wrist Slapped with Fine An education company will pay about $1.3 million under a civil settlement with the U.S. Justice Department to resolve allegations it employed unqualified instructors at its Texas campuses.
Federal prosecutors announced the settlement with Kaplan Higher Education on Monday. Prosecutors said the settlement isn’t an admission of liability by Kaplan or its affiliates. www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article5471142.html
Happy Birthday NCLB–13 this week. Woo Hoo! The empire’s “test resistance” can celebrate.
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
Obamagogue Promises to Continue the US War on the World: “ “It is not possible to know at this time the precise scope or the duration of the deployments of US Armed Forces necessary to counter this terrorist threat to the United States.”
“I am providing this supplemental consolidated report, prepared by my Administration and consistent with the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148), as part of my efforts to keep the Congress informed about deployments of U.S. Armed Forces equipped for combat.”
and this: “Cuba. Combat-equipped forces, deployed since January 2002 to the Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, continue to conduct humane and secure detention operations for the 142 detainees at Guantanamo Bay under the authority provided by the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40), as informed by the law of war.” www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/11/letter-president-six-month-consolidated-war-powers-resolution-report
The American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously. The result is a chickenhawk nation in which careless spending and strategic folly combine to lure America into endless wars it can’t win. Now the American military is exotic territory to most of the American public. As a comparison: A handful of Americans live on farms, but there are many more of them than serve in all branches of the military. (Well over 4 million people live on the country’s 2.1 million farms. The U.S. military has about 1.4 million people on active duty and another 850,000 in the reserves.) The other 310 million–plus Americans “honor” their stalwart farmers, but generally don’t know them. So too with the military. Many more young Americans will study abroad this year than will enlist in the military—nearly 300,000 students overseas, versus well under 200,000 new recruits. As a country, America has been at war nonstop for the past 13 years. As a public, it has not. A total of about 2.5 million Americans, roughly three-quarters of 1 percent, served in Iraq or Afghanistan at any point in the post-9/11 years, many of them more than once….
The difference between the earlier America that knew its military and the modern America that gazes admiringly at its heroes shows up sharply in changes in popular and media culture. While World War II was under way, its best-known chroniclers were the Scripps Howard reporter Ernie Pyle, who described the daily braveries and travails of the troops (until he was killed near the war’s end by Japanese machine-gun fire on the island of Iejima), and the Stars and Stripes cartoonist Bill Mauldin, who mocked the obtuseness of generals and their distance from the foxhole realities faced by his wisecracking GI characters, Willie and Joe.
From Mister Roberts to South Pacific to Catch-22, from The Caine Mutiny to The Naked and the Dead to From Here to Eternity, American popular and high culture treated our last mass-mobilization war as an effort deserving deep respect and pride, but not above criticism and lampooning. …repeatedly this force has been defeated by less modern, worse-equipped, barely funded foes. Or it has won skirmishes and battles only to lose or get bogged down in a larger war. Although no one can agree on an exact figure, our dozen years of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and neighboring countries have cost at least $1.5 trillion; Linda J. Bilmes, of the Harvard Kennedy School, recently estimated that the total cost could be three to four times that much. Recall that while Congress was considering whether to authorize the Iraq War, the head of the White House economic council, Lawrence B. Lindsey, was forced to resign for telling The Wall Street Journal that the all-in costs might be as high as $100 billion to $200 billion, or less than the U.S. has spent on Iraq and Afghanistan in many individual years.
The most curious thing about our four defeats in Fourth Generation War—Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan—is the utter silence in the American officer corps. Defeat in Vietnam bred a generation of military reformers … Today, the landscape is barren. Not a military voice is heard calling for thoughtful, substantive change. Just more money, please. www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/12/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/
Stupid, Corrupt, Pandering General Petreaus, who wasted thousands of lives with his hairbrained military plans may be prosecuted for giving state secrets to one of his paramours The F.B.I. and Justice Department prosecutors have recommended bringing felony charges against retired Gen. David H. Petraeusfor providing classified information to his former mistress while he was director of the C.I.A., officials said, leaving Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to decide whether to seek an indictment that could send the pre-eminent military officer of his generation to prison.
