We Say Fight Back!

Behold Sergei Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov’s acclaimed dramatization of the Russian Revolution that unfolded in October of 1917. Commissioned by the Soviet government to commemorate the tenth anniversary of that Revolution, the film was originally released in 1928 as Oktober in the Soviet Union, and later internationally as Ten Days That Shook The World, borrowing from John Reed’s well-known book on the Revolution. Courtesy of Archive.org, you can watch the film below, and find it in our collection, 1,150 Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns, etc..  VIDEO Link

Sergei Eisenstein’s Ten Days That Shook the World (1928)

Kaiser to face largest strike anywhere in 20 years

The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions warned in an August 12 press release they are planning the “nation’s largest walkout since 1997.” Coalition spokesman Sean Wherley says over 80,000 Kaiser Permanente employees in six states and D.C. may go on strike at their hospitals and clinics in early October.

Union claims company made $5.2 billion in profits in the first six months of 2019

This includes 4,916 caregivers and service and maintenance workers in San Diego County who belong to the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 30. They will be voting September 16-20 whether to authorize an “unfair labor practice” strike. Wherley says the Service Employee International Union – United Healthcare Workers West, which represents 57,000 Kaiser employees from the rest of California, already voted in early August and 98 percent of voters authorized a strike.

Wherley says the national contract with Kaiser expired September 30, 2018 and Kaiser was supposed to start negotiating in April 2018 but refused until earlier this year. He says the local contracts will expire September 30, 2019.

According to Local 30 charts issued to members, Kaiser is proposing three percent pay raises each year for four years to California workers and a 15 percent pay cut for new hires. Workers outside California are offered one-two percent raises. The coalition is counter-proposing a five-year agreement with yearly raises of four, three, three, four, and four percent for workers in all regions, and no pay cuts for new hires.    www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2019/aug/26/ticker-kaiser-face-largest-strike-20-years/?fbclid=IwAR3SybrNBaqpqBPeMcvUO5LpmUKGYbyigy6HAJmCFnv3R96iB6sXgosvrfM

Chicago Teachers Union rejects contract offer, moves closer to possible strike (No More CTU Sellouts!)

Chicago Public School teachers are one step closer to a possible strike after the Chicago Teachers Union rejected the city’s latest contract offer. Video Linked

news.yahoo.com/chicago-teachers-union-rejects-contract-215123440.html

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Lincoln High teacher sued for sex talk

Used connections with Nick Cannon “to get the girls all over him”

On October 15, 2018, Lincoln High School psychologist Freddy Moreno summoned Sara to his office. A teacher wanted him to find out what was traumatizing her “shy, sweet, and respectful” student. After a lengthy conversation Moreno made a breakthrough when Sara said, “I know I’m worth more than to sell myself.” But she wasn’t ready to say more.

She had become withdrawn at school. Her schoolmate Monet says Sara “dressed really nice” when school started, but a few weeks later “she started dressing in sweats like she didn’t want anyone to see her.”

In class Sara pulled the hood of her sweatshirt down over her face — burying herself at her desk as she cried. Sara was too afraid and embarrassed to tell anyone what was eating away at her. That evening her boyfriend insisted she speak up after watching her cry for days. What he heard made him scream.

Sara returned to Moreno’s office the next morning and reported that her multimedia teacher, Jason Anthony Crawford, tried to recruit her into prostitution. She says nearly every day since school started he tried convincing her to go with his rich friends to make “easy money.”

A San Diego Police Department detective was sent to investigate. He focused on less severe allegations that came up and recommended a misdemeanor sexual annoyance of a minor charge, leaving out the pandering and other felony-level crimes Sara described.   www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2019/aug/28/cover-shark-bait/?fb_comment_id=fbc_3032919723446414_3033262926745427_3033262926745427

DeVos Toughens Rules for Student Borrowers Bilked by Colleges

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

The Fourth Afghan War is About to Escalate

by Robert Fisk

While Afghans are supposed to be celebrating this week’s blood-soaked hundredth anniversary of their “independence” from Britain, signed off in the sweltering Raj military city of Rawalpindi in 1919, their most powerful militia is negotiating further “independence” from the Americans in an air-conditioned conference hall in Doha.

