Rouge Forum Dispatch: Abbreviated–Finals!

June 1st, 2019  / Author: rgibson

We Say Fight Back!

 

New Haven teachers strike moves into second week, no deal reached over holiday weekend(no solidarity from CTA or NEA)

The historic New Haven teachers strike has moved into its second week Tuesday, as no contract deal was reached with school district management despite multiple marathon bargaining sessions during the holiday weekend, officials said.

Negotiators for the New Haven Teachers Association and the New Haven Unified School District met for more than 12 hours Monday in an attempt to hammer out a salary contract, and at times, the union indicated the impasse could be easing, but by late Monday night, talks ended without a pact.

The work stoppage, the first in the district’s history, will continue at least through Wednesday, as the next bargaining session is set for Wednesday afternoon, the union said.

The teachers union — which represents nearly 600 teachers, nurses and counselors striking since May 20 — and the district both revised their offers Monday.

The union’s bargaining team had been pushing for a 10 percent raise over two years, but on Monday, revised its offer to nearly 7 percent over two years; a 3.7 percent cost-of-living increase in the current 2018-19 school year, followed by a 3.26 percent increase for the coming year, based on the projected cost-of-living increase in the state.

The district has offered less: a 3 percent one-time bonus for the current school year, and a 2 percent salary increase for the coming school year to be implemented halfway through the year, making it an effective 1 percent increase for 2019-20, and it would increase to a full 2 percent raise the following year.  www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/27/new-haven-teachers-strike-negotiations-continue-on-memorial-day/

 

 

Union Report: The National Education Association Just Lost Another Large Local Affiliate. Could More of These Union Walkouts Reshape the Labor Landscape?

The latest in a series of local affiliates to drop their connection to state and national unions is the Blue Valley Education Association in Kansas. It represents some 1,800 certified staff in the state’s fourth-largest school district.

BVEA cut its ties to the National Education Association and Kansas NEA in May 2018. As is their usual policy in such cases, the state and national unions created a new, competing affiliate, called Blue Valley NEA.

BVEA’s independence would have been short-lived if it had failed to maintain its status as exclusive representative for Blue Valley teachers. But the Kansas Department of Labor held a mail-in ballot election this month, and BVEA defeated Blue Valley NEA by a count of 904 to 104.

Blue Valley teachers are still free to join either union, or none, but BVEA will negotiate the next teacher contract.

Kansas NEA can ill afford the defection. The state union lost more than 12 percent of its active membership between 2012 and 2017.

Disaffiliations, once rare within NEA, are now happening more frequently. In the past six years, the union has lost the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, the Memphis-Shelby County Education Association, the Carmel Teachers’ Association in Indiana, the Santa Rosa Professional Educators in Florida and the 20,000-strong bargaining unit of the Clark County Education Association in Nevada.  www.the74million.org/article/union-report-the-national-education-association-just-lost-another-large-local-affiliate-could-more-of-these-union-walkouts-reshape-the-labor-landscape/

The Little Red Schoolhouse

www.theswcsun.com/three-lawsuits-settled-after-years-of-racial-tension-on-campus/

…Racial tensions have bubbled under the surface for decades at SWC. With a campus that has been predominantly Latinx since its opening years, black faculty and staff have felt the discrimination has long been ignored.

This feeling of neglect has since seeped into the student body.

On May 2, Murillo cancelled the Associated Student Organization’s annual election after learning about a fake Instagram post that made it appear a slate of black candidates was attempting to incite racial violence against their predominantly Latinx opponents.

The black candidate slate, known as Team Elite, denied any knowledge of the post, which called to “chop the heads off of the euro-centrist white supremacist mexicans of the campus,” and accused the predominantly Latinx slate, known as Team Green, of creating the post in attempt sway the election in their favor.

Prior to the Instagram post, Dimitrius Loa, a Team Green member, had been accused of making racist comments made by a Team Green member about directed toward Team Elite. Black students reacted with outrage after the ASO Election Board imposed a punishment on Loa that they felt was too lenient.

