We Say Fight Back!

LAUSD Teachers Have Set A Date To Go On Strike

For more than a year, parents of the 480,000 students in the Los Angeles Unified School District have anxiously watched a low-simmering contract dispute with the district’s teachers union, wondering when the feud might boil over.

On Wednesday, parents got their answer.

Teachers union leaders announced they will call a strike on Jan. 10 if they haven’t reached a contract agreement with LAUSD by then. It would be the first work stoppage called by United Teachers Los Angeles since the union’s nine-day strike in 1989.

At a press conference, UTLA president Alex Caputo-Pearl said union negotiators would not return to the bargaining table until the district takes “a different approach to having discussions.”

“We’re not going to go through another 20 months of unfair bargaining practices on the part of the district,” Caputo-Pearl said. “We have several core issues they’ve literally never responded to — around early education, regulation of charter [schools], limiting standardized tests.”

“The district knows where we are,” Caputo-Pearl added. “We’re right down the street from each other.”

The announcement comes one day after a neutral third party — known as a fact-finder — unveiled recommendations for settling the dispute.

But neither UTLA nor LAUSD is bound to accept the fact-finder’s suggestions. With the release of the fact-finder’s report, there’s nothing to legally stop UTLA from striking.  laist.com/2018/12/19/lausd_teachers_set_a_strike_date.php

www.facebook.com/OaklandEA/videos/792874694394507/?t=54

A Database of Fugitive Slave Ads Reveals Thousands of Untold Resistance Stories

“Ironically, in trying to retrieve their property — the people they claimed as things — enslavers left us mounds of evidence about the humanity of the people they bought and sold,” Dr. Mary Niall Mitchell, professor of early American history at the University of New Orleans and one of the three lead historians on FOTM, told Hyperallergic. The other two historians are Joshua Rothman of the University of Alabama and Edward E. Baptist (author of the 2016 The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism) of Cornell University.  hyperallergic.com/435183/freedom-on-the-move/?fbclid=IwAR2mttpGX-nSOOWsb-WcPMzY2z-I5sp5mfE0UPLg1wOJEyPm6RBzQKWLCkk

 

PSC President Bowen Among 17 Union Members Jailed for Protest

 

www.facebook.com/teleSUREnglish/videos/343174612901389/?t=23

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And happy new years

 

www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/

Review: The Einstein File Exposes the FBI as an Enemy of All the People

The FBI’s secret war against the most famous scientist on earth failed to stop Einstein from supporting social justice at the height of the Red Scare.

“The Einstein File reminds us that the FBI has always been an enemy of the people and a tool of the oligarchs that rule the country.”

Most people living in the United States know little about Albert Einstein. What people do know of Einstein is usually confined to his many achievements in the realm of science. Fred Jerome’s updated version of The Einstein File: The FBI’s Secret War Against the World’s Most Famous Scientistanalyzes the enormous FBI file compiled on the world-renowned scientist. The book, originally published in 2002, has been updated to include contributions from fellow Black Agenda Report editor Ajamu Baraka and scientist David Suzuki as well as additional analysis on the implications of Einstein’s file for the current political situation. Jerome’s update provides readers with a glimpse into Einstein’s political life and an overview of a period of history characterized by the emergence of US hegemony, fascism, and worldwide socialist struggle.

The update of the book couldn’t come at a more pertinent time. The FBI and its intelligence partners are attempting a public relations revival under the Trump Administration. Like the first Cold War, Russia is the US intelligence apparatus’ object of scorn.  blackagendareport.com/review-einstein-file-exposes-fbi-enemy-all-people?fbclid=IwAR0PS1b1BaPM7jtsztv3BrBVWwMaN-loZCa_Wq5MkjDoyZ49xX-GYXBdXhEhttps://norcalrecord.com/stories/511659245-paradise-families-sue-pacific-gas-and-electric-company-for-fires-attorney-alleges-company-knew-of-dangers?fbclid=IwAR0af3B13LkM9EfklT1XRt18VjMQuz2C1jnU5B-z04rswqPD8fwwFy0_JXs#.XBZm4wqR-YE.facebook

Opposition in Hungary Demonstrates Against Orban, in Rare Display of Dissent

Opponents of Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orban, demonstrated on Sunday for the fourth day in the past five, in what has become one of the most sustained displays of street opposition to Mr. Orban since he entered office eight years ago.

