We Say Fight Back!

www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/271855766915613/?t=361

Congratulations on the re-publication of:

From Library Journal

www.facebook.com/democracynow/videos/10156503008613279/?t=87

Forty Years Ago, the Post Office wildcat strike

A presentation about the importance of fighting racism to this strike is here www.jeffreybperry.net/blog.htm?post=871484

 

More here existentialcomics.com/comic/243

Amazon workers strike in Germany, joining action in Spain and Poland

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Thousands of workers will walk off the job on Tuesday at Amazon warehouses in Germany to demand better working conditions, joining colleagues in Spain and Poland in taking action that coincides with a major sales promotion…The one-day strike at six facilities in Germany coincides with Seattle-based Amazon’s Prime Day promotion. Workers in Spain are out on a three-day strike, meanwhile, while in Poland they are staging a work to rule, Verdi said.  www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-germany-strike/amazon-workers-strike-in-germany-joining-action-in-spain-and-poland-idUSKBN1K61OY

www.facebook.com/PeopleForBernie/videos/10157163754382908/?t=32

The Little Red Schoolhouse

The state revised the FTCE in 2015. Our series, “Florida teachers: failing and frustrated” began nearly two years ago.  We learned examinees were failing the tests at unprecedented levels.  We discovered failure rates on some parts of the exam increased by nearly 30% since the revisions.  Despite a spokesperson from the FL Department of Education telling us early on that they expected the increase in failure rates but that scores would, “increase over time,” the latest scores we obtained show there hasn’t been much improvement.

The summer 2018 terminations aren’t easy for school districts already struggling to fill vacant teacher slots in time for the first day of school next month.  www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/i-team-investigates/at-least-920-florida-teachers-out-of-jobs-after-failing-state-test-despite-effective-evaluations-?page=2

Battling an image problem, Broward schools seeks public relations exec for up to $175,000 a year

Broward County school district is looking for better PR and is willing to pay someone up to $174,870 to make that happen.

The school district is advertising for a chief public information officer who can find ways to “champion a favorable public image and brand for the district” and can “bring to life the many stories” of the school district, according to a job posting.

The job pays between $104,836 and $174,870.

The school district has suffered a number of public relations hits since the Feb. 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, which left 17 people dead.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel has reported on how Stoneman Douglas under-reported crime on campus, how the school failed to provide adequate special education services to killer Nikolas Cruz; and how a culture of leniency has allowed unruly students to receive countless second chances.

The school district also struggled to defend its controversial PROMISE program, which offers alternatives to arrests for some misdemeanors. The district initially said Cruz was never eligible for the program, only to backtrack and said he started the program but failed to complete it for reasons no one could explain.   www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/fl-broward-school-pio-salary-20180717-story.html

Detroit’s board of education gives the green light to hire teachers without classroom experience

above, abandoned Jane Cooper Elementary in Detroit

Being a teacher is a tough job. Between interfering parents, state-mandated benchmarks, and smelly pre-adolescents that haven’t learned to put down the Axe body spray yet, education can be a stressful career path.

As he walks to class at the University of California, Merced, Freddie Virgen sees a sea of faces in various shades of brown. He is as likely to hear banda corridos blaring out of his classmates’ earphones as hip-hop. With affectionate embraces, he greets fellow members of Hermanos Unidos, a peer support group for Latinos that is one of the largest student organizations on campus.

“When I looked at other campuses, I would find myself feeling that I didn’t belong, like I’d stick out,” he said. “This was the only place where I saw so many students I could connect to, who would get where I was coming from. Even if it felt like academic shock, it wouldn’t feel like culture shock.”

In the decades since a ballot measure banned affirmative action in California’s public institutions, the University of California has faced persistent criticism that it is inadequately serving Latinos, the state’s largest ethnic group. The disparity between the state’s population and its university enrollment is most stark at the state’s flagship campuses: at University of California, Los Angeles, Latinos make up about 21 percent of all students; at Berkeley, they account for less than 13 percent. (NT 7/2018)

‘Super’ headteacher paid over £200,000 – while ‘money ran out for pens and textbooks’

A former ‘super-head’ was paid in excess of £200,000 at a cash-strapped academy trust – while teachers claimed they had to buy their own pens and textbooks to teach kids.

An ECHO investigation found millions had been lost after a catastrophic failure to budget, at an academy trust responsible for schools in some of the most deprived areas in Britain.

The Heath Family North West Multi-Academy Trust (MAT), which runs schools in Litherland , Prescot , Runcorn and Cheshire, has since been propped up by emergency funding from the government.