Murillo called for investigations into both the Instagram post controversy and issues relating to the Loa situation. In addition, she said a cultural shift needs to happen to address the pain felt throughout the campus.   www.theswcsun.com/three-lawsuits-settled-after-years-of-racial-tension-on-campus/

Below, Southwestern College Prez, Kindred Murillo

Image result for kindred murillo southwestern college

$330,000 salary for VP of HR 

Southwestern College is paying Rose DelGaudio a salary of $330,000 to work as the vice president of human resources, making her one of the highest paid community college employees in the state of California

Edmund Guerrero, chief union steward of CSEA and an instructional computer technician said the decision made at the board meeting was demoralizing for classified employees. Now that the votes have gone through, some changes will be made in how the union leadership approaches negotiations with the district. 

www.theswcsun.com/330000-salary-for-vp-of-hr/

The “Aztecs” Monty Montezuma, the racist images live

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SDSU’s Campanile Foundation dinged by auditors

A company owned by a campus faculty member improperly included the university name in its name, and the company obtained a deeply discounted facility rental rate from [Associated Students], which appeared to be a conflict of interest,” said an August 2016 audit regarding an unidentified university staffer. “For a one‐year period from August 2014 to August 2015, this resulted in a discount of $12,116, which appeared to be a conflict of interest in which the faculty member obtained a personal benefit because of his association with the campus.”

The same report also called out Campanile for going easy on six-figure donors who failed to come up with contributions as promised. “In four instances, collection and follow‐up activity was not documented to facilitate collection of delinquent pledges receivable,” the audit noted. “The delinquent pledges receivable, totaling $275,000, were outstanding from 410 to 2,035 days.” Added the document, “Inadequate control over delinquent pledges receivable and pledge write‐offs reduces the likelihood of collection, negatively impacts cash flow, and increases the risk that receivables will not be accurately reflected in financial statements.”

The non-profit’s board promised to do better, but a new report released May 20 by CSU shows that despite the previous warning, auditors have continued to question Campanile’s collection practices.  www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2019/may/29/radar-sdsus-campanile-foundation-dinged-auditors/

 

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East County superintendent placed on leave amid fraud investigation

The Dehesa School District Board voted 4-0 Friday afternoon to place their superintendent on paid administrative leave amid a fraud investigation.

Earlier this week, the San Diego District Attorney’s Office charged Superintendent Nancy Hauer with one count of misappropriating public funds.

She was one of 11 people charged in a statewide scheme, in which the DA says two men siphoned more than $50 million in state money through a network of 19 charter schools.

“The defendants sought out small school districts with limited experience in oversight and proposed they authorize online charter schools to earn additional public funds in the form of oversight fees,” the DA’s Office wrote in a summary of the charges.

At Friday’s special Dehesa School District Board meeting, the board spent an hour and a half in closed session with legal counsel discussing Hauer’s employment.  www.10news.com/news/local-news/east-county-superintendent-placed-on-leave-amid-fraud-investigation?fbclid=IwAR1NX0N52GhbUKF7zmVP6u3jp9C8J1wYoqQRUPCU_shYoYWNX6gL3odMMaI

The Learning Curve: The Basics on Southern California’s $50 Million Charter School Scam

Astounding details have emerged of an alleged charter school scam that netted some $50 million in taxpayer money by falsely enrolling thousands of students in summer school, according to an indictment obtained by the Union-Tribune.

The scheme focused on enrolling student athletes into summer credit recovery programs. The students didn’t take any classes, but the owners of A3 Education still got money from the state on their behalf. A3 operates more than a dozen online charter schools, three in San Diego County. One of the company’s owners is likely on the run in Australia, said District Attorney Summer Stephan, according to the U-T.

The owners, Sean McManus and Jason Schrock, pushed employees to falsely enroll as many students as possible, prosecutors allege. Those employees then earned bonuses for hitting certain benchmarks, according to the indictment.

On top of the explosive allegations, the indictment also contains some juicy details.