The protests began on Wednesday as a reaction to two new laws: one that forces employees to work up to 400 hours of overtime a year, and a second that created a parallel judicial system that will severely undermine judicial independence.

By Sunday, the demonstrations had become a catchall protest against many aspects of Mr. Orban’s increasingly autocratic governance.

The protesters, whose numbers peaked at an estimated 15,000 on Sunday, held relatively small events, given that Mr. Orban was re-elected in April with nearly 50 percent of the vote in an election that observers said was free but not fair.

But analysts were struck by the rare unity of the protesters, which included several parties from across Hungary’s fragmented political spectrum, and also by their persistence. They braved below-freezing temperatures, despite being branded as treasonous agents of George Soros, the Hungarian-American philanthropist, by most major private and public media outlets, which are mostly controlled by allies of Mr. Orban.

Around 2,000 protesters marched several miles through the snow to the edge of Budapest late Sunday night to gather outside the state media headquarters, which has become a symbol of Mr. Orban’s government because of its constant support for the prime minister’s agenda.

“Factory of lies,” the crowd chanted outside the building…     www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/world/europe/hungary-protests-viktor-orban.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR1MmHz0RyT-rd2tLNGIFYkFZ3zDzPdnbipnjZReJYJqAmQkm6JuHjRsf1E

 

The Little Red Schoolhouse

www.facebook.com/theinterceptflm/videos/1695737547198526/?t=42

On top of a state audit, Sweetwater schools face $11 million negative fund balance after previously projecting a surplus

State and county officials say they have reason to believe that Sweetwater Union High School District officials committed fraud and are moving forward with a state audit that would examine whether the district covered up financial shortfalls, as state experts have alleged.

Meanwhile the district is facing a negative fund balance of $11 million at the end of this school year, after it claimed two months ago that it would end the year with a surplus.

The San Diego County Office of Education announced on Monday night that it would have the school district audited over potential fraud and mismanagement of funds after a state fiscal team revealed that the district has been misrepresenting its finances for years.

The district has repeatedly under-reported its spending and over-estimated its revenue, according to the fiscal team’s report. On more than 300 occasions, the district logged unexplained budget entries that made the district seem as if it were spending less than it actually was, said Michael Fine, CEO of the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, the independent state agency that conducted an analysis of the district’s finances in October.  www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/sd-me-sweetwater-crisis-20181218-story.html?fbclid=IwAR33HKinGTRZjcZfoWcxVUprV5HrqzAQanVZuBKy7RLo1Q7hHybXx0Y-jUU

State Investigators Say There’s Evidence of a Financial ‘Cover-Up’ in Sweetwater

Sweetwater Union High School District officials have denied repeatedly they knew anything about the district’s overspending until it suddenly came to light last September. But a new state report suggests some district employees may have committed criminal fraud.

During a strange and dramatic board meeting Monday night – with reshuffled agenda items and a damning government report – state officials accused Sweetwater Union High School District employees of knowingly covering up the district’s ongoing financial crisis, triggered by massive overspending.

District officials have denied repeatedly they knew anything about the district’s overspending until it suddenly came to light last September. They have described it as an accident that could be attributed to innocent accounting errors and inefficient budget software. But the new report, from the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, challenges that narrative. It suggests some district employees may have committed criminal fraud.

FCMAT’s chief executive officer Michael Fine told board members that 302 entries in the district’s accounting system were doctored to create the impression the district had more money than it really did. “That my friends and colleagues, is a cover-up,” he said, eliciting an audible gasp from board members and others in the room.

Sweetwater’s superintendent Karen Janney refused to comment when I asked her about the suggestion of fraud. “We have a lot of work to do,” she said. When pressed again, she said, “I’m not gonna comment on that right now,” and walked out of the board’s public meeting room.