As the trust’s grip on its finances disintegrated, now retired executive principal, Heather Mullaney, received increases of up to £60,000 between 2013 and 2017, according to company accounts.

Current bosses say they are “not aware” of teachers paying for their own resources, but admit the trust paid Mrs Mullaney “too much.”  www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/super-headteacher-paid-over-200000-14907563

The New Toll of American Student Debt in 3 Charts (within)

A popular SDSU executive reclaims her job as mysteriously as she lost it

Brooks, 46, was removed from that post last year without public explanation. It sparked anger from scores of professors who said that Brooks has a gift for representing the views of educators to the university’s management.

Brooks, who could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday, is an English professor who has earned high acclaim for her writing and talks about faith, race and human justice.

“SDSU welcomes the return of Joanna Brooks who will resume her role as Associate Vice President for Faculty Advancement during the 2018-19 academic year focused primarily on responsibilities related to faculty development,” said Joseph F. Johnson, the school’s interim provost.

Johnson was appointed to that job on June 6, not long after the university provost Chukuka Enwemeka, announced, without explanation, that he was leaving the position.

It’s still unclear whether Brooks was removed from her job by Enwemeka or by then-President Elliot Hirshman, or both. When word of her apparent dismissal began to circulate last summer, faculty pressed interim President Sally Roush to reinstate her but it didn’t happen.

The Union-Tribune reported that Enwemeka’s resignation might have stemmed, in part, from a scathing letter that he sent to a faculty member who was suspected of questioning his performance as provost, the second highest position on campus.  www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/sd-me-joanna-brooksreturns-20180718-story.html

Read the Bizarre Email That May Have Prompted a Provost to Step Down Mysteriously

Enwemeka wrote, in part, “All said, if in the course of our time and interactions, I willfully sought to harm or perpetrate evil against you, may my Lord Jesus Christ, to whom I have given my entire life, see your action as well deserved by me …” Enwemeka says the Sept. 11, 2017 email to Deutschman.

“On the other hand, if all I have ever done was to promote your well-being and progress as previously detailed, and in return you willfully sought to harm or hurt me, may my Lord Jesus Christ ensure that you reap what you sowed. So that instead of blessings, you are showered with unending curse and harmed, hurt and visited by evil a million fold in everything you do throughout the rest of your life.

“Please note that in stating the foregoing, I am not necessarily cursing or wishing you evil. I am simply invoking the natural Law of Karma; the Law of Retributive Justice.”

www.chronicle.com/article/Read-the-Bizarre-Email-That/243527

Districts Struggle to Stay Afloat Despite Increased State Funding

The state plans to steadily increase education funding through 2022, giving school districts with higher numbers of low-income students, English-learners, foster youth and homeless children more money and control over how to spend it.

But despite the cushion of financial support, school districts across the state, including San Diego Unified, are preparing to make big budget cuts to stay afloat.

Jason Willis and Kelsey Krausen, education researchers at WestEd, say the rising cost of pensions, declining enrollment and increased special education costs are some of the reasons why school districts are being forced to cut back.   www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/good-schools-for-all-districts-struggle-to-stay-afloat-despite-increased-state-funding/?utm_source=Voice+of+San+Diego+Master+List&utm_campaign=1ae0154571-VOSD_Podcast&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c2357fd0a3-1ae0154571-81862829&goal=0_c2357fd0a3-1ae0154571-81862829

OSU: 100 ex-students report sex misconduct by doctor

More than 100 former students have provided firsthand accounts of sexual misconduct by the now-dead Ohio State University team physician at the center of an ongoing investigation, the university said on Friday.

Over 200 former students and university employees have been interviewed by independent investigators reviewing allegations against Richard Strauss involving male athletes from 14 sports as well as his work at the student health center and his off-campus medical office, University President Michael Drake said.

“We are grateful to those who have come forward and remain deeply concerned for anyone who may have been affected by Dr. Strauss’ actions,” Drake said. “We remain steadfastly committed to uncovering the truth.”

Ohio State has urged anyone with information to contact the investigators from Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie, who are looking into the allegations, what university officials knew and how they responded to any concerns about Strauss.

The university said investigators plan 100 or more additional interviews. Those interviewed include Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, who denies some wrestlers’ claims that he knew about abuse when he was an assistant coach at Ohio State.  www.detroitnews.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/20/ohio-state-team-doctor-sex-misconduct-investigation/37019077/

Is the high school graduation rate really going up?