One employee texted another about a dream she had: “You were running around my office, drinking champagne, throwing money everywhere, yelling ‘I love bonuses,’” the indictment reads.   www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/the-learning-curve-the-basics-on-southern-californias-50-million-charter-school-scam/?utm_source=Voice+of+San+Diego+Master+List&utm_campaign=625e323fe0-Learning_Curve&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c2357fd0a3-625e323fe0-81862829&goal=0_c2357fd0a3-625e323fe0-81862829

San Diego Unified dumps anti-Islamophobia initiative

On March 7 a group of parents represented by San Diego attorney Charles S. LiMandri, chief counsel of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, settled a lawsuit — Citizens for Quality Education v. Richard Barrera — it filed against San Diego Unified School District over its “anti-Islamophobia initiative,” which the school district created in partnership with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR.

The Council calls itself “America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group.”

The conflict started July 26, 2016 when San Diego Unified trustee Kevin Beiser put forward a resolution to develop the initiative. Four Muslim students told the board about their experiences being bullied.

Hanif Mohebi, then director of the San Diego chapter of the Council, spoke to the board about the relationship the organization had with the district for the prior five years and stated, “55 percent of Muslim students report they were bullied. What we would like to do now is take our relationship with the school district to a next level. We do have a strategy.”  www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2019/may/22/city-lights-san-diego-unified-dumps-anti-islamo/

above, Rouge Leader Bill Boyer in a Detroit School

Nessel sides with children of Detroit Schools in literacy lawsuit

ANN ARBOR, MI – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel plans to oppose Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in support of Detroit Public Schools children arguing their access to literacy has been denied due to the district’s poor conditions.

The attorney general plans to ask the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals for permission to file a brief in the lawsuit advocating for a fundamental right to an adequate education, Nessel’s Spokesman Dan Olsen said Thursday, May 30.

The decision comes less than a week after Whitmer’s office argued the State of Michigan should no longer be a party in the lawsuit after her name was added to it earlier this month.

In a reply brief filed on May 24 with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, all defendants in the lawsuit including Whitmer, members of the state board of education, the state superintendent of public instruction and other state officials asked the court to dismiss the appeal on mootness of grounds.  www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2019/05/nessel-sides-with-children-of-detroit-schools-in-literacy-lawsuit.html

Westside private school gave diplomas to nonstudents for a fee. Then came the college admissions scandal

Westside private school gave diplomas to nonstudents for a fee. Then came the college admissions scandal

Stephanie Ellsworth had a problem. She was eager to enroll in a criminal justice program but lacked a high school diploma.

Her predicament didn’t last long. She was told by a for-profit college that she could get a diploma from a Westside private school simply by taking a test and paying $280. She wouldn’t have to do any coursework, or even set foot on the tiny campus of West Hollywood College Preparatory School.

So that is what she did. Within a few weeks, the 31-year-old had her diploma signed by West Hollywood Prep’s principal, Elina Dvorskaya.

That was in 2014 — five years before the school’s former director, Igor Dvorskiy, was accused of conspiring with William “Rick” Singer, the admitted mastermind of a national college admissions scheme. Federal prosecutors say Dvorskiy was bribed $10,000 per student to allow a test-taking whiz to doctor SAT or ACT exams for children of the wealthy.  www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-college-admissions-scandal-west-hollywood-prep-20190528-story.html

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAZy75RKb84

America has spent $5.9 trillion on wars in the Middle East and Asia since 2001, a new study says

Key Points
  • The U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Pakistan have cost American taxpayers $5.9 trillion since they began in 2001.
  • The figure reflects the cost across the U.S. federal government since the price of war is not borne by the Defense Department alone.
  • The report also finds that more than 480,000 people have died from the wars and more than 244,000 civilians have been killed as a result of fighting. Additionally, another 10 million people have been displaced due to violence.

www.cnbc.com/2018/11/14/us-has-spent-5point9-trillion-on-middle-east-asia-wars-since-2001-study.html?fbclid=IwAR1_4cKg4MmQ6v6hwRRJMfV2GO–0Pnxg65Ir-3zREsrAWYWE_9dwGiQhEY

Trump bypassed Congress on Saudi weapons sale. Here’s how he did it

Image result for saudi cut off heads

above, Jamal Kashoggi, chopped to pieces by Saudis
Critics say administration used ‘manufactured’ emergency to push $8bn sale without oversight from lawmakers

Schoolchildren in the United States are taught from a young age that a separation of powers is the backbone of their country’s democracy.