Fine did not speculate on who might have been behind the alleged cover-up. Several of Sweetwater’s top financial workers, including chief financial officer Karen Michel, retired over the summer. A Sweetwater spokesman told me previously those retirements were pre-planned.  www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/state-investigators-say-theres-evidence-of-a-financial-cover-up-in-sweetwater/?utm_source=Voice+of+San+Diego+Master+List&utm_campaign=6670a15283-VOSD_Podcast&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c2357fd0a3-6670a15283-81862829&goal=0_c2357fd0a3-6670a15283-81862829

City College to drop one third of class offerings over 7 years

City College of San Francisco administrators say they need to permanently cancel as much as a third of the school’s class offerings over the next several years to fix what they describe as 20-year structural budget problem.

The college passed a $185 million operating budget in August which includes an $11 million deficit, down from a $25 million deficit the year before. But in order to reach a balanced budget, City College Chancellor Mark Rocha told the Board of Trustees earlier this month that the college must stop offering approximately 400 historically under-enrolled credit classes. The college currently offers “dozens” of majors that graduate fewer than 10 students a year, he said.

“Community college over the years have what we call classic mission creep,” Rocha said at a Board of Trustees study session on Dec. 4. “These courses over a period of time have to go, or else the college cost structure will just be unsustainable.”

Rocha said the college needs to focus on expanding courses required for students to transfer to four-year universities, which generate the majority of the college’s revenue. A new state law also requires the college to receive more of its funding based on graduation rates. The administration characterized the new focus as “student-centered.”

Some City College advocates are pushing back against the idea of transitioning City College into what they described as more of a “junior college” than a “community college.”

“I think the question at the center of this structural problem is what a community college today in San Francisco should look like,” said Trustee Alex Randolph. “I don’t want [us] to forget that the third of the three core tenets of a community college in the state of California is lifelong learning.”  www.sfexaminer.com/city-college-drop-one-third-class-offerings-7-years/?fbclid=IwAR295_c-oS9WXiwA3rDBc_N4pFjSjxVs0-gWMYDCxRSW00FD6zWz814SK0g

How should we make sure our kids learn to be good citizens?

For schools looking for ways to squeeze in more instructional time for young learners, preschool and kindergarten nap time can be a tempting target.

But emerging sleep research suggests cutting out the afternoon snooze can come at the expense of some children’s longer-term ability to remember what they learn.

There’s no nationwide data on how many students nap in school. But in an ongoing series of experiments funded by the National Science Foundation, cognitive researchers Rebecca Spencer of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Tracy Riggins of the University of Maryland are tracking how young children make the transition from napping to not, and what happens if that transition is forced.

A major review of sleep research in 2015 found no benefit to forcing children to sleep if they have outgrown it, but Riggins and Spencer suggest the transition out of napping is not uniform.

“Transitioning out of naps is not a switch,” Spencer said. “A lot of developmental milestones are happening around [early grades], and as they happen, the naps come and go. They may be done napping now, but a month from now, they may be back on for a nap.”  www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/12/12/nap-time-boosts-learning-studies-say.html?r=1128661982&cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2&M=58700498&U=2075931&UUID=46048324bb29698793cb0230d913a743&fbclid=IwAR3qep6UQDfgynCliSg842LrpaXxnisX4Pql7dbqgpNByEj3NKJfhhVHiQo&mkey=B31B8A92-04ED-11E9-B882-9BE8C819EBCD

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

‘A torrent of ghastly revelations’: what military service taught me about America

My first and only war tour took place in Afghanistan in 2010. I was a US Marine lieutenant then, a signals intelligence officer tasked with leading a platoon-size element of 80 to 90 men, spread across an area of operations the size of my home state of Connecticut, in the interception and exploitation of enemy communications. That was the official job description, anyway. The year-long reality consisted of a tangle of rearguard management and frontline supervision.

Years before Helmand province, Afghanistan, however, there was Twentynine Palms, California. From the summer of 2006 to the summer of 2007, I was trained as a lance corporal in my military occupational specialty of tactical data systems administration (a specialty I would later jettison after earning my officer commission in 2008). My schoolhouse was the Marine Corps Communication-Electronics School, which was abbreviated as MCCES, pronounced “mick-sess”. For many, the wider location became “Twentynine Stumps” or “the Stumps”. But for me it just became “the Palms”.

