We Say Fight Back!

Denver teacher strike to begin Monday after Gov. Jared Polis declines to intervene

The union representing the majority of Denver Public Schools’ educators announced it will initiate the city’s first teacher strike in a quarter century next week after Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday declined to intervene in the two sides’ ongoing compensation dispute.

DPS leaders have vowed to keep all of the district’s 161 schools open through any walkout, but Superintendent Susana Cordova acknowledged Wednesday that a strike would force the cancellation of early childhood education classes for 3- and 4-year-olds.

Still, both Polis and Cordova expressed hope that the state’s largest school district and its teachers union finally will reach agreement on a new compensation plan before next week. The two sides remain about $8 million apart in their proposals.

“We’ve got Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday into Monday,” Cordova said at a news conference. “Let’s spend as much time possible in negotiations. Let’s clear our calendars to do that.”  www.denverpost.com/2019/02/06/jared-polis-denver-teachers-strike/

 

Teachers strike at 2nd Chicago charter school network

Some 175 educators launched a strike Tuesday at four campuses of the Chicago International Charter School — the second charter network to strike in the city this school year.

Teachers hit the picket line at 6 a.m. Tuesday outside CICS’ ChicagoQuest, Northtown, Wrightwood and Ralph Ellison schools.

The workers want better pay, smaller class sizes and additional social workers and school counselors to be hired.

“They are pocketing increased taxpayer funding and insulting our teachers and low-wage paraprofessionals with threats to cut counselors, social workers and critical frontline programs for our overwhelmingly low-income students” CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates said.  chicago.suntimes.com/news/cics-teachers-strike-international-charter-union-ctu/

Oakland Teachers vote to Strike Monday

www.facebook.com/Lauren.Steiner.LA/videos/10218244594803130/?t=170

Oakland teachers vote to authorize strike over pay, class size

Oakland teachers voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, ratcheting up their dispute with administrators of the financially troubled district over wages and class sizes, the union said Monday.

The vote allows union leaders to call a strike after Feb. 15, when a neutral fact-finder is expected to release a report that attempts to bridge the impasse.

Wages remain the main point of contention. The school district has proposed a 5 percent raise over three years. The union has asked for a 12 percent increase over that period. The starting salary for Oakland teachers is $46,500, and the average salary is $63,100, according to state data.  www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-teachers-vote-to-authorize-strike-over-13589218.php

‘Not Just a Teacher Issue’: Oakland Students Stage Sickout Over School Woes

Hundreds of Oakland students from high schools across the city skipped class Friday morning to march from Oakland Technical High School to the school district’s downtown headquarters in a spirited show of support for their teachers, who are threatening to strike amid tense contract negotiations.

“I’m here to support our teachers, to fight for things that I want in our schools and show that this is not just a teacher issue. It’s a schoolwide, community issue,” said Avelina Rivezzo-Weber, a junior at Skyline High School, who helped organize students from her school.

Teens gathered on the plaza in front of Oakland Tech before the start of the school day, where student organizers discussed how to demonstrate safely and then led the crowd down Broadway.

Waving signs and banners, students chanted, “1-2-3-4, pay our Oakland teachers more!” and “We won’t stop! Chop from the top!” www.kqed.org/news/11724716/hundreds-of-oakland-high-school-students-stage-sickout-in-support-of-teachers

Teacher strikes show no signs of stopping as Wright State faculty picket for 18th straight day

The union president claims the administration is participating in union-busting.

Faculty at Wright State University in Ohio are amid one of the longest strikes at a public university in U.S. history — demonstrating the rise in worker militancy in the education world.

The strike has so far lasted 18 days, after two years of attempts to negotiate a contract with the university. About 560 of the school’s professors are in the union, the Wright State University branch of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP-WSU), and 85 percent of union members voted to authorize the strike.

The only work stoppage at a public university that lasted longer was a 29-day strike at Temple University in 1990, according to the union, which included a fight over health insurance and salary increases.

The university has recently been through a number of serious financial issues, which they are giving as a reason for holding out in negotiations. It went through $131 million of its reserves over five years. It had to pay back the U.S. Department of Education $2 million in 2017 after a federal review of the school’s handling of financial aid. It paid the U.S. Department of Justice a $1 million fine in 2018 after the department said the university missed the H1-B visa cap exemption.  thinkprogress.org/wright-state-university-faculty-strike-bea3cae02c67/

Don’t Scab! As Faculty Strike Wears On, Wright State Seeks ‘Long Term’ Adjuncts in More Than 80 Fields

As a faculty strike at Wright State University marched into its third week on Tuesday, an ad soliciting “long term” adjuncts in more than 80 fields exposed the extent to which the labor action is threatening basic university operations.

The ad, posted recently on The Chronicle’s and HigherEdJobs’ job boards, lists a range of disciplines in which the university wants to hire: biology, chemistry, computer science, English and literature, history, mathematics, philosophy, physics, and dozens of others.

Earlier in January, Wright State posted a separate advertisement looking for adjuncts, but it did not specify that the positions would be “long-term,” as the new posting did.  www.chronicle.com/article/As-Faculty-Strike-Wears-On/245617/?fbclid=IwAR3iiQVpvkWNlOo15TcjJmZJf0TvrnisuD4G6cie1LtlNvFt1jh-vdH92cU#.XFr6qgCNH6I.facebook

 

 

Watch: It might seem strange, but a Left rally in Kolkata drew enormous crowds

They suggested a binocular. We tried, but couldn't see the tail end of @cpimspeak. Hence the drone view. Enjoy. #aerialphotography #PeoplesBrigade pic.twitter.com/IVj4GJcDzJ

— Aparna (@chhuti_is) February 3, 2019

In a show of solidarity ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front organised a rally that saw several senior leaders address a huge crowd of people in Kolkata on Sunday.