A hundred years ago, “Pindi” was the British army’s capital in northwestern India. Today, it’s a dingy appendix to the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. A century ago, Qatar was run by the Al-Thani family under British “protection” after 40 years of sleepy Ottoman rule and the present-day capital of Doha was a tired pearl-fishers’ town. Today the Al-Thani family is still in charge of what is now a gleaming oil and gas metropolis; and Qatar, with investments in Sainsbury’s, Heathrow airport and West End hotels (the list goes on to the crack of doom) probably owns more of London than the Queen. So much for the British Empire.

In 1919, the Brits were at a disadvantage: they wanted to cling on to the management of Afghanistan’s “external affairs” – which meant they wanted to keep the new Bolshevik power from marching southeast across the Afghan plains to arrive at the borders of the Raj.

An Afghan army had invaded India – not exactly a 9/11, but the Brits had to re-establish control of the frontier. They had a problem: their own soldiers, many of them veterans of the trenches in Europe, were demanding to be demobilised and sent home after years of war.  ...ever since Isis migrated from Iraq and Syria to Afghanistan (it was they, of course, who suicide bombed the Shia wedding in Kabul last weekend), the so-called Islamic State has become Washington’s target-of-choice in Afghanistan. And the Taliban, believe it or not, are America’s new best friend.  www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/26/the-fourth-afghan-war-is-about-to-escalate/

The Great Cost and Myth of U.S. Defense Spending

U.S. defense spending is out of control, severely undermining our ability to tackle climate change, infrastructure needs, health care, and other national challenges.  The mainstream media, particularly the New York Times and Washington Post, contribute to the problem of defense spending by understating the cost of defense.

Journalists and pundits regularly refer to U.S. defense spending as greater than the next seven or eight countries.  Nonsense!  U.S. defense spending when correctly tabulated exceeds the defense spending of the rest of the global community.  Current defense spending is greater than $1 trillion and the bipartisan support for U.S defense spending assures continued increases.  Many of the largest spenders on defense, moreover, are our treaty allies.

Most estimates of U.S. defense spending cite only the budget figures for the Pentagon, which points toward $750 billion.  However, much of the spending of many agencies, particularly in the intelligence community (more than $70 billion), is devoted to support of the military.  The same can be said for the Department of Homeland Security (also around $70 billion) as well as the Department of Energy ($30 billion), which devotes huge sums to nuclear forces.  The Veterans Administration (nearly $200 billion), moreover, must be considered part and parcel of U.S. defense spending.  At the same time, the Trump administration is cutting the spending of U.S. cabinet agencies to support defense spending, excluding not only the Department of Defense, but the Department of Homeland Security and the Veterans Administration.

When these departments and agencies are taken into account, U.S. defense spending greatly exceeds $1 trillion…www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/30/the-great-cost-and-myth-of-u-s-defense-spending/?fbclid=IwAR33SMoMoUme6eof0Wyqzg4Cmahx2YbvCbC7zHcAaDBZaoujguUMl4H2V9s

The Key Role Pakistan Is Playing In U.S.-Taliban Talks

A bomb parked under the preacher’s pulpit in a mosque likely had a high-profile target: a brother of the Taliban leader. It was seen by the Taliban as a warning to stop their talks with the United States.

The bombing, on Aug. 16, was in Pakistan — on the outskirts of the garrison town of Quetta, near the Afghan border. And its location spotlighted something else: the powerful and uneasy place of Pakistan in these negotiations. Quetta is widely understood to be the base of Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership.

Critics have long contended that Pakistan has held some sway over the Taliban by offering them shelter, if not outright support.

Now the country is facilitating negotiations between Washington and the Taliban that will likely see a withdrawal of most foreign troops, in return for the insurgents’ promise they won’t let Afghanistan be a launchpad for future global terrorist attacks.