Our time at the Palms was preceded by three weeks of marine combat training at Camp Geiger, North Carolina, and, before that, 12 weeks of Marine basic training at Parris Island, South Carolina. The progression from Parris Island to Geiger to the Palms signalled, on the face of it, a slow return from barbaric intrigue to the tedium of civilisation. Boot camp was everything you might have gathered from films you’ve seen.  www.theguardian.com/news/2018/dec/18/torrent-of-ghastly-revelations-what-military-service-taught-me-about-america-us-marine-corps-afghanistan?utm_term=RWRpdG9yaWFsX0d1YXJkaWFuVG9kYXlVUy0xODEyMTg%3D&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUS&CMP=GTUS_email&fbclid=IwAR2YQIzpKWFse7RlbPpAYF7UImjxgljOOm8qOA2zhlbu43hBS4i2FLs6ZfA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs7F83acCj4

US troops are leaving (Trump Fleeing), but ISIS is not defeated in Syria

Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State, has accelerated his resignation, telling colleagues this weekend that he could not in good conscience carry out President Trump’s newly declared policy of withdrawing American troops from Syria.

Mr. McGurk, a seasoned diplomat who was considered by many to be the glue holding together the sprawling international coalition fighting the terrorist group, was supposed to retire in February. But according to an email he sent his staff, he decided to move his departure forward to Dec. 31 after Mr. Trump did not heed his own commanders and blindsided America’s allies in the region by abruptly ordering the withdrawal of the 2,000 troops.

His decision comes right after the departure of Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, whose own resignation letter was seen as a rebuke of the president’s actions in the region.

“The recent decision by the president came as a shock and was a complete reversal of policy that was articulated to us,” Mr. McGurk said in the email to his colleagues. “It our coalition partners confused and our fighting partners bewildered,” he added.

Here’s what may be driving a US troop withdrawal from Syria

Iraq’s Post-ISIS Campaign of Revenge

The corruption and cruelty of the state’s response to suspected jihadis and their families seem likely to lead to the resurgence of the terror group.

The Islamic State has been mostly destroyed on the battlefield, but the war is far from over. Air strikes cannot kill an idea, and so it has fallen to Iraq’s fractured security, intelligence, and justice systems to try to finish the task. But, insofar as there is a strategy, it seems almost perfectly crafted to bring about the opposite of its intent. American and Iraqi military officials spent years planning the campaign to rid Iraq of ISIS, as if the absence of the jihadis would automatically lead Iraq toward the bright democratic future that George W. Bush’s Administration had envisaged when U.S. forces invaded the country, in 2003. But ISIS has always derived much of its dangerous appeal from the corruption and cruelty of the Iraqi state.  www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/24/iraqs-post-isis-campaign-of-revenge

Reminder How Many Wars Is the US Really Fighting?

Hint: the answer is way more than you think.

This year, US Special Operations forces have already deployed to 135 nations, according to Ken McGraw, a spokesman for Special Operations Command (SOCOM). That’s roughly 70 percent of the countries on the planet. Every day, in fact, America’s most elite troops are carrying out missions in 80 to 90 nations, practicing night raids or sometimes conducting them for real, engaging in sniper training or sometimes actually gunning down enemies from afar. As part of a global engagement strategy of endless hush-hush operations conducted on every continent but Antarctica, they have now eclipsed the number and range of special ops missions undertaken at the height of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the waning days of the Bush administration, Special Operations forces (SOF) were reportedly deployed in only about 60 nations around the world. By 2010, according to the Washington Post, that number had swelled to 75. Three years later, it had jumped to 134 nations, “slipping” to 133 last year, before reaching a new record of 135 this summer. This 80 percent increase over the last five years is indicative of SOCOM’s exponential expansion which first shifted into high gear following the 9/11 attacks.