The Justice Department investigation stems from an affair Mr. Petraeus had with Paula Broadwell, an Army Reserve officer who was writing his biography, and focuses on whether he gave her access to his C.I.A. email account and other highly classified information. F.B.I. agents discovered classified documents on her computer after Mr. Petraeus resigned from the C.I.A. in 2012 when the affair became public. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/us/politics/prosecutors-said-to-recommend-charges-against-former-gen-david-petraeus.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Obamagogue’s Great Trick: The Wars are OVER holiday headlines blared without a hint of distrust: “End of War” and “Mission Ends” and “U.S. formally ends the war in Afghanistan”, as the US government and Nato celebrated the alleged end of the longest war in American history. Great news! Except, that is, when you read past the first paragraph: “the fighting is as intense as it has ever been since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001,” according to the Wall Street Journal. And about 10,000 troops will remain there for the foreseeable future (more than we had a year after the Afghan war started). Oh, and they’ll continue to engage in combat regularly. But other than that, yeah, the war is definitely over.
This is the new reality of war: As long as the White House doesn’t admit the United States is at war, we’re all supposed to pretend as if that’s true. This ruse is not just the work of the president. Members of Congress, who return to work this week, are just as guilty as Barack Obama in letting the public think we’re Definitely Not at War, from Afghanistan and Somalia to the new war with Isis in Iraq and Syria and beyond. Thirteen years on, the near limitless war authorization Congress passed for the Afghanistan war remains in place, with no sign that Congress wants to even debate revoking it. This is what will allow US troops to continue fighting, despite the mission supposedly being “formally” over. Just a month before Obama made his farcical announcement last week, he signed a secret order to ensure US troops continue to engage in combat missions against various “militant groups” in Afghanistan for all of 2015. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/06/obama-america-still-at-war-congress-illegal
Fifth Naval Officer Pleads Guilty In Bribery Case (what about the bribes to Karzai, et al?) A Navy commander on Tuesday became the fifth defendant to plead guilty to a bribery scheme involving charges of trading inside information for cash, travel, entertainment expenses and the services of prostitutes. Cmdr. Jose Luis Sanchez, 42, pleaded guilty in San Diego federal court to providing information about the movement of Navy ships and submarines to a Singapore-based defense contractor. The contractor, Leonard Glenn Francis, chief executive of Glenn Defense Marine Asia, provided services to Navy ships and submarines at ports in the Asia-Pacific region. With inside information, Francis was able to outbid other firms to provide “husbanding” services such as maintenance and water. www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-officer-navy-bribery-20150106-story.html
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
[The capitalist market] is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man. There alone rule freedom [and] equality …. On leaving this sphere of … exchange of commodities … we think we can perceive a change in the cast of characters. He, who before was the money owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labor-power follows as his laborer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other hesitant, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but-a hiding. KARL MARX, Capital, 1867
Capitalist Economists Just Cannot Understand basis for Inequality (like, capitalism, dudes) The big annual gabfest for academic economists, currently underway in Boston, provides a useful signal of how the field is evolving. Consider this a dispatch from the pleated khaki-clad trenches. The clearest theme so far is a renewed interest in inequality.
To some extent, this reflects the moment we’re in, with income inequality having returned to levels last seen in the gilded age. Likewise, there’s a greater focus on the distribution of wealth, and the latest data compiled by economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman show that the top 0.1 percent hold as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.
But this renewed focus on inequality also reflects newly available sources of data that highlight these issue more clearly than ever. In particular, Raj Chetty and collaborators have linked the tax returns of parents with those of their children, which provides the sharpest insights yet into the extent to which the family you’re born into shapes longer-term outcomes. There is also an internal dynamic to all of this, reflecting the rhythm of scholarly debates. In particular, Thomas Piketty’s surprise best-seller, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” has clearly caught the economics profession flat-footed, and it is only now starting to respond. It’s not that the heart of the profession buys into Mr. Piketty’s specific theoretical framework — although there’s much greater sympathy for it among those on the left than on the right — but rather that it highlighted the fact that mainstream economics still lacks a compelling explanation for why inequality has risen so sharply.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/upshot/renewed-interest-in-inequality-at-annual-meeting-of-economists-.html
Most of America’s richest think poor people have it easy in this country, according to a new report released by the Pew Research Center. The center surveyed a nationally representative group of people this past fall, and found that the majority of the country’s most financially secure citizens (54 percent at the very top, and 57 percent just below) believe the “poor have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return.” America’s least financially secure, meanwhile, vehemently disagree — nearly 70 percent say the poor have hard lives because the benefits “don’t go far enough.” Nationally, the population is almost evenly split. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/01/08/most-of-americas-rich-think-the-poor-have-it-easy/
Honda Fined Seventy Million Dollars For Hiding its Death Trap Car Accidents the nation’s top auto safety agency has fined Honda Motor a record $70 million for grossly underreporting fatal accidents and injuries to the government, regulators said on Thursday.