The event took place at the Brigade Parade Grounds, the same venue at which Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s United India rally was held on January 19. A video shared by Twitter user Aparna, showed drone footage of the Left rally from the venue.  scroll.in/video/911930/watch-it-might-seem-strange-but-a-left-rally-in-kolkata-drew-enormous-crowds?fbclid=IwAR18iW04bV_JSrKsRoOpL4DZQw-uYXkzrnZOp1drH8Bki1rXhQe6j3lVEaE

Yellow Vests Still on the March

www.facebook.com/SputnikNews/videos/2355297564702661/

The Little Red Schoolhouse

The San Diego State Corrupt Corporate Land Grab: Sheppard Mullin lobbies SDSU’s city deal

The Farce of “Restorative Justice”–Investigation: In NYC School Where a Teenager Was Killed, Students & Educators Say Lax Discipline Led to Bullying, Chaos, and Death

An unnamed boy stands in the stairwell of his New York City high school. He secures one end of his sweater to the rail, ties the other around his neck, and tries to hang himself.

The boy had been bullied mercilessly for being gay, and nothing changed no matter how many times he or his grandmother asked administrators for help. He just wanted it to end. But just then, according to The New York Times, “a vice principal and two students happened by” and saved him.

Teachers and students say the Times story was inaccurate and incomplete. The assistant principal was not there, they say, and the two students who intervened deserve to be named: Ariane Laboy, 16, and Matthew McCree, 15.

But the public was not introduced to Laboy and McCree for the life they saved that day. We know their names because six months later, on Sept. 27, 2017, someone in history class threw a paper ball at Abel Cedeno, an 18-year-old sophomore who, like the unnamed student in the stairwell, had been bullied for his sexuality. The profanity-laced challenge and invitation to violence that followed were par for the course at the school. The one thing different that day: Cedeno pulled out a switchblade. He stabbed McCree, and when Laboy came to McCree’s aid, Cedeno turned the blade on him. Laboy fell into a coma for two days. When he awoke, he asked for an egg roll and news of his best friend.

McCree was dead.  www.the74million.org/article/investigation-in-new-york-city-school-where-a-teenager-was-killed-students-educators-say-lax-discipline-led-to-bullying-chaos-and-death/

School cancels play about Darwin and evolution after Christian parents complain

A primary school has cancelled a play about Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution following complaints from a group of Christian parents.

Several families threatened to withdraw their children from the play, which is aimed at 7- to 11-year-olds, as they felt one of the scenes “mocked” a bishop involved in a historic debate on evolution.

Hartford Manor Primary School, a non-religious community school in a village in Cheshire, decided to cancel the musical Darwin Rocks and replace it with a less divisive show following the objections.

But the decision to cancel the play has provoked anger among another group of parents who argue that it is “unacceptable” that their children have been denied a valuable learning opportunity.

Alan McDonald, a parent at the school who wants the production to be brought back, said: “It really does feel like a huge step backwards.  www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/evolution-christian-darwin-school-play-cancel-parents-hartford-manor-cheshire-a8768691.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3X-3sF2qPhvTGEO3RYP4814Gi-CCJ4HOu4YnPaUi6wkKVNIABdmVOEGdg#Echobox=1549572819

Florida Teacher Fired for Giving Zeros to Students Who Don’t Turn in Their Work

A Florida teacher has been fired for giving her students zeros for missing assignments.

Diane Tirado has been a teacher for years. Most recently, she was an eighth-grade history teacher at Westgate K-8 School in Port St. Lucie, Florida.

Diane recently gave her students two weeks to complete an Explorer notebook project, but several students simply didn’t hand it in. Since there was zero work done, Diane gave them zeros.

She got fired for it.

The elementary school has a rule called the “no zero policy.” The lowest possible grade that teachers can give students is a 50, even if they don’t turn anything in.

It’s a rule that Diane, unsurprisingly, does not agree with. After she was fired for disobeying, she left her students a charming goodbye message on the whiteboard.

Diane later shared the story on Facebook, hoping to spread awareness about the school’s policy.

“A grade in Mrs. Tirado’s class is earned,” she said….

Another teacher, Lynden Dorval, successfully won a court case against a school who fired her for giving out zeros in 2012.  www.wimp.com/article/florida-teacher-fired-for-giving-zeros-to-students-who-dont-turn-in-their-work/?fbclid=IwAR1DvPnom8FBm2yCNIj6HzVpLywdqHFnN07681bjFT1EaGA0AiPbLPPWgeU

Cory Booker, School Choice Fan and Ex-DeVos Ally, Is Running for President

A politician with a long track record of supporting vouchers and other forms of school choice will seek the White House in 2020—on the Democratic ticket.

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., announced Friday that he will seek the presidency. When it comes to education policy, Booker has an interesting and perhaps unique track record among the Democrats who will fight to take on President Donald Trump. Although much of that record was established before he was elected to the Senate in 2013, how he talks about that record, and how teachers’ unions react to his candidacy, will be worth watching.

Before coming to Congress, Booker was the mayor of Newark, N.J., from 2006 to 2013. During that time, he made his support for various forms of choice one of the key issues of his administration. In 2012, for example, we highlighted Booker as an example of how vouchers had gained a political foothold among Democrats at the state and local level. That year, he gave a speech to the American Federation for Children, a group formerly led by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos (more on her in a moment) that supports vouchers, in which he said that many children “by law are locked into schools that fail their genius.” And he co-founded a group, Excellent Education for Everyone, that backed charters and vouchers in New Jersey but fell short of its goals.  blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2019/02/cory-booker-vouchers-school-choice-devos-ally-president-2020.html?fbclid=IwAR0h8wC5DcixQ6Z5gUio7o3Y5FVGlq93mSfs94T8ZMpb4_NIU1n795V5OFI

New York Joins Movement to Abandon Use of Student Tests in Teacher Evaluations and Capitalist Schooling for the empire continues apace

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

 

Opinion

Last Week the US Military admitted Iran won the Iraq war. This week the NY Times admits the Afhan war is lost. Next? End the War in Afghanistan

On Sept. 14, 2001, Congress wrote what would prove to be one of the largest blank checks in the country’s history. The Authorization for Use of Military Force against terrorists gave President George W. Bush authority to attack the Taliban, the Sunni fundamentalist force then dominating Afghanistan that refused to turn over the mastermind of the attacks perpetrated three days earlier, Osama bin Laden.