Special Operations Command’s funding, for example, has more than tripled from about $3 billion in 2001 to nearly $10 billion in 2014 “constant dollars,” according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).  www.thenation.com/article/how-many-wars-is-the-us-really-fighting/

Michael Klare, The Coming of Hyperwar

“Alexa, Launch Our Nukes!”
Artificial Intelligence and the Future of War

There could be no more consequential decision than launching atomic weapons and possibly triggering a nuclear holocaust. President John F. Kennedy faced just such a moment during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and, after envisioning the catastrophic outcome of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear exchange, he came to the conclusion that the atomic powers should impose tough barriers on the precipitous use of such weaponry. Among the measures he and other global leaders adopted were guidelines requiring that senior officials, not just military personnel, have a role in any nuclear-launch decision.

That was then, of course, and this is now. And what a now it is! With artificial intelligence, or AI, soon to play an ever-increasing role in military affairs, as in virtually everything else in our lives, the role of humans, even in nuclear decision-making, is likely to be progressively diminished. In fact, in some future AI-saturated world, it could disappear entirely, leaving machines to determine humanity’s fate.

This isn’t idle conjecture based on science fiction movies or dystopian novels. It’s all too real, all too here and now, or at least here and soon to be. As the Pentagon and the military commands of the other great powers look to the future, what they see is a highly contested battlefield — some have called it a “hyperwar” environment — where vast swarms of AI-guided robotic weapons will fight each other at speeds far exceeding the ability of human commanders to follow the course of a battle. At such a time, it is thought, commanders might increasingly be forced to rely on ever more intelligent machines to make decisions on what weaponry to employ when and where. At first, this may not extend to nuclear weapons, but as the speed of battle increases and the “firebreak” between them and conventional weaponry shrinks, it may prove impossible to prevent the creeping automatization of even nuclear-launch decision-making.

Such an outcome can only grow more likely as the U.S. military completes a top-to-bottom realignment intended to transform it from a fundamentally small-war, counter-terrorist organization back into one focused on peer-against-peer combat with China and Russia.  www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176509/?fbclid=IwAR20NNp0_KpJW8CrmDcnooe_epiwP_Zrp22ONMik_kC5JIMsbAQuOdIA4u4

U.S. to plan withdrawal of up to 7,000 troops from Afghanistan, officials say

The Pentagon is developing plans to withdraw up to half of the 14,000 American troops serving in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Thursday, marking a sharp change in the Trump administration’s policy aimed at forcing the Taliban to the peace table after more than 17 years of war.

One official said the troops could be out by summer, but no final decision has been made.

President Trump has long pushed to pull troops out of Afghanistan, considering the war a lost cause. But earlier this year, he was persuaded by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and others military leaders to keep troops on the ground to pressure the Taliban and battle a stubborn Islamic State insurgency. Officials said the latest White House push for withdrawal was another key factor in Mattis’ decision to resign Thursday.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

U.S. troops stormed into Afghanistan in November 2001 in an invasion triggered by the Sept. 11 attacks.

Since then, America has lost more than 2,400 soldiers and spent more than $900 billion in its longest war. Three U.S. presidents have pledged to bring peace to Afghanistan, either by adding or withdrawing troops, by engaging the Taliban or shunning them, and by struggling to combat widespread corruption in the government.

The U.S. and NATO formally concluded their combat mission in 2014, but American and allied troops remain, conducting strikes on the Islamic State group and the Taliban and working to train and build the Afghan military.

Taliban insurgents, however, control nearly half of Afghanistan and are more powerful than at any time since a 2001 U.S.-led invasion. They carry out near-daily attacks, mainly targeting security forces and government officials. www.richgibson.com/blog/wp-admin/post.php?post=22378&action=edit&classic-editor

www.facebook.com/ComradeStalins/videos/737858006546732/?t=14

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor     

‘Time for a Jubilee!’: US Student Loan Debt Hits Record $1.46 Trillion. Funny, That’s More Than GOP’s Corporate-Friendly Tax Giveaway

It’s been almost a year since the Republican Party and President Donald Trump delivered their behemoth giveaway to the nation’s corporations and wealthiest individuals by passing a $1.5 trillion controversial tax bill that will ultimately blow a $5 trillion hole—or larger—in the nation’s budget.

On Monday morning, Bloomberg reported that the amount of U.S. student loan debt has more than doubled since 2009 and now sits at a record $1.47 trillion.         

That’s interesting. Those numbers are very similar in size.