The system also comes with checks and balances meant to limit the power that the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government can wield, to prevent overreach.

Last week, however, President Donald Trump threw that civics lesson out the window, declaring an emergency to bypass US lawmakers and green-light an $8bn weapons deal with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited recent tensions with Iran to justify pushing the sales through without congressional oversight.

Critics have rejected that justification, noting mounting scepticism towards the Trump administration’s claims of an imminent Iranian threat in the Middle East.

“It seemed more like a manufactured justification that so far is not sitting well with many members of Congress,” said Christina Arabia, director at the Washington-based Security Assistance Monitor, which tracks US arms sales and military assistance to foreign countries.  www.middleeasteye.net/news/trump-bypassed-congress-saudi-weapon-sale-heres-how-it-works

Even in defeat, Islamic State has devastated Syrian and Iraqi farms with scorched-earth policy

Even in defeat, Islamic State has devastated Syrian and Iraqi farms with scorched-earth policy

It was looking to be a good year for farmers across parts of Syria and Iraq. The wettest in generations, it brought rich, golden fields of wheat and barley, giving farmers in this war-torn region reason to rejoice.

But good news is short-lived in this part of the world, where residents of the two countries struggle to cope with seemingly never-ending violence and turmoil amid Syria’s civil war and attacks by remnants of the Islamic State group. Now, even in areas where conflict has subsided, fires have been raging in farmers’ fields, depriving them of valuable crops.

The blazes have been blamed on defeated Islamic State militants seeking to avenge their losses, or on Syrian government forces battling to rout other armed groups. Thousands of acres of wheat and barley fields in both Syria and Iraq have been scorched by the fires during the harvest season, which runs until mid-June.  www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-syria-iraq-fires-destroy-crops-20190530-story.html

A U.S. Army Tweet Asking ‘How Has Serving Impacted You?’ Got An Agonizing Response

The U.S. Army issued a tweet ahead of Memorial Day weekend with a question for service members and veterans: “How has serving impacted you?”

Among the thousands of responses: harrowing tales of trauma, depression and sexual assault.

In a thread, an Army tweet that preceded the question featured a video by Pfc. Nathan Spencer, a scout with the Army’s First Infantry Division.

In the video, Spencer says, “To serve something greater than myself. The Army’s afforded me the opportunity to do just that, to give to others, to protect the ones I love, and to better myself as a man and a warrior.”

Soon after the U.S. Army tweeted its question, thousands of responses began flooding in. Many people tweeted about the positive impact military service had on their lives, but others posted stories of post-traumatic stress disorder, illness and suicide brought on by experiences ranging from seeing loss of life to sexual assaults in the military.

One man responded, “How did serving impact me? Ask my family.” He wrote of a “Combat Cocktail” which included “PTSD, severe depression, anxiety. Isolation. Suicide attempts. Never ending rage.”…

n addition to PTSD, another common theme on Twitter was the reports of sexual assault while serving in the military. One woman wrote of suffering from depression and anxiety, and said she “still can’t deal well with loud noises. I was assaulted by one of my superiors. When I reported him, with witnesses to corroborate my story, nothing happened to him. Nothing. A year later, he stole a laptop and was then demoted. I’m worth less than a laptop.”   www.npr.org/2019/05/27/727254720/a-u-s-army-tweet-asking-how-has-serving-impacted-you-got-an-agonizing-response

Steven Green, pictured in April 2009, is serving five life sentences for rape and murder in Iraq. He has launched appeal but doesn't have 'much hope' of ever being freed

‘I didn’t think of Iraqis as humans,’ says U.S. soldier who raped 14-year-old girl before killing her and her family

An Iraq War veteran serving five life terms for raping and killing a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing her parents and sister says he didn’t think of Iraqi civilians as humans after being exposed to extreme warzone violence.

Steven Green, a former 101st Airborne soldier, in his first interview since the 2006 killings, claimed that his crimes were fuelled in part by experiences in Iraq’s violent ‘Triangle of Death’ where two of his sergeants were gunned down.

He also cited a lack of leadership and help from the Army.