In the House of Representatives and the Senate combined, there was only one vote in opposition: Barbara Lee, a Democratic representative from California, who warned of another Vietnam. “We must be careful not to embark on an open-ended war with neither an exit strategy nor a focused target,” she said. “We cannot repeat past mistakes.”

…More than 17 years later, the United States military is engaged in counterterrorism missions in 80 nations on six continents. The price tag, which includes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and increased spending on veterans’ care, will reach $5.9 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2019, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. Since nearly all of that money has been borrowed, the total cost with interest will be substantially higher.

…More than 2.7 million Americans have fought in the war since 2001. Nearly 7,000 service members — and nearly 8,000 private contractors — have been killed. More than 53,700 people returned home bearing physical wounds, and numberless more carry psychological injuries. More than one million Americans who served in a theater of the war on terror receive some level of disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

…At the peak of NATO involvement in 2011, around the time Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan, there were more than 130,000 soldiers from 50 nations fighting the Taliban and building up the Afghan national army, so it could stand on its own.

There are now 22,000 soldiers from 39 countries in Afghanistan. Roughly 14,000 of them are American. Their mission now includes less combat and more training. But the result remains the same: The intelligence community’s 42-page “Worldwide Threat Assessment,” released last week, devotes only a single paragraph to the war in Afghanistan, labeling it a “stalemate.”

This page has been supportive of the war in Afghanistan since it began. (and now we know we lied and the US lost–RG)  www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/opinion/afghanistan-war.html

The Taliban are the victors,” says retired US Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who saw 69 of his soldiers killed in Afghanistan. “We just haven’t figured that out yet.”

Retired US Maj. Gen. Jeff Schloesser, who commanded the 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan from early 2008 through mid-2009, tells the outlet, “I lost 184 soldiers there.”

Yahoo noted that in the event the US had accepted a Taliban surrender at the end of 2001, “maybe it would have concluded on our terms then,” says Bolduc. “Now it’s concluding on the Taliban’s terms.”  sputniknews.com/us/201902081072261873-we-have-lost-us-general-afghanistan/?fbclid=IwAR1-w4n0YRfnvBfKRsIfsOxhODZwiQO4Qpd7YbP8UsV0NUw5DNkzIOOBSN0

A Military Coup in Venezuela? Not Without the Military’s Support (disponible en español)

A military coup d’état in Venezuela doesn’t seem likely so long as the Armed Forces support Maduro. Meanwhile, U.S. action will likely backfire, and serve only to strengthen those in power.

Juan Guaidó, leader of the Venezuelan National Assembly, declared himself President of the Republic on January 23 before a mass demonstration of supporters. This was less than two weeks after the start of Nicolás Maduro’s second term, which the opposition—concentrated within the National Assembly—rejected, labeling Maduro a “usurper.” The 14 countries that make up the Lima Group didn’t recognize Maduro’s inauguration either. They quickly accepted Guaidó’s takeover and released statements in his favor, which the United States did as well. But considering the powers that be and overwhelming support for Maduro from the Armed Forces, Guaidó’s rise to power is likely a symbolic event, with little chance of successful implementation.

Meanwhile, China and Russia, who have already declared their support for Maduro, had invested five and six billion dollars, respectively, in Venezuela to help kick-start the weakened petroleum industry. And in early December, Russia teased at a military deployment in Venezuela, landing two Tu-160 strategic bombardiers on Venezuelan soil and provoking criticism from the United States.

The intensification in political discourse and geopolitical pressure since the beginning of the new year will only worsen economic instability and cause a spike in migration. Barring military intervention organized by the United States and its allies, diplomatic pressure seems useless to take down Maduro. But the key element, the Armed Forces, seem to remain loyal to Maduro, making an internal military coup unlikely. nacla.org/news/2019/01/30/military-coup-venezuela-not-without-military%E2%80%99s-support-disponible-en-espa%C3%B1ol?fbclid=IwAR0uJb4IOdK8-GVpeZEKO7MUMpydFFjHdlp0bdOVBnln2rdf8DJKey-FF2w

In Venezuela, White Supremacy Is a Key Driver of the Coup

On January 23, right after a phone call from Donald Trump, Juan Guaidó, former speaker of Venezuela’s National Assembly, declared himself president. No voting. When you have official recognition from The Donald, who needs elections?

Say what?

I can explain what’s going on in Venezuela in photos.

First, we have Juan Guaidó, self-proclaimed (and Trump-proclaimed) president of the nation, with his wife and child, a photo prominently placed in The New York Times. And here, the class photo of Guaidó’s party members in the National Assembly. They appear, overwhelmingly light-skinned — especially when compared to their political opposites in the third photo, the congress members who support the elected President Nicolás Maduro.

This is the story of Venezuela in black and white, the story not told in The New York Times or the rest of our establishment media. This year’s so-called popular uprising is, at its heart, a furious backlash of the whiter (and wealthier) Venezuelans against their replacement by the larger Mestizo (mixed-race) poor. (Forty-four percent of the population that answered the 2014 census listed themselves as “white.”)

Four centuries of white supremacy in Venezuela by those who identify their ancestors as European came to an end with the 1998 election of Hugo Chavez, who won with the overwhelming support of the Mestizo majority. This turn away from white supremacy continues under Maduro, Chavez’s chosen successor.  truthout.org/articles/in-venezuela-white-supremacy-is-a-key-driver-of-the-coup/

Exterminate All the Brutes: A Desperate Exodus From ISIS’ Final Village

The men who emerge from the Islamic State’s last sliver of land are ordered to sit behind one of two orange lines spray-painted on the rocky desert floor: Syrians behind one and Iraqis behind the other.

The women, wearing face-covering veils and clutching toddlers, huddle in a different spot, also separated by nationality.

Several of the escapees are so badly wounded from incoming fire that they have to be carried to this open vista on mattresses to surrender to the American-backed coalition.

By midmorning, United States Special Operations Forces arrive in a convoy of armored vehicles. The men suspected of being Islamic State fighters are ordered to approach in single file, their arms outstretched, as they are searched by troops and a sniffer dog. Then they are fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed.  www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/world/middleeast/isis-baghuz.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Army Issues New Reprimand to Leader of Green Beret Team Ambushed in Niger

The Army has issued a new reprimand to the leader of the Green Beret team that was ambushed in 2017 in Niger.