The penalty doubles a fine levied against General Motors last year as the agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, faces scrutiny for being slow to identify safety problems and failing to use the full extent of its legal powers.
Honda, the agency said, broke the law in two ways, each earning the maximum fine of $35 million. It did not report hundreds of death and injury claims to the agency for the last 11 years nor did it report certain warranty and other claims in the same period. Both types of reports are considered crucial to helping regulators identify potential safety defects. www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/business/honda-fined-70-million-in-underreporting-safety-issues-to-government.html
The East Isn’t Red–China Sliding China’s inflation rate picked up slightly in December but remained sharply below the official target, signalling persistent weakness in the world’s second largest economy as a US investment bank warned that a credit crunch in China is “highly probable” this year.
Annual consumer inflation edged up to 1.5% last month from 1.4% in November, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, still less than half the 3.5% target.
Economists said there was a chance China could slip into deflation, increasing the likelihood that policymakers at the People’s Bank of China would respond by further cutting interest rates. The Bank cut rates for the first time in more than two years in November in an attempt to boost the economy.
“Deflation this year is definitely a risk,” said Minggao Shen, economist at Citi in Hong Kong. “We continue to argue that deflation provides more room for policy easing.”
Economists polled by Reuters are predicting China’s annual economic growth slowed to 7.2% in the fourth quarter, the weakest since the depths of the global financial crisis. Full-year growth is expected to be below the official 7.5% target.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicted that a credit crunch in China is highly probable this year as slowing economic growth prompts a surge in bad debts. www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/09/china-economic-crash-bank-of-america-analysts
The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement
Imperial France Declares War on “Radical Islam” and extends its international adventures and police state Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared Saturday that Francewas at war with radical Islam after the harrowing sieges that led to the deaths of three gunmen and four hostages the day before. New details emerged about the bloody final confrontations, and security forces remained on high alert.
“It is a war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam, against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom, solidarity,” Mr. Valls said during a speech in Évry, south of Paris….The French government said it would put 500 additional troops on the streets over the weekend amid preparations for a giant unity rally in Paris on Sunday.
Boko Haram’s Child Bombers A girl perhaps no more than 10 years old detonated powerful explosives concealed under her veil at a crowded northern Nigeria market on Saturday, killing as many as 20 people and wounding many more.
The blast inflicted devastating damage on shoppers at the Monday Market in Maiduguri, the shopping hub in a city that is at the heart of the Boko Haram insurgency. The explosion, witnessed by dozens of people, represented a new tactic in the Islamists’ campaign with their decision to use perhaps their youngest-ever suicide bomber.
The terrorist group has increasingly employed women as suicide bombers, even as it has stepped up its abductions of girls across northeast Nigeria, including the kidnapping of more than 200 in the town of Chibok last April. Late last year, two women hit the Monday Market in suicide attacks, killing dozens, and in one week last summer four women carried out bombings in northern Nigeria’s biggest city, Kano.
But the use of a child to kill — witnesses, police officials, a top hospital official in Maiduguri and local vigilantes all agreed that the bomber was very young — may be unprecedented in the insurgency.
“It’s a little girl,” said the hospital official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of his position. “The body is beyond recognition, but from the face you can see it’s a young person. A young pretty girl.” www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/world/africa/suicide-bomber-hits-maiduguri-nigeria-market.html
Ukraine’s CIA-installed Puppet says “I will not permit Russia to march all over Germany, as it did during World War II”.“We all very well remember the Soviet invasion of Ukraine and Germany, and we have to avoid it”, www.therussophile.org/russia-ukraine/yatsenyuk-i-will-not-allow-the-russians-to-march-across-ukraine-and-germany-as-they-did-in-wwii.html/
Police Hit and Cuffed Tamir’s Sister after they murdered him (video embedded) a video released by the city of Cleveland shows a police officer pushing the 14-year-old sister of Tamir Rice to the ground and handcuffing her with the help of another officer soon after a third officer had fatally shot her younger brother. The grainy surveillance video shows the officers struggling with the teen before putting her in the back seat of a patrol car parked next to where 12-year-old Tamir lay on the snowy ground bleeding.