‘I was crazy,’ Green said in the exclusive telephone interview from federal prison in Tucson, Arizona. ‘I was just all the way out there. I didn’t think I was going to live.’   www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340207/I-didnt-think-Iraqis-humans-says-U-S-soldier-raped-14-year-old-girl-killing-her-family.html?fbclid=IwAR01CZZbHM44gNYzZLGIbG9cIp2JHJwFsTFPPGjvKWOgtmBUY4gDInJ4MxA

Ex-Official Levels New Corruption Accusations at Afghan Government

A former Afghan official has accused President Ashraf Ghani’s administration of engaging in widespread corruption, including the exchange of sexual favors for government posts, adding to a string of recent setbacks for the government.

The accusations, leveled by Gen. Habibullah Ahmadzai, a former senior adviser to the president, during a TV interview last week, come as Taliban insurgents ramp up attacks across the country and as the United States tries to negotiate a peace deal with the militant group.

The corruption claims exploded on social media after they were backed up on Saturday night by Mariam Wardak, a former consultant to Mr. Ghani’s former national security adviser. During an interview with an Indian news channel, World Is One News, Ms. Wardak echoed General Ahmadzai’s accusations, saying, “The issues he brought up and highlighted reflect reality.”

With the presidential elections just months away, the timing of the allegations, with no evidence, could be politically motivated. And they could also ensure serious ramifications for women working in the Afghan government, since even moderate urban men are often hesitant to allow the women in their families to work in public offices.  www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/world/asia/afghanistan-corruption.html

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor  

          Image result for elon musk jeff bezos

Image result for richie rich

 

Bilderberg 2019: Full Agenda and Participants List

           

67th Bilderberg Meeting to take place 30 May – 2 June 2019 in Montreux, Switzerland

MONTREUX, 28 MAY 2019 – The 67th Bilderberg Meeting will take place from 30 May – 2 June 2019 in Montreux, Switzerland. About 130 participants from 23 countries have confirmed their attendance. As ever, a diverse group of political leaders and experts from industry, finance, academia, labour and the media has been invited.

The key topics for discussion this year are:

1. A Stable Strategic Order
2. What Next for Europe?
3. Climate Change and Sustainability
4. China
5. Russia
6. The Future of Capitalism
7. Brexit
8. The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
9. The Weaponisation of Social Media
10. The Importance of Space
11. Cyber Threats   www.infowars.com/bilderberg-2019-full-agenda-and-participants-list/

Image result for jared kushner ivanka trump

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner Made $82 Million While Working in the White House Last Year

Financial disclosure forms released Monday show that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner made at least $82 million last year from multiple streams of outside income while they were senior White House advisers, according to the Washington Post.

Despite public scrutiny of their finances amid questions of conflicts of interest, a spokesman for the couple’s lawyer said Trump and Kushner have followed the rules.

The couple is making huge amounts of money while serving in government, though there have been some changes to their revenue streams. The money Trump receives from limited liability companies associated with the Trump Organization has been restructured into annual fixed payments of $1.5 million, “a change made in consultation with Office of Government Ethics officials to reduce her ‘interest in the performance of the business’” according to the Post.   fortune.com/2018/06/11/ivanka-trump-jared-kushner-made-82-million-while-working-white-house/?fbclid=IwAR3DQoxf5fx-WS8flEgzW6GLjwKQnn8ZRVeGl7jPq6ofB8GoW4Td5RT5iCM

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

Julian Assange

Julian Assange subjected to psychological torture, UN expert says

Julian Assange has suffered “prolonged exposure to psychological torture”, the UN’s torture expert has said.

Nils Melzer urged Britain not to extradite the Wikileaks founder, warning that his human rights would be violated and that he is not fit to stand trial.

He also accused “several democratic states” of a “concerted effort to break [Assange’s] will”.

But the UK foreign secretary said Assange “chose to hide” from justice.  www.bbc.com/news/world-48473898

National Lawyers Guild Echoes Smear Campaign Against Julian Assange

he Trump-era brought in a new McCarthyism to which the Guild, shockingly, has fallen prey.

“Assange was a hero to the Guild when he exposed Bush’s war crimes, but is now vilified 

because he’s seen as hurting Clinton.”