Capt. Michael Perozeni was cited in a letter dated Jan. 16 for not performing proper pre-mission training before the mission that led to the ambush, according to military officials.

The reprimand, issued by Lt. Gen. Francis M. Beaudette, the head of the Army’s Special Operations Command, will go into Captain Perozeni’s “local” personnel file, meaning it should not follow him throughout his military career.

Four American soldiers and five Nigerien troops were killed in the Oct. 4, 2017, ambush while searching for a militant linked to the Islamic State.

Captain Perozeni was reprimanded earlier, in October, for failing to ensure his team was adequately trained before working with the Nigerien troops.

But the Pentagon rescinded that admonishment, which was issued by Maj. Gen. Edwin J. Deedrick Jr., the commanding officer of the First Special Forces Command. Jim Mattis, the defense secretary at the time, chided top military officials for improperly focusing on junior officers’ roles in the botched mission, rather than those of more senior officers.

Captain Perozeni had told his commanders that the team of Green Berets did not have the necessary equipment or intelligence for an unplanned raid on a local militant during the mission, and had asked to return to base.

Instead, Lt. Col. David Painter, a battalion commander based in Chad, ordered Captain Perozeni’s team to continue. It did, and was attacked by dozens of militants linked to the Islamic State.  www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/world/africa/army-reprimands-niger.html

Navy spokesman who moonlighted as Fat Leonard’s adviser sentenced to prison

A Navy captain described by his Pacific Fleet commander as the “standard-bearer in the public affairs community” was sentenced Friday to six months in prison for his role in the years-long “Fat Leonard” scandal that torpedoed dozens of naval officers’ careers.

Retired Capt. Jeffrey Breslau, 52, pleaded guilty in November to a felony charge that his business relationship with Leonard Glenn “Fat Leonard” Francis constituted a conflict of interest….

The so-called “Fat Leonard” scandal rocked the Navy and tarnished the reputation of a generation of officers.

Francis pleaded guilty in 2015 to orchestrating a massive bribery and corruption scheme involving scores of naval officers. His company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, served as the Navy’s primary ship husbanding agent in the western Pacific and, over the course of decades, over-charged the Navy $35 million in bogus or inflated fees.

A network of Navy officers and officials, including an NCIS agent, worked for years to thwart multiple investigations into Francis and his company and to steer Navy ships to ports controlled by his company. In exchange, Francis provided his network of corrupt officials with cash, travel, fine dining, lavish parties and prostitutes…

Francis was arrested in 2013 in a San Diego hotel room. In the five years since, 33 others have been charged in the scheme, with 22 pleading guilty. Hundreds more were investigated by the Navy.

U.S. Attorney Mark Pletcher, in comments during Breslau’s sentencing hearing, compared him to a “hired hitman, using a pen instead of a sword,” because Breslau used his Navy training to help Francis fight the Navy.  www.sandiegouniontribune.com/military/sd-me-breslau-sentence-fat-leonard-20190207-story.html

What will the Navy’s denial of Camp Lejeune claims mean for other contaminated bases?

Reminder: The brass doesn’t care! Jill Kelley e-mails depict a striving Tampa socialite and a smitten military brass

The Kelleys hosted Gen. David Petraeus and his wife, Holly Petraeus, right, at their home in 2010. At left is Jill’s twin, Natalie Khawam. (Amy Scherzer/AP)

Judging from her e-mails, Jill Kelley was star-struck by the big-name military commanders rotating between the war zones in the Middle East and her home town of Tampa. And they were equally smitten with her.

“Everyone thinks you’re a RockStar!” Kelley gushed in a 2012 e-mail to Marine Gen. James N. Mattis, then commander of all U.S. military forces in the Middle East. “We agreed how amazing it must be that you’re single-handedly re-writing history,” she added, recalling how she had sung the general’s praises to several foreign ambassadors at the Republican National Convention that August in Tampa.

After another social event, she wrote a similar mash note to Mattis’s deputy, Vice Adm. Robert S. Harward. “What a Leader you were to these heads of State,” she enthused. “You ROCK!!!”

Replied Harward: “YOU ROCK MORE!”

In late 2012, Kelley’s talent as a Tampa hostess and her knack for charming men in uniform indirectly triggered one of the most embarrassing national security scandals of the past decade. Among other casualties, the fallout led to the forced resignation of CIA Director David H. Petraeus — a former four-star Army general — and the early retirement of Marine Gen. John Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Kelley’s chumminess with Petraeus and the military brass had attracted the notice of the spymaster’s biographer and mistress, Paula Broadwell. Below

Two ships collide off the Eastern Seaboard

UC San Diego history prof’s book on fall of Rome’s democracy draws parallels to today

The parallels are striking: Rising income inequality. Partisan gridlock. The erosion of political norms and the loss of faith in public institutions. Angry populist uprisings.

Is America going the way of Rome?

…Wealth became concentrated in a small number of families who figured out how to manipulate an increasingly sophisticated economy, and they used their money to influence the political process. The fortunes of the middle class stagnated.

Attempts to address income inequality and ease public resentment moved slowly. Rome’s army was privatized, which eventually caused soldiers to put the interests of plundering commanders (and their own desires to share in the loot) ahead of their country.

Over the course of a century, starting in about 130 B.C., outbreaks of economic populism grew increasingly violent. Government rules were broken, traditions ignored, the notion of a common good trampled. Immigrants were disparaged. Politicians used their own militias to intimidate opponents, and when that didn’t work they sometimes turned to assassinations.  www.sandiegouniontribune.com/entertainment/books/sd-me-rome-history-20190131-story.html

This soldier shot himself in the head. His lawyer says it was an accident. The Army is calling it misconduct.

 

The Marine Corps’ new CH-53K is a mess. This is why its operational date could face delays.

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor         

                                     

General Motors to close Lordstown plant next year

General Motors has plans to shut the doors on its Lordstown plant sometime after March 1, according to reports by The Vindicator and WFMJ.