Taliban officials have said they are close to finalizing an agreement. That is echoed by U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad, who tweeted before a ninth round of talks ended last weekend that his team would “try and close on remaining issues.” After this agreement, the Afghan government and Taliban will have their own talks — something the Taliban have yet to agree to, because they see the government as illegitimate.   www.npr.org/2019/08/30/754409450/the-key-role-pakistan-is-playing-in-u-s-taliban-talks

Former Farc commanders say they are returning to war despite 2016 peace deal (pick up the gun–don’t put it down…)

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

The Rich Can’t Get Richer Forever, Can They?

Inequality comes in waves. The question is when this one will break.

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville, at the age of twenty-five, was sent by France’s Ministry of Justice to study the American penal system. He spent ten months in the United States, dutifully visiting prisons and meeting hundreds of people, including President Andrew Jackson and his predecessor, John Quincy Adams. On his return to France, he wrote a book about his observations, “Democracy in America,” the first volume of which was published in 1835. Many of the observations have weathered well (he noted, for instance, how American individualism coexisted with conformism). Others have not. For example, Tocqueville, who was the youngest son of a count, was deeply impressed by how equal the economic conditions in the United States were.

It was, at the time, an accurate assessment. The United States was the world’s most egalitarian society. Wages in the young nation were higher than in Europe, and land in the West was abundant and cheap. There were rich people, but they weren’t super-rich, like European aristocrats. According to “Unequal Gains: American Growth and Inequality Since 1700,” by the economic historians Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson, the share of national income going to the richest one per cent of the population was more than twenty per cent in Britain but below ten per cent in America. The prevailing ideology of the country favored equality (though, to be sure, only for whites); Americans were proud that there was a relatively small gap between rich and poor. “Can any condition of society be more desirable than this?” Thomas Jefferson bragged to a friend.

Today, the top one per cent in this country gets about twenty per cent of the income, similar to the distribution found across the Atlantic in Tocqueville’s day. How did the United States go from being the most egalitarian country in the West to being one of the most unequal?   www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/02/the-rich-cant-get-richer-forever-can-they

America’s Real Economy: It Isn’t Booming

Ostensibly, for the past ten years, our economy has been recovering from the 2008 collapse. During the past few years, our comeback seems to have gained momentum. All the official indicators say we’re back in boom times, with a bull market, low unemployment and steady job growth. But there is an alternative set of data that depicts a different America, where the overlooked majority struggles from month to month.

The Nation recently published a stunning overview of the working poor and underpaid. One of the most powerful data points in the piece described how empty the decline in unemployment actually is: having a job doesn’t exempt anyone from poverty anymore. About 12% of Americans (43 million) are considered poor, and yet they are employed. They earn an individual income below $12,140 per year, and slightly more than that for a family of two. If you include housing and medical expenses in the calculation, it raises the percentage of Americans living in poverty to 14%. That’s 45 million people.

At that level of income, there’s almost no way to pay for food and shelter in any sizeable American city. That means people now can both be employed and homeless. Rajon Menon writes, for The Nation:

In America’s big cities, chiefly because of a widening gap between rent and wages, thousands of working poor remain homeless, sleeping in shelters, on the streets, or in their vehicles, sometimes along with their families.

Fewer and fewer people have savings to weather time between jobs or an emergency expense. A third of the U.S. population has no savings and another third has saved less than $1,000. Two-thirds of American households, by this measure, are desperately scrambling to make ends meet from check to check. Nearly half the American population earns too little to live on comfortably:

One-third of all workers earn less than $12 an hour and 42% earn less than $15. That’s $24,960 and $31,200 a year. Imagine raising a family on such incomes, figuring in the cost of food, rent, childcare, car payments (since a car is often a necessity simply to get to a job in a country with inadequate public transportation), and medical costs.    www.forbes.com/sites/petergeorgescu/2018/08/22/americas-real-economy-it-isnt-booming/?utm_source=FACEBOOK&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Valerie%2F&fbclid=IwAR17T3Eg2Avj2qKSYRc-l_qBB8sMimMtPu8JaMXGgv9QY8iDRSwObY0AABI#50fc775a60b7

For the first time in modern history, Britons are living shorter lives, with poor lifestyles, depression and budget cuts the leading causes.

HARTLEPOOL, England — Britons are no longer living longer than before. Just ask Callum Hills.