Northeast Ohio Media Group is reporting that it obtained the nearly 30-minute-long video from the city on Wednesday after the city initially refused to release it. Other media outlets were given the video Thursday.
Patrol officer Timothy Loehmann shot Tamir in the abdomen within two seconds of a patrol car stopping near the boy Nov. 22. He died the next day. http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-tamir-rice-video-20150108-story.html
Palace Busy Denying Medieval Remnant Prince is a Child Rapist Buckingham Palace officials have scrambled to quell the growing crisis engulfingPrince Andrew after claims in an American court case that he had “sexual relations” with an underage girl who had been forced into sexual slavery by the multi-millionaire investor Jeffrey Epstein.
The Duke of York returned to Windsor from a new year holiday in the Swiss ski resort of Verbier to face what courtiers described as “lurid and deeply personal” claims detailing his alleged relations over a decade ago with Virginia Roberts.
US court papers filed last week alleged that Roberts, described using the alias Jane Doe #3, was forced to have “sexual relations” with Prince Andrew in London, New York and on Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/04/prince-andrew-denies-underage-sex-claims-buckingham-palace
Solidarity for Never
Capital’s Unions: The Michigan Education Association Finances (Antonucci) The Michigan Education Association was able to reduce its staff pension liability by $55 million, but it is still more than $100 million in the red. Spending reductions did not include perks for executive officers, who still receive first class or charter travel, companion travel, housing allowance, and health or social club dues, all paid by the union.
Total membership – 147,972, down 1,727
Total revenue – $78.9 million (83% came from member dues), up $5.8 million
Budget surplus – $84,000
Net assets – negative $113.4 million
Total staff – 908
Staff salaries and benefits – $52.1 million
Highest paid employee – Arthur Przybylowicz, general counsel, $228,391 base salary
Highest paid contractor – White, Schneider, Young, & Chiodini, $2,006,429 http://www.eiaonline.com/intercepts/2015/01/05/michigan-education-associations-finances/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Intercepts+%28Intercepts%29
Spy versus Spy
Risen Refuses to Rat on Spooks After losing a seven-year legal battle, James Risen, a reporter for The New York Times, reluctantly took the witness stand in federal court here on Monday, but refused to answer any questions that could help the Justice Department identify his confidential sources.
Mr. Risen said he would not say anything to help prosecutors bolster their case against Jeffrey A. Sterling, a former C.I.A. officer who is set to go on trial soon on charges of providing classified information to Mr. Risen for his 2006 book, “State of War.”
The Justice Department first subpoenaed Mr. Risen to testify in the case against Mr. Sterling in 2008, and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. authorized the subpoena again in 2011. The attempt to force Mr. Risen to disclose his sources has come to symbolize the Obama administration’s crackdown on government officials who talk to reporters about national security matters. www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/us/james-risen-in-tense-testimony-refuses-to-offer-clues-on-sources.html
Obamagogue Picks a Number 2 for his Praetorian Guard and Private Army Obama has chosen David Cohen, a top Treasury official specializing in terrorism and financial intelligence, to be deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the White House said on Friday.
Cohen, an attorney, has overseen U.S. sanctions policy from the Treasury. He was in charge of finding and thwarting financial support lines for terrorist organizations and drug traffickers while running efforts to crack down on money laundering.
He will replace deputy CIA deputy director Avril Haines, who is joining the White House as Obama’s deputy national security adviser.
“We will sorely miss Avril as she assumes her new post but I am delighted to have David join our leadership team,” CIA Director John Brennan said in a statement. “He is an outstanding public servant with whom I have worked closely over the past several years.”
Historically, CIA deputy directors have spent much of their time engaged in day-to-day agency management, but Haines represented the CIA at high-level interagency committee meetings that the Obama administration has used to craft policy and strategy decisions.
Cohen, 51, has played a significant role in the administration’s national security priorities abroad as financial sanctions have become a more important U.S. policy tool.
He laid out the U.S. economic approach to fighting Islamic State in a high-profile speech in October and regularly testified on Capitol Hill about issues including Iran and Syria. He has regularly visited key U.S. allies in the Middle East such as Oman and the United Arab Emirates and helped coordinate trans-Atlantic cooperation on sanctions against Russia.