The Vindicator reports that several plant workers have confirmed the closure after they were informed about it in a Monday morning meeting.

WFMJ says the Lordstown plant had more than 4,500 employees less than two years ago, but that number has since fallen.

Union leaders and politicians who are behind a campaign backing the future of the plant say they’ll continue trying to convince GM that the plant can be a part of its future.

Ohio’s incoming governor, Republican Mike DeWine, says he plans on meeting with GM officials after he takes office in January.

The once-bustling factory already has lost two of its three shifts and 3,000 union jobs since last year.

Earlier today, the Associated Press reported GM is also closing a Canadian plant at the cost of about 2,500 jobs.  www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/northeast-ohio/general-motors-to-close-lordstown-plant-next-year/95-617716124

Government Motors’s pricey trucks and utilities drive hefty Q4, full-year profits

General Motors Co. relied on its profit-rich pickups to drive $2.8 billion in pre-tax earnings in the fourth quarter of 2018 as it spent about $1.3 billion on restructuring moves that are expected to ramp up this year.

The automaker reported a pre-tax profit margin of 8 percent on $11.8 billion in earnings for the full year, which was off about 8.3 percent from 2017. After taxes, the automaker made $8.1 billion on $147 billion in revenue.

GM’s financial performance in 2018 was considered strong despite falling off record-setting paces in 2017 and 2016 and came as the automaker took a $1 billion hit from costs related to trade and rising commodity costs due to tariffs. Robust sales and strong pricing on trucks and utilities helped GM achieve a strong finish in the fourth quarter.

“What drove these results was a flawless truck launch, and Q4 results were helped quite a bit by the fact that from a price-volume perspective our trucks did exceptionally well,” CFO Dhivya Suryadevara said. “We’re still seeing strength in recently launched crossovers.”

GM’s average transaction price in 2018 reached a record of $36,000 as incentives as a percent of average prices fell 0.3 percent from 2017.  www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-motors/2019/02/06/gm-reports-annual-quarterly-profit/2782281002/

General Motors threatens to sue union over Super Bowl ad

The war between Canada’s autoworker union and General Motors intensified over the weekend, with the automaker threatening to sue over a union commercial critical of GM set to air in Canada during Sunday’s Super Bowl.

On Friday, lawyers for GM wrote to Unifor, the Canadian union, with a “demand” that Unifor “cease and desist from any further publication (in any form and media whatsoever) of the advertisement.”

The union said it would not comply with GM’s demand.  www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2019/02/03/super-bowl-ad-gm-threatens-lawsuit-unifor-union/2762478002/

www.facebook.com/Lauren.Steiner.LA/videos/10218203032604101/?t=110

Abolish Billionaires

A radical idea is gaining adherents on the left. It’s the perfect way to blunt tech-driven inequality.

Last fall, Tom Scocca, editor of the essential blog Hmm Daily, wrote a tiny, searing post that has been rattling around my head ever since.

“Some ideas about how to make the world better require careful, nuanced thinking about how best to balance competing interests,” he began. “Others don’t: Billionaires are bad. We should presumptively get rid of billionaires. All of them.”

Mr. Scocca — a longtime writer at Gawker until that site was muffled by a billionaire — offered a straightforward argument for kneecapping the wealthiest among us. A billion dollars is wildly more than anyone needs, even accounting for life’s most excessive lavishes. It’s far more than anyone might reasonably claim to deserve, however much he believes he has contributed to society.

At some level of extreme wealth, money inevitably corrupts. On the left and the right, it buys political power, it silences dissent, it serves primarily to perpetuate ever-greater wealth, often unrelated to any reciprocal social good. For Mr. Scocca, that level is self-evidently somewhere around one billion dollars; beyond that, you’re irredeemable.  www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/opinion/abolish-billionaires-tax.html

The Financial Crisis Put a Chill on Big Bank Deals. That Ended Thursday.

In general, bank mergers tend to benefit shareholders and executives but translate into lost jobs and reduced competition, which hurts customers through higher prices and worse terms for banking products and services. BB&T and SunTrust executives insist that would not happen in this case because, while they plan to eliminate lots of jobs, they would plow the savings into technological innovations that fostered greater competition with the nation’s largest banks.  www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/business/dealbook/bbt-suntrust-bank-mergers.html?fbclid=IwAR3MPQJ7r5uBM8i2WfqB1sVxkUfb_CdzIURVau1X6_LLdXQbEFcgij1xYl4

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

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LvbWxFsM50

When It’s Too Late to Stop Fascism, According to Stefan Zweig

In his memoir, Zweig did not excuse himself or his intellectual peers for failing early on to reckon with Hitler’s significance. “The few among writers who had taken the trouble to read Hitler’s book, ridiculed the bombast of his stilted prose instead of occupying themselves with his program,” he wrote. They took him neither seriously nor literally. Even into the nineteen-thirties, “the big democratic newspapers, instead of warning their readers, reassured them day by day, that the movement . . . would inevitably collapse in no time.” Prideful of their own higher learning and cultivation, the intellectual classes could not absorb the idea that, thanks to “invisible wire-pullers”—the self-interested groups and individuals who believed they could manipulate the charismatic maverick for their own gain—this uneducated “beer-hall agitator” had already amassed vast support. After all, Germany was a state where the law rested on a firm foundation, where a majority in parliament was opposed to Hitler, and where every citizen believed that “his liberty and equal rights were secured by the solemnly affirmed constitution.”

Zweig recognized that propaganda had played a crucial role in eroding the conscience of the world. He described how, as the tide of propaganda rose during the First World War, saturating newspapers, magazines, and radio, the sensibilities of readers became deadened. Eventually, even well-meaning journalists and intellectuals became guilty of what he called “the ‘doping’ of excitement”—an artificial incitement of emotion that culminated, inevitably, in mass hatred and fear. Describing the healthy uproar that ensued after one artist’s eloquent outcry against the war in the autumn of 1914, Zweig observed that, at that point, “the word still had power. It had not yet been done to death by the organization of lies, by ‘propaganda.’ ” www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/when-its-too-late-to-stop-fascism-according-to-stefan-zweig?mbid=social_facebook&fbclid=IwAR2RCKe3y4KLTHLvWaBfbovSy0sdYSp_zIdH9byg5UJy-DwmA_J8TiWV4nI

Beyond College Campuses and Public Scandals, a Racist Tradition Lingers

A photo from the Delta Kappa Epsilon page in the Tulane University 1987 yearbook depicted members in blackface.