His father died of a heart attack last year at age 52. Mr. Hills had found him stricken on the floor in the middle of the night, and today is still haunted by his memory.

“I keep having dreams, and he’s in them,” said Mr. Hills, a thoughtful and articulate 23-year-old.

While attention is riveted on the Brexit turmoil in Westminster, with dire forecasts of possible chaos, food shortages and recession, a dispiriting trend is already visible in struggling towns and cities across the nation.

For the first time in modern history, Britain’s gains in life expectancy have stalled — at 79.2 years for men and 82.9 years for women for the years 2015 to 2017. That is better than the United States, but Britain is slipping down the ranks in Western Europe.  www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/world/europe/uk-life-expectancy.html

Why Has The U.S. CEO-To-Worker Pay Ratio Increased So Much?

MarketWatch recently published a piece about the soaring U.S. CEO-to-worker pay ratio, which hit 278-to-1 in 2018 (up from just 58-to-1 in 1989 and 20-to-1 in 1965) –

Nice work if you can get it.

CEO pay has increased 1,008% between 1978 and 2018, while typical worker pay has edged up 12%.

That’s according to analysis from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, providing new data on the depth of income inequality.

In 2018, CEOs in the country’s top 350 businesses were paid $17.2 million on average. Employees working in those industries — ranging from retail to technology and manufacturing — typically earned $64,500, researchers said.

Overall, there’s a 278-to-1 pay ratio between workers and CEOs. In 1989, the compensation ratio was 58-to-1 and in 1965, it was 20-to-1.

Stock awards and cashed-in stock options averaged $7.5 million of CEO pay in 2017 and 2018, the study added.

Incorporating stock in pay arrangements is one way to incentivize CEO, and rising salaries illustrate the market for talent in the C-suite, some observers say. (and then the author goes nuts)  www.forbes.com/sites/jessecolombo/2019/08/31/why-has-the-u-s-ceo-to-worker-pay-ratio-increased-so-much/#1018a14a455e

An advocacy group is asking a federal judge to halt the on-site transfer of spent nuclear fuel at San Onofre until a full hearing on the project can be convened.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court by the nonprofit Public Watchdogs, seeks a temporary restraining order under the legal theories that the storage plan is a public nuisance and violates strict product liability rules. The lawsuit also says the fuel storage canisters are defective, a claim that plant officials have denied.

Public Watchdogs has hired a legal heavy hitter to plead its case — former U.S. Attorney Charles La Bella.

“Defendants are risking the lives of millions of California residents and the prospect of irreparable harm to the environment,” the complaint states. “The resulting harm to California residents is not speculative. Defendants have already committed grievous errors in their management and handling of spent nuclear waste.”   www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/story/2019-08-30/san-onofre-owners-contractor-and-regulators-hit-with-new-lawsuit-over-fuel-storage-plan

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

The U.S. Border Patrol and an Israeli Military Contractor Are Putting a Native American Reservation Under “Persistent Surveillance”

Never before have things seemed so hard for Hispanics. The signals are stark and dire: A drowned father, cradling a dead daughter. A lone mother, defending herself against an armed Border Patrol agent, with a terrified toddler at her side. A diatribe hectoring whites to purge the country of a rising brown tide. A Walmart in El Paso, strewn with the dead. Caravans of the hopeful willing to suffer indignities, splinter their families, cower in cages, risk life itself for a distant dream. And looming over it all: a president who shrugs when a voice in the crowd shouts , “ Shoot them! ” and who tells Hispanics with roots in this country to go back to the cesspools where they belong. The ground seems to have shifted in this land of the huddled masses.

It has not. These are long-held resentments. For centuries they have been fed by ignorance, racism and a stubborn unwillingness to understand a population whose ancestors were here by the millions — long before the first pilgrim set foot on Plymouth Rock.