I have been a proud member of the National Lawyers Guild for over 30 years, beginning in law school, and serving as union staff of the SF/Bay Area Chapter for over a decade.  The Guild was founded in 1937 as an organization of lawyers to defend FDR’s New Deal, and was the first racially integrated Bar Association.  Its preamble states that it is:

“…an association dedicated to the need for basic change in the structure of our political and economic system…which shall function as an effective political and social force in the service of the people, to the end that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests.”

The Guild is unique as a multi-issue progressive legal organization which strives to integrate both political and legal action, recognizing that many victories which appear to be won in the courts are actually won in the streets. Unlike the ACLU, it also takes positions on foreign policy issues.

My employment as Program Director ended about a year after 9-11 because some in the organization disapproved of my work with Arab and Muslim groups, which included setting up a hotline for those contacted by the FBI and (then) INS.  I was even reprimanded for spending too much time supporting fearless people’s lawyer Lynne Stewart, because she defended Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, even though defending unpopular defendants is central to the purposes of the Guild.

blackagendareport.com/national-lawyers-guild-echoes-smear-campaign-against-julian-assange?fbclid=IwAR1pAuexQq-Gbi2bJzww8Y19vm9C6D6lYPgYbkNKbwxwMuj1TtOhpXNMcJE

The Original Donald Trump

The New York Establishment will ignore unscrupulous acts to serve its interests — just look how it treated Roy Cohn, onetime lawyer to the president.

Amid the aftershocks of Donald Trump’s firing of James Comey last May, I went to see Angels in America at the same theater in London, the National, where I’d first seen it as a New York Times drama critic some 25 years earlier. The play didn’t transport me quite as far from the lamentable present as I’d hoped. The new production, now on Broadway, doesn’t radically depart in tone or quality (high) from the first. But the play’s center of gravity had shifted. While Tony Kushner’s epic had been seared into my memory by the frail figure of Prior Walter, a young gay man fighting AIDS with almost the entire world aligned against him, this time it was Roy Cohn who dominated: a closeted, homophobic, middle-aged gay man also battling AIDS but who, unlike the fictional Prior, was a real-life Über-villain of America’s 20th century. “The polestar of human evil,” as one character describes him. “The worst human being who ever lived … the most evil, twisted, vicious bastard ever to snort coke at Studio 54.”

What has changed is not Angels but America. Even if you hadn’t known that Cohn had been Trump’s mentor and hadn’t read the election-year journalistic retrospectives on their toxic common tactics (counterpunch viciously, deny everything, stiff your creditors, manipulate the tabloids), you’d see and hear the current president in Cohn’s ruthless bullying and profane braggadocio. That isn’t because Nathan Lane, a Cohn for the ages, is doing a Trump impersonation. The uncanny overlap between these two figures is all there in the writing. “Was it legal? Fuck legal,” Cohn rants   nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/04/frank-rich-roy-cohn-the-original-donald-trump.html?fbclid=IwAR2j67517ucsjebM5QfaZnqRBEH6hSGm8sNfirV25q1jltSdVs_DRW1-qz8

 

Military judge frees Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher in advance of murder trial 

Military judge frees Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher in advance of murder trial

Solidarity for Never

Dem Presidential Candidates Court Teacher’s Unions’ Quisling Bosses and underling suckers

“Any country that out-educates us, will out-compete us,” former Vice President Joe Biden told members of the American Federation of Teachers at a town hall event in Houston Tuesday night, quoting his wife Jill Biden.

Biden went on to say that many counties are out-educating the United States currently, but he laid out a plan for how he would raise up the teaching profession and education in the poorest parts of the country.

Biden joined many other candidates in the crowded field for the Democratic presidential nomination who have released major education proposals as the nation’s two largest teacher’s unions begin deciding who to endorse, reports U.S. News and World Report.

This was Biden’s first major policy proposal, which bodes well for people like me who would love to see education become a serious part of the 2020 presidential race.

Biden’s plan would triple Title I money, which the federal government provides to poorer schools and school districts. It would also raise teacher pay and significantly increase the number of school nurses and counselors, according to Education Week.