Nina Yeboah was a freshman at Georgia State University in 2004 when she heard about the pair of white fraternity brothers who had shown up at a “Straight Outta Compton” party in blackface.

Fifteen years later, she said, it still feels traumatic to talk about what would become a moment of embarrassment and pain on the Atlanta campus. As a student of color, said Ms. Yeboah, now a writer, “it kind of wakes you up to what racism is like in the community that you’re in.”

It has been a week of waking up.

What first appeared as a grotesque act of racist clowning on the part of Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia turned out not to be an aberration at his medical school in the early 1980s. A confession from Mark Herring, the state’s attorney general, revealed that blackface was common at other Virginia schools at the time as well….

College fraternities and sororities — among the most segregated institutions in modern American life — became a common setting for the behavior.

Before the scandal in the Virginia Capitol, universities had already begun to look deeply at the racism strewn across past yearbooks. At the University of Virginia, a commission that had been examining the institution’s past found copious examples of blackface, racist cartoons and racist stories in fake “slave dialects” in the early 20th century. Similarly vile things have been found in yearbooks at the University of Richmond. www.nytimes.com/2019/02/08/us/northam-blackface-virginia.html?fbclid=IwAR28WHuyjqfsyj6VufUS8XDsB_FxXcZxbaZcLWhhXy1Qw3QFuvETylg80nA

GOP leader apologizes for tweeting: ‘Time for another Kent State’

DETROIT — A county Republican leader in Michigan is under fire for seeming to suggest in his social media posts there should be a Kent State type of crackdown on violent protests like the one that erupted at a university in California last week.

But in an interview Sunday with the Detroit Free Press, Dan Adamini, the secretary of the Marquette County Republican Party, said he apologizes, supports peace and was merely trying to prevent further violence and hatred.

The Marquette resident said that he has received death threats and been harassed by people outraged over his remarks that refer to the 1970 shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University in Ohio by the Ohio National Guard. Nine other students were wounded in what many consider a turning point in public opinion about the Vietnam War.

Adamini, 56, tweeted Thursday after violent disturbances at the University of California-Berkley shut down plans for a senior editor at the far-right website Breitbart to speak on campus.

“Violent protesters who shut down free speech? Time for another Kent State perhaps. One bullet stops a lot of thuggery,” Adamini tweeted.

In a separate Facebook post, Adamini wrote: “I’m thinking that another Kent State might be the only solution…They do it because they know there are no consequences yet.”  www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/02/05/gop-leader-apologizes-kent-state/97533372/?fbclid=IwAR18acMHEwf-IeY_yQDwHl1PXETHhcErDL4NRhG7ysIkWpAx82mhAa9MMG4

Detroit firefighters battle growing health crisis

Emergency care claims an increasing share of firefighters’ workload

James Davis is speeding behind Detroit Fire Engine 44 to a west side motel for a cardiac arrest run. When he arrives, the outcome already seems clear.

“He’s ice cold,” said Davis, chief of the department’s 8th Battalion, after firefighters entered an upper-level room at the Bali Motel off Eight Mile to assess a fully dressed man lying on the floor with drug paraphernalia nearby.

The team begins compressing his chest and administers a nasal form of Narcan, an emergency treatment for suspected opioid overdoses. An EMS crew arrives and takes over, but Davis said it’s too late.

“They have enough knowledge and skill to know this guy is gone,” he said of the man that Detroit police on the scene confirm is from Hazel Park. “There’s no reviving him.”

This scenario that played out in July has become the daily reality for Detroit’s Fire Department since its firefighters have become cross-trained to administer emergency medical care, which now dominates the runs of many city fire companies amid an escalating opioid crisis.

The problem has gotten so bad that on one occasion, Davis noted, firefighters treated the same woman twice in the same day who had overdosed in two different locations.

The Detroit News conducted a series of interviews and went along on all-access emergency runs with Detroit firefighters between July and October to better understand the daily pressures placed on the department.  www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2019/02/08/detroit-firefighters-battle-growing-health-crisis/1145766002/

Giving Water to the Thirsty Now Officially a Crime: No More Deaths Volunteers Convicted

In the United States in 2019, humanitarian aid has become a crime in the eyes of hardline judges enforcing inhumane immigration policies. The first four volunteers in the trial of the “Cabeza Nine” volunteers from No More Deaths / No Más Muertes (NMD), a ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson, were convicted of “abandonment of property” for leaving gallons of water in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge located in Arizona, and now each face a maximum of six months in prison and a $500 fine. A date for sentencing has not yet been set.

This was a frustrating and disheartening conclusion to the first of three trials the volunteers are facing for direct humanitarian aid since receiving citations in August 2017. One volunteer, Scott Warren, faces harboring and conspiracy felony charges for “human trafficking” after reportedly providing food and water to migrants crossing the desert. An investigation by The Intercept exposed a disturbing level of coordination between U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to target NMD and criminalize their humanitarian work.

The Cabeza Prieta and surrounding desert are one of the deadliest areas along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, and hundreds of migrants have died or disappeared there.  www.uusc.org/giving-water-to-the-thirsty-now-officially-a-crime-no-more-deaths-volunteers-convicted/?fbclid=IwAR3LuKnWVKjGbGfYB8oz5yAI0DpwuprzBWiiMlqI89tEe4-uUQZGCfZKyJQ

 

Solidarity for Never

Reminder:

 

“Mokita” is the term used by the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea for a truth that everybody knows but no one talks about. Corruption is mokita in the AFL-CIO. For generations, in the construction, longshore, hospitality, and teamster unions, mobsters have had more influence than the members in choosing the leaders; pension funds are stolen; and bribes smooth the way for contractors to replace union members with lower-paid non-union workers. To control union wrongdoing, the Justice Department routinely resorts to the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, treating labor unions as criminal enterprises. In defense, union leaders provide politicians huge contributions— essentially for Get Out of Jail Free cards.