Now and then, the animus bubbles up. But bigotry against Hispanics has been an American constant since the Founding Fathers. Not 10 years after drafting the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson smugly suggested that these United States might want to snatch Latin America “piece by piece.” John Adams held that a revolution in South America “would be agreeable,” but he wanted little to do with “a people more ignorant, more bigoted, more superstitious, more implicitly credulous in the sanctity of royalty, more blindly devoted to their priests . . . than any people in Europe, even in Spain” — managing to demonize a religion and dismiss a whole human order in one tweet-able and peevish rhetorical flourish.   www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/a-history-of-anti-hispanic-bigotry-in-the-united-states/2019/08/09/5ceaacba-b9f2-11e9-b3b4-2bb69e8c4e39_story.html

Solidarity for Never

Deadline today for RICO/UAW unions to submit strike vote amid contract negotiations, FBI investigations

A critical vote is facing local United Auto Worker unions across the country.

Members have been holding a strike authorization vote. And today is the deadline for unions to turn over their tallies.

Adding to the pressure of contract negotiations are government investigations into bribery allegations among UAW presidents across the country, including Canton Township.

Investigators executed a search warrant at the home of local UAW President Gary Jones , as part of a nation wide investigation, looking into potential bribery and other corruption.

Investigators were at gary jones’ house in canton for for about six hours. They did take items from the home in evidence boxes.

UAW presidents in California, Wisconsin, Missouri and Northern Michigan also had their homes searched.  www.wxyz.com/news/uaw-unions-nationwide-voting-today-on-whether-to-strike-amid-contract-negotiations

Raids raise possibility of federal racketeering case against UAW

FBI raided the home of UAW President Gary Jones and five other homes or offices of former UAW officials around the country Wednesday, signaling the federal government could now be targeting Jones in a years-long investigation into bribes, kickbacks and attempts by auto executives to influence labor negotiations with the UAW. Jones has not been charged with a crime. The home of former UAW president Dennis Williams was included in the Wednesday raids.

Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry, labor and economics at Ann Arbor’s Center for Automotive Research, noted a racketeering case would have to involve current sitting officers of an organization. Dziczek and other experts noted that government oversight requires proof of much deeper corruption of an organization than has been shown at the UAW to date.  www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2019/08/29/raids-raise-possibility-federal-racketeering-case-against-uaw/2143405001/

FBI raids two UAW presidents’ homes as part of nationwide sweep in corruption probe

FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents raided the home of UAW President Gary Jones in metro Detroit early Wednesday as part of a nationwide sweep of sites tied to the autoworker union.

Agents also raided the California home of Dennis Williams, who preceded Jones as UAW chief; the union’s northern Michigan conference center; a UAW regional office in Missouri, where Jones was based previously; and the home of Williams aide Amy Loasching in Wisconsin.

The multiagency raids were a major step as federal officials ramped up their corruption investigation of the autoworkers union — which is in the midst of contract negotiations with Detroit automakers.

As many as a dozen agents collected evidence from Jones’ home on Wildrose Drive in Canton, Special Agent Mara Schneider said from the site. The search lasted six hours.

…One neighbor, 47-year-old J. Kevin Telepo, became so intrigued that he grabbed his Swarovski binoculars, sat in his dining room and zoomed in on Jones’ garage. That’s where he saw FBI agents combing through all sorts of stuff: cash, a golf bag and what appeared to be a safe, he said.

Telepo said he saw the agents counting “wads” of cash. He texted his wife and neighbors about the raid.   www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2019/08/28/uaw-president-gary-jones-fbi-raid/2140270001/?fbclid=IwAR220s3sc-SuweEvf-BNSQAuFYQAxA0vLsy9Og7d0ki3-5_88ziOrV5sdLg

Amid Scandal, UAW Executives Just Got A 30% Salary Increase

Bad Optics: At the UAW’s convention earlier this month, amid the union’s biggest scandal in its history, UAW delegates authorized 31% salary increases for the union’s top leadership.

With government prosecutors labeling the United Auto Workers as “co-conspirators” with Fiat-Chrysler in “a widening corruption scandal,” the UAW may be facing the possibility of the federal government coming in to oversee the union’s finances.

“Now, the UAW faces possible criminal fines and potential federal government oversight of its finances,” writes Allen Kinzer, a labor attorney with Vorys Sater Seymour and Pease LLP.