During the ramping up of sanctions against Iran, Cohen worked with the head of the Office of Foreign Assets Control to persuade banks to reduce exposure to Iranian business.
He has not shied away from talking tough to America’s partners, in March citing reports of Qatari backing for Islamist fighters in Syria. He also has been involved in Treasury’s cooperation with other agencies in fighting transnational criminal networks, including a sting operation with Treasury and the Drug Enforcement Administration to combat Hezbollah’s ties to drug traffickers in West Africa. www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/01/09/us/politics/09reuters-usa-intelligence.html
The Comcast-NBC Merger and Paid-off Police Agent Al Sharpton To rally political support for the merger, Comcast’s political-action committee handed out campaign cash, and Cohen worked to head off the concerns over diversity. Between 2008 and 2010, Comcast’s corporate foundation donated more than $3 million to 39 minority groups that wrote letters to federal regulators in support of the NBC deal. Comcast and NBC Universal also worked out an agreement with advocacy groups guaranteeing increased “minority participation in news and public affairs programming”—so long as the deal went through. And in 2009 and 2010, Comcast gave $155,000 to an organization founded by the Reverend Al Sharpton, who ended up endorsing the merger.
The campaign paid off. In January 2011, Washington approved the deal. One week later, NBC signed Cohen’s old boss, Ed Rendell, to an on-air contract. At MSNBC, which Comcast also owns, Sharpton landed a talk show. A spokeswoman for Comcast says the company is a “long-standing supporter” of minority groups and had nothing to do with Sharpton’s hiring. She also says Cohen played “little to no role” in securing Rendell’s contract.
Shortly after the merger went through, Roberts, Comcast’s CEO, went on MSNBC’sMorning Joe and talked up how excited he was to take over NBC. Roberts had special praise for the news division.
It was, he said, the cable company’s new “crown jewel.” www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/how-david-gregory-lost-his-job/
The Magical Mystery Tour
The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK3MqwsqnPY
Selling Capital’s “National” Park–the Yosemite Concessions The next contract to run the concessions at Yosemite National Park is a lucrative and complicated package that’s shedding light on business in the park even as it raises questions about who owns some famous park names.
Gross revenues from Yosemite concessions – hotels, gift shops, restaurants and other services – are expected to range between $129 million and $146.6 million in the contract’s first year, starting in 2016, National Park Service documents show. Over the last three years, documents show, gross revenues have averaged $131.5 million.
The next concession operator will cope with renovations at the famed Ahwahnee Hotel, including a revenue-reducing six-week closure planned for 2020. It will manage thousands of specified, sometimes nit-picking, tasks, ranging from snow shoveling to drug-testing employees.
“Yosemite, by far, has the biggest concession contract in the National Park Service,” said Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman. “In other parks, retail, lodging, food and other things are split up. But, here, it is all together.” Read more here: www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/01/02/251875_yosemite-bid-documents-provide.html
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWsIPyHJ6vQ
Authorities investigating the Instagram threat that led to last Monday’s lockdown and early dismissal at Carlsbad High School say they are not yet ready to name a suspect. But they do believe they have figured out both the reason for — and the technology behind — the threat. The reason: a pretty heavy test in Mr. Bellweather’s 11th-grade history class. The technology: BombScare!, a new app that allows users to deliver threats of violence across a variety of social media platforms. “We think BombScare! is the future of school-based terrorism,” says the app’s inventor, Wayne Dogood of Boom! Technologies, Inc. “Before now, students and other people eager to interrupt the school day with the prospect of horrific bloodshed had to worry about making sure their threat was seen and/or heard on social media. What if the school wasn’t monitoring its Twitter account? What if an Instagram post got buried in a deluge of kitten pics? But with BombScare!, a single threat can be posted on every major platform, or, if you prefer, on just one. It’s completely customizable in terms of reach, threat level, even the specifics of the violence that is threatened. Sometimes, a Vine of you slapping a magazine into an assault rifle sends just the right message. Other times, you’re better served with an Instagram shot of a pile of gopher skulls. Or maybe just an ominous Tweet. We get that.” www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2015/jan/09/sdqt-teen-social-media-app/
So Long
Leslie Pierre of Grenada and the Grenada Voice
http://nowgrenada.com/2014/12/journalist-leslie-pierre-passes-away/
http://www.thegrenadarevolutiononline.com/voice.html