Even though, as a Harris Poll released just before Labor Day 2005 showed, most union households disapprove of American unions, the main reason for their disapproval is never openly discussed in union media or addressed at union conventions. “Sure, unions are flawed,” the defenders of American unions will concede when pressed. “They have people in them. So what do you expect? But they’re like democracy: a flawed solution that is preferable to any of its competitors.”

But it’s misleading to blame the pervasive corruption of American unions on human nature or on the nature of unionism. You don’t find gangsters running European unions.

Nor does blaming the values of American business culture get us far. Even the leftists who ostentatiously reject those values somehow wind up living by them when they become American union leaders.

Corruption flows rather from the retarded development of American unions, which still haven’t broken out of nineteenth-century models of labor organization. The classic aim of the American union is still to monopolize a territory; the means—an exclusive bargaining contract; the result— 20,000 local unions that inevitably behave more like semiautonomous fiefdoms than like a genuine labor movement pursuing the common good for working people.  www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5181842

Spy versus Spy

Teaching Activities for: ‘I Spy at New York’s Museum of Deception’

 

Watch this short video from The News International about Spyscape, a new espionage museum in Manhattan

What did you see that was most appealing to you, and why?

Would you want to visit a spy museum? Why or why not?

Now, read the article, “I Spy at New York’s Museum of Deception,” and answer the following questions:

1. How was Bill Hamilton welcomed when he entered Spyscape in Midtown Manhattan?

2. What are some of the design features of the new museum? What other museum was designed by the same person?

3. What interactive, immersive features does the museum offer, and what was Mr. Hamilton’s experience?  www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/learning/teaching-activities-for-i-spy-at-new-yorks-museum-of-deception.html

It’s No Secret That Espionage Is This Collector’s Passion

…Mr. Melton’s most prized acquisition took him 40 years to find, the ice ax a Soviet agent used in 1940 to kill the exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky as he sat reading inside his Mexico City compound. The ax finally surfaced in 2005: The curator of a Mexican police museum had given it to his daughter, who then stashed it under her bed for 30 years, Mr. Melton said. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

When the ax finally emerged, how did you know it was genuine?

KEITH MELTON No. 1, I have a paper trail going back to the Mexican police evidence room since 1946. No. 2, this was a very obscure type of ax made only in 1928. Third and most definitive is the rust pattern on the blade. Photos taken on the evening of the assassination reveal a bloody fingerprint. A friend at the F.B.I. helped confirm every speck of this rust is exactly consistent with the contour of the fingerprint.

What was the price? Six figures?

KAREN MELTON [smiles and silently jerks her thumb skyward]  www.nytimes.com/2019/01/29/arts/design/show-us-your-wall-h-keith-melton.html

Canadian Diplomats Sue Their Government Over Mysterious Cuban Disease

Canadian diplomats who were posted to Cuba are suing their government, claiming that it failed to protect them and to respond robustly to a mysterious illness they acquired while stationed in Cuba.

The illness, known as Havana Syndrome, has affected dozens of American and Canadian diplomats posted to Cuba, some of whom have come down with symptoms like memory loss, sleep disturbance and nosebleeds, after saying they heard a strange high-pitched sound.

The suit, which was filed this week in a federal court in Toronto, says the Canadian government has been too slow to respond and did not provide sufficient medical treatment after diplomats and their children were targeted in 2017 by strange “debilitating attacks” that resulted in brain injuries without any evident physical trauma.

Paul Miller, the lawyer representing the 14 diplomats, spouses and children who are suing, compared the attack that preceded their illnesses to “a science fiction horror film.”  www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/world/canada/havana-syndrome-canada.html

Venezuela says plane from Miami delivered weapons for use by enemies of Maduro

The Magical Mystery Tour

Ungodly abuse: The lasting torment of the New Tribes missionary kids

When the clock struck 8 p.m. inside the Aritao boarding school in the Philippines, the children would gather in a common area for their evening routine.

A nightly devotional. A Bible reading. Prayers.

The children were the sons and daughters of American evangelical missionaries. The sessions were led by mission caretakers known as the “dorm dad” and “dorm mom.”

When the prayers were over, the boys and girls as young as 6 would march off to bed. Sometimes, the dorm dad would trail behind the girls, slip into their rooms and do ungodly things to them in the dead of night.

He would put “his hands under the covers and would touch me,” recalled Joy Drake, who says the sexual abuse started when she was 9.

“I would pretend that I was sleeping because I was terrified that he would get angry or something worse would happen if I moved. So I’d hold my breath and wait til it was over.”

The Aritao school was run by a Florida-based group formerly known as New Tribes Mission, one of the largest Christian missionary organizations in the world.

New Tribes missionaries have operated in more than a dozen countries, spreading the gospel in some of the most remote corners of the globe.  www.snapnetwork.org/ungodly_abuse_the_lasting_torment_feb19

SNAP Stands in Solidarity with Nuns who have been Victimized by Clergy

Our hearts ache for the thousands of nuns who have been sexually abused and harassed by priests, bishops and other Catholic clerics. We are glad their plight is finally attracting attention but feel compelled to stress that when it comes to the Church hierarchy, awareness does  not guarantee action.

It is worth noting that, once again, a clergy sex scandal surfaces only because of outside pressure on the Vatican. Sometimes, it is a prosecutor or governmental body or an external study that achieves prompt disclosure. This time, it was investigative journalism. We are grateful for all those individuals and institutions who keep chipping away at this ancient, rigid, male-dominated hierarchy that remains so dreadfully committed to secrecy.

We share the view of Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability who said that she is “bewildered that the pope verifying this should make headlines — it‘s an epidemic problem in certain areas. The Vatican has documentation on likely tens of thousands of cases of sexual violence, and so when a Vatican official or the pope makes a pronouncement as if it’s occurring to them for the first time — as if they’re identifying a problem for the first time — it strikes me as disingenuous.”