Sen. Bernie Sander’s plan similarly triples Title I funding, but also makes significant pledges around charter schools, which Biden’s plan does not. Sander’s plan would put a moratorium on new federal funding for charter schools and ban for-profit charter schools, as California recently did. (Voice of San Diego May 30, ’19)

 

Spy versus Spy

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Reminder: Damage Assessment: Convicted Spy Robert Hanssen

 

  • RAY SUAREZ:

    He was working at a time when it turns out there were several people working for American intelligence who were traitors to their country. How does he rank when you compare him to Aldrich Ames and some of the others who were caught in the ’80s and ’90s?

  • SUSAN ROSENFELD:

    From what I know of Hanssen, I don’t think he can compare to the others. I think that the damage he did was far greater, and perhaps his motivation was… it was, of course, financial, but there was a lot more to it. And I think he personally hurt a lot of people besides his family, as well as, again, the tremendous damage that he did to America’s secrets.

     

  • ELAINE SHANNON:

    Well, we’re talking about, first of all, the names of about 50 people within the soviet system that were either recruited by the U.S. to spy for us, or were being recruited. At least three of those were executed, including Dimitri Polyakov who was the greatest agent the U.S. ever had inside that system and did invaluable service for the U.S. during in the missile crisis with Cuba, up through the Vietnam War. This is the first thing he gave up on his first trip to see the Russians.

    The second time he went in to see Russians in 1985, he gave up two more men who were working within the KGB in Washington, it was the first penetration the FBI had ever managed of this. He gave away technological secrets at the very moment when there was a coup of… Gorbachev was detained in the Soviet Union, some old liners in the KGB were trying to overthrow him. They had their hands on a nuclear football, and he was blinding the United States to the military and government communication that would tell us what was going on.  www.pbs.org/newshour/show/damage-assessment-convicted-spy-robert-hanssen

    …Hanssen was born in Chicago. His father, a police officer, was emotionally abusive to him during his childhood. In 1968 Hanssen married his wife Bonnie, a Roman Catholic. He converted to Catholicism and became involved in the conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei. He hovered between varying academic pursuits and jobs before joining the FBI in 1976. Three years after joining, Hanssen approached the Soviet GRU to offer his services, launching his first espionage cycle, which lasted until 1981. Hanssen restarted his espionage activities in 1985 and continued until 1991 when he broke off communications during the collapse of the Soviet Union, fearing he would be exposed. He restored communications the next year and continued until his arrest. Throughout his spying, Hanssen remained anonymous to the Russians.   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen

    ..Today, former FBI Director Louis Freeh is known to be close to Opus Dei. According to Bucciarelli, Freeh’s children attend Opus Dei schools and Freeh knows Opus Dei members. Bucciarelli also says that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia knows members of the Work, and Scalia’s wife is reported to be an Opus Dei member.   www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/4/10/opening-the-doors-of-opus-dei/

     

 

The Magical Mystery Tour

Pope says Argentine bishop is being tried at Vatican on sex abuse charges

Pope says Argentine bishop is being tried at Vatican on sex abuse charges

An Argentine bishop close to Pope Francis is now on trial at the Vatican, accused of sexually abusing seminarians.

Francis revealed the development in an interview with Mexico’s Televisa on Tuesday. He said he received the results of a preliminary investigation into Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta two weeks ago and ordered the case be handed over for trial by a Vatican tribunal.  www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-vatican-abuse-argentine-bishop-pope-francis-20190528-story.html

Reporter’s questions cause megachurch pastor to panic and cry out to God: ‘Lord, help me’

Guerrero asked Copeland about past statements he made where he said that flying commercial with regular people was like “climbing into a tube with demons.”

According to Copeland, he wasn’t referring to people as demons, but if he flew commercial he “would have to stop 65%” of his ministry.

At one point in the interview, clearly flustered by Guerrero’s unexpected arrival, Copeland looked up to the heavens and said, “Thank you — Lord, help me .., let me pray just a second.”  deadstate.org/reporters-questions-cause-megachurch-pastor-to-panic-and-cry-out-to-god-lord-help-me/?fbclid=IwAR0hXXK_BnBjABUcubQUo6CTBm9IIpxDpdwP82T2MtqE5-S1IQo5NFZW7Ho

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The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

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Monet

So Long