The reported rate has been going up. This seems like a positive trend and good news, but, maybe not. Recent reports suggest some states and districts have counted students as graduates who should not have been counted. A nagging question is how much of this behavior is happening. Graduating from high school is an important education milestone, but we would like graduates to meet standards for graduation and not simply leave the system with a piece of paper and deficient skills…

Still, social scientists know that when it comes to numbers and accountability, Campbell’s Law needs to be kept in mind: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.”^[3] Campbell’s Law is cited regularly in discussions of achievement-test scores, but high schools are accountable for their on-time graduation rate, so the law would apply to it…

In June 2017, in the District of Columbia, Ballou High School announced remarkable good news. One hundred percent of its graduates had enrolled in college. For a struggling high school in one of the poorest sections of DC with a reported cohort graduation rate of 64 percent^[8] to have 100 percent of its graduates enrolled in college was likely to draw attention one way or the other—either the school had done the nearly impossible and others would want to know the ingredients of its success, or something was amiss in the numbers. The local National Public Radio affiliate, WAMU, decided to take a closer look.

What it found focused on the reported graduation rate: many students who graduated had been absent more than three months of their senior year. Under district policies, even 30 days of absences should have triggered automatic failure of courses and students should have been short of credits to graduate. Two months before the date of graduation, an internal e-mail between staff in the school noted that 57 students were on track to graduate—but 164 students graduated. Speaking mostly off the record, teachers told NPR that they were pressured to pass students, such as by giving students grades of 50 percent on assignments they did not hand in, instead of the more accurate grade of zero. And some students were placed in credit-recovery programs before they had even failed the course for which credit needed to be recovered (more on credit recovery below), in violation of district policies.

In the aftermath of the NPR report, the Office of the State Superintendent commissioned an audit to examine graduation and attendance practices at all (non-charter) high schools in the district. The audit reported that 34 percent of graduates from DCPS in 2017 had irregularities that should have precluded their graduation  www.brookings.edu/research/is-the-high-school-graduation-rate-really-going-up/

www.facebook.com/viralmotion/videos/1405229599606483/?t=35

Montebello Unified’s adult school accused of fraud, mismanagement and misappropriation

An audit released Tuesday questioned $268,000 paid to Montebello Unified employees at its adults schools — some for working when no class was in session or for classes with as few as one student; it recommends further review by prosecutors.

The payments were made over the last five years without district and/or board approval, according to the audit. It described an almost shadow human resources department, in which select teachers and non-teaching employees were tapped for extra assignments in Adult Education.

The report — prepared by the state Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistant Team — called on Los Angeles County Superintendent Debra Duardo to notify the Montebello school board, state controller, state schools superintendent and Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office that fraud “may have occurred.”

“Based on the findings and analyses in this report, there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that fraud, mismanagement and misappropriation of the district’s funds and assets may have occurred,” the audit said. Its authors regularly are called in to scrutinize public school districts.  www.whittierdailynews.com/2018/07/17/montebello-unifieds-adult-school-accused-of-fraud-mismanagement-and-misappropriation/

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

The two-story building here still looks much like the school it once was. But the classrooms are closed off by reinforced black doors, padlocked from the outside. And the campus is surrounded by men with machine guns seeking refuge from the desert heat in the shade of towering concrete perimeter walls.

The visitors’ echoing footsteps and voices were the only sounds on a recent day in a dusty pink-and-white hallway once filled with schoolchildren. But when a guard slid open a small window in a classroom door, a man’s face pressed against the opening. Behind him, about 15 others, sitting on mats in black sleeveless shirts, stared back.

The old school is one of about seven makeshift wartime prisons in northern Syria housing suspects accused of fighting for the Islamic State and captured by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The S.D.F. prisons for male detainees — about 1,000 men from nearly 50 countries —are generally off limits, but a New York Times reporter accompanied a congressional delegation touring two of them, the first such visit to either.

The prisoners pose a dilemma that has no easy solution and that is growing urgent. Their home countries have been reluctant to take back the men. Their governments are leery that battle-hardened members of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, might radicalize domestic prisoners. Some countries face legal hurdles to prosecuting militants if they take custody of them from a nonstate militia, as opposed to extraditing them from another government.  www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/world/middleeast/islamic-state-detainees-syria-prisons.html

Initial cost for Trump military parade comes in at $12 million, DoD says

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Dead bodies, wild dogs, squatters in government-owned Detroit houses

The Detroit Land Bank Authority’s problem with unauthorized occupants is like no other in the nation

At one end of Alpine Street, near Joy Road on Detroit’s west side, Georgeia Elder and a friend live in a leaky trailer, their yard cluttered with a boat and a Cadillac Escalade with four ladders on the roof, a shopping cart and a lawn mower, a folding chair and a metal headboard. A pit bull, Lady, laps up spaghetti and gravy from a takeout container.