Those who have been sexually assaulted by priests, bishops, brothers, seminarians, deacons and yes, nuns, have heard many pledges of reform from Catholic officials over the years, and have witnessed these promises fall short. So we are not in the least encouraged by the pope’s claim that high-ranking church staff has the will to stop this horror.  www.snapnetwork.org/snap_stands_in_solidarity_with_nuns_feb19

www.facebook.com/watsonvillepolicedepartment/videos/555352421633515/?t=3

Nun’s Rape Case Against Bishop Shakes a Catholic Bastion in India

When Bishop Franco Mulakkal agreed to personally celebrate the First Communion for Darly’s son, a rare honor in their Catholic Church in India, the family was overcome with pride.

During the ceremony, Darly looked over at her sister, a nun who worked with the bishop, to see her eyes spilling over with tears — tears of joy, she figured. But only later would she learn of her sister’s allegation that the night before, the bishop had summoned the nun to his quarters and raped her. The family says that was the first assault in a two-year ordeal in which the prelate raped her 13 times.

The bishop, who has maintained his innocence, will be charged and face trial by a special prosecutor on accusations of rape and intimidation, the police investigating the case said. But the church acknowledged the nun’s accusations only after five of her fellow nuns mutinied and publicly rallied to her side to draw attention to her yearlong quest for justice, despite what they described as heavy pressure to remain silent.

“We used to see the fathers of the church as equivalent to God, but not anymore,” said Darly, her voice shaking with emotion. “How can I tell my son about this, that the person teaching us the difference between right and wrong gave him his First Communion after committing such a terrible sin?”   www.nytimes.com/2019/02/09/world/asia/nun-rape-india-bishop.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH25EUgFMmI

Netflix Subscribers: Check out the Sam Cooke Documentary

www.facebook.com/DurhamMinersGala/videos/748912915303952/?t=20

Armed Antifa Groups March in Stone Mountain, Neo-Confederates Don’t Show

The event dubbed “Rock Stone Mountain” had been planned for months and was expected to attract white nationalist activists, but was cancelled right before taking place. The antifa coalition, which donned the name FLOWER (“Frontline organizations working together to end racism”) stuck with their original plan to assemble outside the park.

The park itself had announced Friday night that it wouldn’t allow anyone inside.

FLOWER’s coalition included communists, socialists, unions, left-wing militias, and other left-wing activists.

The group marched around the Stone Mountain community as a “victory lap” for the cancelled right-wing event.

“The nightmare scenario is that somebody decides to be a lone wolf and pulls something like what happened in Charlottesville,” an organizer who wished to be identified as “Firebug” said before the event. To that end, the group had left-wing militia groups with long rifles and shotguns act as a roving perimeter around the demonstration.  news2share.com/start/2019/02/02/armed-antifa-groups-march-in-stone-mountain-neo-confederates-dont-show/?fbclid=IwAR3RiVhQ4raVJg_0NKcqwEUw2AJE9CUvMFmuOE0sGQH-7PFUzIfM9w8nG6U

Rainbow over Half Dome

KKK imperial wizard Frank Ancona is found dead in Missouri

Frank Ancona, the outspoken imperial wizard of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was found shot to death Saturday near Belgrade, Mo.

The body of the 51-year-old Leadwood, Mo., resident was discovered near the Big River by a family fishing in the area, according to Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen in southeast Missouri.

Washington County coroner Brian DeClue told The Kansas City Star that Ancona died of a gunshot wound to the head.

www.facebook.com/97543324363/videos/2042193509407293/?t=4

 

 

 

www.facebook.com/the.vintage.everyday/videos/1655086581197131/?t=23

So Long

‘Mustard Man’ at Woolworth’s 1963 sit-in celebrated by maroon and gold

He was a civil rights activist and academic.

The son of a Native American who taught at an all-black college.

A bold demonstrator in the bloody 1963 Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in that focused intense national debate on segregation.

A personal friend and associate of NAACP head Medgar Evers, who was assassinated at his Mississippi home by a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

John Randall Salter Jr., who received two degrees from Arizona State University in the 1950s and 1960s, died Jan. 7 at his home in Pocatello, Idaho, of natural causes. He was 84.

“Beyond alumni, beyond student and teacher, beyond any label we might have, we are all humans,” said ASU President Michael M. Crow. “And to stand up for your fellow humans, to take the hard path and challenge the status quo, to say, ‘This is wrong’ and then do something about it — this is an example of greatness. The ASU community has lost a true changemaker in John R. Salter.”

Social justice warrior

Though a lifelong social justice activist, Salter’s defining moment occurred in his late 20s when he answered the call by NAACP State Field Secretary Medgar Evers to join several students from Mississippi’s historically black Tougaloo College at a segregated lunch counter inside the F.W. Woolworth’s retail store on Capitol Street in downtown Jackson. The May 28, 1963, controversy erupted in chaos and violence when activists ordered service.

The peaceful protesters were taunted and brutalized by a hostile mob, who doused them with sugar, mustard and ketchup. Many of the women were pulled off their stools by their hair while the men were brutally beaten — some knocked unconscious and taken to the hospital. Salter later recalled in interviews that he had been attacked with brass knuckles and broken glass. He also had cigarettes stubbed out on his back and neck, leaving permanent scars.

We learned later that local radio stations were encouraging people to go there and participate in mob activity,” Salter recalled in a 2015 article for The Guardian, a British daily newspaper. “All the while the air was filled with obscenities, the N-word — it was a lavish display of unbridled hatred.”

The taunting and torment went on for three hours before police grudgingly ended the protest, mostly to prevent damage to the store when the mob began throwing merchandise.

A photo taken by Fred Blackwell of the Jackson Daily News forever preserved the moment in history and was later used in various teaching textbooks.

In Jackson, Salter earned the nickname “Mustard Man” because the photo showed him drenched in condiments.  asunow.asu.edu/20190116-arizona-impact-mustard-man-woolworths-1963-sit-celebrated-maroon-and-gold?fbclid=IwAR2H0YjbxoL_k3UQkhivD79BBLbxdV8eKMMUzkq_lOa6WmMsxsV3uSrxcBw