Meanwhile, also on Monday morning, Forbes noted how—due to the fraudulent practices of for-profit colleges and under orders from a federal court—the U.S. Department of Education will cancel $150 million in student loans, proving the federal government does, indeed, have the power to leverage its authority to correct an economic wrong.

As good as it might be for those students who are having their debt cancelled, $150 million is just 0.01 percent of the nearly $1.5 trillion in overall student debt liability.

While a majority loans are held by private institutions, Paul Della Guardia, economist at the Institute of International Finance, explained to Bloomberg that “over 90% of student loans are guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Education.” When the next economic downturn hits or if “a recession causes a rise in youth unemployment and triggers mass defaults,” warned Della Guardia, “this contingent liability could prove burdensome for the U.S. government budget.”

So if it’s possible to forgive a small portion of the overall student debt—and if the country can afford to give away $1.5 trillion in tax revenue, mostly to the wealthy and companies that don’t need it—why not just forgive all of the outstanding U.S. student debt?  www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/17/time-jubilee-us-student-loan-debt-hits-record-146-trillion-funny-thats-more-gops?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork&fbclid=IwAR052xbYiy5I2AzT2vRJuD4UpAMVtiJFffk0w0rLWi8H0C5Y2j-GoXokUtE

                      

The less you eat, drink and buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save – the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour – your capital. The less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have, i.e., the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being. Everything which the political economist takes from you in life and in humanity, he replaces for you in money and in wealth; and all the things which you cannot do, your money can do.

It can eat and, drink, go to the dance hall and the theatre; it can travel, it can appropriate art, learning, the treasures of the past, political power – all this it can appropriate for you – it can buy all this: it is true endowment. Yet being all this, it wants to do nothing but create itself, buy itself; for everything else is after all its servant, and when I have the master I have the servant and do not need his servant. All passions and all activity must therefore be submerged in avarice. The worker may only have enough for him to want to live, and may only want to live in order to have that.

www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/needs.htm?fbclid=IwAR2W26I7kSRo0X3lsaA5WEcAJgkP2jR36-IAZZmC7fG3skfNsfDH-UPCen4

GM laying off 50 workers at Brownstown plant

The loss of General Motors Co.’s plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt will affect nearly half of the employees at the automaker’s battery assembly plant in Brownstown Township.

GM filed a notice with the State of Michigan this week stating it will lay off 50 at Brownstown Battery, including 37 hourly workers represented by the United Auto Workers. A total of 116 workers are currently employed at the plant.

The layoffs at Brownstown, slated for Feb. 18, are expected to be permanent, GM said in its filing. Union represented workers will have the opportunity to transfer to other UAW-GM plants, but a GM spokeswoman said plans for those transfers have not been made yet.

On the Monday after Thanksgiving, GM announced a sweeping workforce and manufacturing restructuring for 2019 that will include idling five plants in the U.S. and Canada and cutting some 8,000 white collar jobs.  www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-motors/2018/12/18/gm-laying-off-50-workers-brownstown-plant/2354625002/

 

by Gary Huck

Are You Ready for the Financial Crisis of 2019?

Here are five ways things could get bad for everyone.

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

He’s Built an Empire, With Detained Migrant Children as the Bricks

The founder of Southwest Key made millions from housing migrant children. His nonprofit has stockpiled taxpayer dollars and possibly engaged in self-dealing with top executives.

State employee charged in Flint water crisis lands big salary

Dr. Eden Wells, the state’s medical executive who has been criminally charged in connection with the Flint water crisis, landed a new, cushy job in Gov. Snyder’s administration that will pay her $180,000 a year.

The Flint Journal reports that Wells will serve as public health adviser for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

The news comes just a week after a judge ordered Wells to stand trial on charges that she failed to timely inform the public of a deadly Legionnaires outbreak when Flint began using tainted city water.

Snyder maintains he knew nothing of the new job.   motorcitymuckraker.com/2018/12/12/flint-water-insult-state-dem-boss-out-anti-semite-gets-house-arrest-wednesday-briefing/

www.facebook.com/SputnikNews/videos/376364716269885/?t=37

Dozens of fetuses, infant remains found after police raid on metro Detroit cemeteriesduring Detroit police raids on two metro Detroit cemeteries on Wednesday as part of the state’s investigation into Perry Funeral Home.