Yet, with all of the turmoil currently surrounding the UAW, at its Detroit convention earlier this month, delegates approved one of the largest salary increases for its leadership in its history.

via Automotive News:

Another notable shift to emerge from the union convention was delegates’ approval of 31 percent pay increases for the union’s leadership. The salaries of the president, secretary-treasurer, vice presidents and members of the international executive board will now be calculated based on pay for international representatives — which was increased 6 percent to $111,476.15.   laborunionreport.com/2018/06/25/amid-scandal-uaw-executives-just-get-a-30-salary-increase/?fbclid=IwAR2O3vV_4e5z34q2niPcaidNj5i4rPPre-3DQsS3ga4beDUhuQkR2gnHNts

 

Federal corruption probe hits home for UAW boss, contract talks under ‘storm cloud’

The FBI on Wednesday conducted searches at the home of United Auto Workers President Gary Jones, a union retreat and multiple other locations as part of a corruption probe into illegal payments to union officials, posing fresh problems for the union at a pivotal time.

News of the FBI action came as the UAW, a once powerful force in the organized labor movement, holds sensitive contract talks with Detroit automakers General Motors Co (GM.N), Ford Motor Co (F.N) and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA) (FCHA.MI) (FCAU.N).

The current four-year contract expires on Sept 14.

“This round of contract negotiations was always going to be very difficult, even without the shadow of a federal investigation hanging over the union,” said Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry, labor and economics at the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research (CAR). “That shadow has just become a giant storm cloud.”  www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-corruption-labor/growing-federal-corruption-probe-hits-home-for-uaw-president-idUSKCN1VI229

Scabby the Rat Appears at CTA Headquarters

The California Teachers Association has had a rough few months. The union dealt with a divisive election, the ouster of its executive director and the loss of a 19,000-member higher education local.

Last week the union’s own employees added insult to injury.

Upset over CTA management practices regarding the filling of vacant positions, the CTA staff union formed an informational picket line outside of union headquarters in Burlingame. And they brought a friend.  www.eiaonline.com/intercepts/2019/08/26/scabby-the-rat-appears-at-cta-headquarters/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Intercepts+%28Intercepts%29

Spy versus Spy

Are Spies More Trouble Than They’re Worth?

The history of espionage is a lesson in paradox: the better your intelligence, the dumber your conduct; the more you know, the less you anticipate.

…Richard Sorge, a Russian spy in Germany’s Embassy in Japan, gained detailed knowledge about the approaching German invasion of Russia in 1941, and passed it on. Stalin not only ignored information about the coming invasion but threatened anyone who took it seriously, since he knew that his ally Hitler wouldn’t betray him. The delayed reaction cost hundreds of thousands of lives, perhaps millions, and very nearly handed Hitler victory. The invasion was launched, and Stalin soon retreated to his dacha in shock. When a delegation of apparatchiks came to see him, he took it for granted that they were coming to depose him, since that’s what he would have done in their place, and was startled when they begged him to step forward and lead, being themselves dependent on the cult of the great leader.   www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/02/are-spies-more-trouble-than-theyre-worth

The Magical Mystery Tour

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.CreditJoe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan, via Getty Images

Depraved Ruling Class Files: Jeffrey Epstein: The Women Accused of Finding Girls for Him

Lawyers representing several women who say they were sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein have urged the UK’s Prince Andrew to come forward and answer questions, following claims of sexual misconduct against the British royal. Prince Andrew has strongly denied the allegations. Virginia Giuffre said she was a 15-year-old working at US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club when she was recruited to perform sex acts on Epstein. Giuffre has separately claimed that she had sex with a list of other prominent men, including Prince Andrew. ‘He knows exactly what he’s done and I hope he comes clean about it,’ Giuffre said of Prince Andrew.  www.theguardian.com/global/video/2019/aug/28/prince-andrew-needs-to-comes-clean-about-it-says-epstein-accuser-video

FBI studies two broken cameras outside cell where Epstein died: source

Two cameras that malfunctioned outside the jail cell where financier Jeffrey Epstein died as he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges have been sent to an FBI crime lab for examination, a law enforcement source told Reuters.

Epstein’s lawyers Reid Weingarten and Martin Weinberg told U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan on Tuesday they had doubts about the New York City chief medical examiner’s conclusion that their client killed himself.