Solidarity for Never

Ex-UAW official Nancy Adams Johnson sent to prison

A high-ranking United Auto Workers official who implicated President Dennis Williams and others in a corruption investigation involving Fiat Chrysler Automobiles was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison Tuesday.

Nancy Adams Johnson betrayed the trust of blue-collar workers by accepting thousands of dollars in illegal payments from Fiat Chrysler and spending the money on $1,100 Christian Louboutin shoes, private accommodations, golf resorts and lavish meals, according to the government. She also funneled tens of thousands of dollars of illegal payments from Fiat Chrysler to other senior UAW officials.

Johnson, 58, of Macomb Township is the seventh and final person sentenced in a widespread conspiracy to violate federal labor laws, a conspiracy that has reshuffled the top ranks of the auto industry and the labor union that represents 450,000 workers.

She, along with several others convicted so far, including former Fiat Chrysler Vice President Alphons Iacobelli, are cooperating with investigators and could serve as a bridge to a second round of criminal charges against additional union and auto executives….

Prosecutors last month labeled Jewell, who oversaw the union’s Fiat Chrysler department before abruptly resigning in January, an unindicted co-conspirator. They also refer to him in hundreds of pages of criminal filings as a high-ranking union leader who received approximately $50,000 worth of lavish gifts and benefits from Fiat Chrysler executives.

The gifts include a $2,180 Italian shotgun and a $30,000 party that featured strolling models who lit labor leaders’ cigars, all paid for with Fiat Chrysler cash that was supposed to be spent training blue-collar workers.

Investigators also have learned Jewell tapped a training fund to pay for more than $10,000 worth of golf resort accommodations in Palm Springs, California, and Disney World tickets, sources told The News.  www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/chrysler/2018/12/18/former-uaw-official-nancy-adams-johnson-sentenced-prison/2339643002/

In Gupta Brothers’ Rise and Fall, the Tale of a Sullied A.N.C.

An Indian family rose to the heights of power and fortune in South Africa with the help of eager officials in the legendary party of Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo’s poodle and hustler for the rich.

India’s most influential guru joined thousands of believers four years ago as the temple’s first stone was set in the ground.

It was a glorious day for its builders, the Gupta brothers, the sons of a local shopkeeper who had risen, almost magically, to become one of the richest families a world away in South Africa.

The three brothers had flown back on their private jet to start work on the temple, a 125-foot monument of pink sandstone and white marble that would tower over the tiny place where their father used to ride his bicycle to pray every day.

But one morning last month, as the sun struggled to break through the smog in Saharanpur, their hometown in India’s north, the giant yellow crane raising the temple stood still — in limbo, like the brothers themselves.

Spy versus Spy

How the CIA Trains Spies to Hide in Plain Sight (Video Within)

Despite how easy it looks in James Bond movies and heist flicks, good disguises are hard to pull off. A good wig and some makeup don’t make you a new person—full transformation requires a full attitude adjustment. Just ask any contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race. And when you’re a spy for the Central Intelligence Agency, being able to execute a perfect disguise can be a matter of life and death. Just ask Jonna Mendez.

“One of our officers, probably working out of the American embassy, would have surveillance 24 hours a day; they’d have teams of people following them,” says Mendez, who spent years as the CIA’s disguise chief. “But they had work to do; they had to communicate with people, clandestinely. The extremes we would go to to disguise those people was the most interesting, and the most challenging, part of the job.”

So what does the agency do to protect its assets in the field? A lot of it, Mendez says, involves hiding a person’s tell-tale features. If they have straight hair, make it curly. If they’re young, give them a few streaks of gray. It also helps to change the way they walk or talk by putting a brace on their leg or an “artificial palate” in their mouth. Americans have a certain way of standing—weight on one foot or the other—and if they’re trying to pass themselves off as European, it helps if they stand squarely on both feet. Good disguises, Mendez says, are almost always “additive;” you can make someone taller, heavier, or older, but “we can’t go the other direction.”

The CIA can also give a person the ability to do a “quick change.” If someone knows they’ll be trying to shake a tail, they can change their look as they move through busy sidewalks. Add a hat, change a shirt, add sunglasses, and—if it’s done right—it’ll look like someone has disappeared. www.wired.com/story/mastermind-cia-disguise/?utm_source=facebook&utm_social-type=owned&utm_brand=tny&utm_medium=social&mbid=social_cp_fb_tny&fbclid=IwAR2vXYXZsoPi5ZkLNnePPDyF5AZs3Iv1_ZWss9n759jOZ2cdJ3s96Yoewmw

The Magical Mystery Tour

Catholic Church in Illinois Withheld Names of at Least 500 Priests Accused of Abuse, Attorney General Says

Parents say Torrance Catholic school nuns embezzled millions over 20 years

Torrance police urged families from St. James Catholic School to speak with them if the parents believe their money was embezzled by two nuns who were recently arrested for it.

One parent, Jack Alexander, said he believes more than $3 million was swindled from the school over the last 20 years.

The case involves two nuns accused of embezzling $500,000 from the school, but the case is getting more complicated. Former school principal Sister Mary Kreuper and Sister Lana Chang bilked the school of tuition, fees and donation money, according to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Parents like Alexander are outraged. He believes they took at least $50,000 from him.

“All the time that we’re hearing the school didn’t have enough money for this or for that, the reality is coming out is well they had the money, but she was just diverting it for her own personal use and enjoyment,” he said. “At schools you’ve got bake sales and PTAs and new uniforms and the new jerseys for the football team and all the things that you thought would be covered by the tuition – but she said they weren’t so you just wrote the extra check.”  abc7.com/parents-say-torrance-nuns-embezzled-millions-over-20-years/4925738/

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Megachurch preacher buys wife a $200,000 Lamborghini, tells parishioners ‘Don’t confuse what I do with who I am’

Megachurch Pastor John Gray bought his wife Aventer a $200,000 Lamborghini Urus for their eight year anniversary, which he felt a need to explain on a 23 minute clip on Facebook after catching a lot of flak.

Ironically, Gray, who said he started preaching in 1994, started the video with a transportation metaphor.

“I want to thank the people who have been walking with me,” the Greenville, S.C. based holy man said before explaining the lavish present.

“The reason my wife and i wanted to have an eight-year wedding celebration is because I needed a new beginning — eight is the number of new beginnings,” he said.

He also clarified that being a pastor is just his job and he’s a husband first.

First of all, it wasn’t a pastor that bought the car, it was a husband that bought he car — get that in your spirit,” he barked.

He also claimed that his money doesn’t come from the Relentless Church, where he preaches. Rather, Grey said it’s his side businesses that finances the sports car.  www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/religion/sd-megachurch-preacher-buys-wife-a-200-000-lamborghini-tells-parishioners-don-t-confuse-what-i-do-with-20181220-story.html

youtu.be/sodyRRM4s3g

The Maryland Province Jesuits, a Catholic religious order with clergy serving throughout the Washington area and across eight states, released a list Monday of priests in the order who have been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing children since the 1950s.

The men accused of sexually abusing minors worked for decades in high schools, including Gonzaga College High School in the District; in colleges, including St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, Wake Forest University in North Carolina and several more; at Georgetown University’s hospital; at churches in the District and Baltimore; and other institutions.

One Jesuit priest, Neil P. McLaughlin, is believed to have abused children from the 1950s to the 1980s. Accusations came in from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Georgia, Massachusetts and New York. McLaughlin was removed from ministry in 2007.

Much of the abuse detailed in the reports dates back more than half a century. But other accusations are much more recent, and the list reveals that some of the Jesuit priests were not removed from ministry until well after 2002, when the Boston Globe published its expose of abuse in the church and the U.S. Catholic bishops committed to rooting out abusive priests.  www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2018/12/17/jesuits-name-priests-credibly-accused-sexually-abusing-children-including-dc-area/?utm_term=.fc69dd98db2e

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

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Sun over San Diego

 

Keep a Song in yer Heart

a smile on yer face and

Don’t Forget to

Smash the State

 

So Long

Mad Dog and Empire

On hiatus for awhile….