The two cameras were within view of the Manhattan jail cell where he was found dead on Aug. 10. A source earlier told Reuters two jail guards failed to follow a procedure overnight to make separate checks on all prisoners every 30 minutes.

He had been taken off suicide watch prior to his death.

The cameras were sent to Quantico, Virginia, site of a major FBI crime lab where agents and forensic scientists analyze evidence.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that at least one camera in the hallway outside Epstein’s cell had footage that was unusable. The newspaper said there was other usable footage captured in the area.      www.reuters.com/article/us-people-jeffrey-epstein-cameras-idUSKCN1VI2LC?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_content=5d6716cd7ebf6f00017acf4c&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1WNbMfTcLEkdfgNhY_yrQhE5L0llkKpKRfGlIqneplaN3mXuX_QQINkCA

“He Said Not to Tell Anyone”: How Trump Kept Tabs on Jeffrey Epstein

In the months before he ran for president, Donald Trump was in conversation with National Enquirer owner David Pecker about his old acquaintance, Jeffrey Epstein, and how his sexual abuse scandal might affect the Clintons. “Trump said that Pecker had told him that the pictures of Clinton that Epstein had from his island were worse,” recalls a former Trump Organization employee.

Perhaps the most revealing commentary Donald Trump has offered on Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who pleaded not guilty this week to sex trafficking and conspiracy, occurred in late February 2015, onstage at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Trump, then flirting with a presidential run, was fielding softballs from Fox News host Sean Hannity when a lightning round of questions turned to a favorite topic: Bill Clinton. “Nice guy, Trump said. “Got a lot of problems coming up, in my opinion, with the famous island with Jeffrey Epstein,” he added, seemingly veering off topic. “Lot of problems.”

In fact, Epstein was then very much top of mind for Trump, who had his own history with the registered sex offender. Over the previous several weeks, the National Enquirer had published a string of stories about Epstein, including a “world exclusive” interview with one of his accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who said in court documents that Epstein forced her to have sex with him at his Upper East Side home.  www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/how-trump-kept-tabs-on-jeffrey-epstein

‘Coward’: Epstein accusers pour out their anger in court

www.facebook.com/100005007858638/videos/1368637286646520/?t=40

www.facebook.com/RebelHQ/videos/454945345092722/?t=68

So Long

One of the last original striking sanitation workers of 1968, Baxter Leach, has died

Baxter Leach, 79, one of the surviving sanitation workers who participated in the 1968 sanitation workers strike that brought Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis, died Tuesday morning, family members said.

Leach retired from the city of Memphis in 2005, after 43 years of service.

In 1968, Leach was instrumental in signing up sanitation workers to the AFSCME-backed union as they protested already inhumane working conditions that worsened under Mayor Henry Loeb’s administration.

The strike and assassination marked a pivotal moment for the civil rights struggle in America.

Sidney Rittenberg, Idealistic American Aide to Mao Who Evolved to Counsel Capitalists, Dies at 98

In a saga of Kafkaesque twists, Mr. Rittenberg was a dedicated aide to Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai as a party propagandist known across China by his Mandarin name, Li Dunbai — the mysterious foreigner in Mao’s government. But he ran afoul of Mao’s suspicions, offended Mao’s wife and spent 16 years in prison, falsely accused of espionage and counterrevolutionary plotting.

In the United States after his release, he used his extensive knowledge and contacts in China to build his own capitalist empire, advising corporate leaders, including Bill Gates of Microsoft and the computer magnate Michael S. Dell, on how to cash in on China’s vast growing economy. Still welcome in China, he took entrepreneurs on guided tours, introducing them to the country’s movers and shakers.

“His compelling tale can perhaps best be understood as a story, writ small, of modern-day China itself,” the author Gary Rivlin wrote in The New York Times in 2004. “His metamorphosis from isolated expatriate to high-priced global go-between mirrors the country’s own shift — from a closed-door Communist state to a freewheeling moneymaking society, with a new class  of entrepreneurs who dream the same dreams that dance in the heads of people in places like Silicon Valley.”   www.nytimes.com/2019/08/24/world/sidney-rittenberg-dead.html