At the other end of this short stretch of Alpine, near Tireman Avenue, a woman known as Spankie lives in a house with a dog she calls “my baby.” A heart-shaped sign hangs from the front door that says “Bless Our Home.” A handwritten sign instructs the postal carrier to put her mail in a box tucked into a milk crate next to the porch stairs. A scent of straw and animals hangs in the air.

These occupants don’t own the properties where they live. They’re not paying rent to the owner either. Their homes on Alpine Street, a Free Press analysis shows, bookend one of the City of Detroit’s highest concentrations of squatters, people who live in homes owned by the Detroit Land Bank Authority.

There are as many as 4,300 houses just like these across the city…

Squatters are a tricky problem: remove them and add to the city’s homeless population and its massive inventory of abandoned buildings. Let them stay, and the land bank is summoned often to investigate what some of its occupants may be up to: dog fighting, prostitution, drug dealing, overdoses, gambling, gun possession or running a chop shop.

Detroit police also are called regularly to land bank properties to investigate dead bodies — at least 50 homicides over the last four years.

In one case, remains were found in a garbage can in a garage. At another house, police found the bodies of a mother and her 4-year-old daughter stashed in a basement.

www.freep.com/videos/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/07/19/detroits-squatter-problem-worst-country/724923002/

Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150 Billion

The Amazon.com Inc. founder’s net worth cracked $150 billion in New York on Monday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That’s about $55 billion more than Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, the world’s second-richest person.

Bezos, 54, also has topped Gates in inflation-adjusted terms. The $100 billion mark that Gates hit briefly in 1999 at the height of the dot-com boom would be worth about $149 billion in today’s dollars. That makes the Amazon chief executive officer richer than anyone else on earth since at least 1982, when Forbes published its inaugural wealth ranking.  www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-16/happy-prime-day-jeff-amazon-ceo-s-net-worth-tops-150-billion

Gov. Rick Snyder comments on deal allowing Nestle to take thousands of gallons of Great Lakes water

Nestle pays $200 per year to take 400 gallons of water per minute

Snyder said Nestle followed all the rules and that this isn’t about business, but a lot of people think it’s simply bad business.

Nestle got approval from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to pump out 400 gallons of water per minute, and the Swiss-based company bottles that water to sell it for a huge profit.

Michigan only makes Nestle pay $200 per year for the permit fee.

On Tuesday, Snyder was at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Gordie Howe International Bridge, and Local 4 asked about the water deal.

“If you look at it, it was done based on science,” Snyder said. “It’s not about business versus being anti-business. It was sound science to say those withdrawals won’t have adverse impacts, and there’s follow-up testing that has to take place to make sure they stay in compliance. If they don’t, things would change.”

“How can it not be about business when they’re only paying $200 a year for a permit and making hundreds of millions of dollars off our natural resource?” Hank asked.

“That’s an issue for the legislature to decide about fee structures,” Snyder said. “But as a practical matter, they followed the rules as they exist, they followed sound science, so the permit was issued.”

It’s important to remember that before the MDEQ approved the permit request, more than 80,000 Michigan residents spoke out during public comment, saying it was a bad idea. Only around 70 people were in favor of the deal, yet it still got the green light.  www.clickondetroit.com/consumer/help-me-hank/gov-rick-snyder-comments-on-deal-allowing-nestle-to-take-thousands-of-gallons-of-great-lakes-water

Trump’s ‘incredible’ Air Force One to be red, white and blue, cost $3.9 billion

The next generation of Air Force One will abandon the planes’ traditional color scheme in favor of red, white and blue, President Donald Trump told CBS News, confirming reports about changes to the planes’ iconic look.

The interview came the same day that the Department of Defense announced that Boeing had secured a $3.9 billion contract to build two new Air Force One planes.

“Boeing gave us a good deal,” Trump told CBS, adding that he saved $1.5 billion on the project.

Trump “has emphasized the need to minimize the cost of replacing the two existing Air Force One aircraft,” the White House said in a statement Wednesday. The statement said the contract saved taxpayers about $1.4 billion over the initial contract.

However, Trump had previously criticized an estimate close to the final cost:

Burberry burns bags, clothes and perfume worth millions

Burberry, the upmarket British fashion label, destroyed unsold clothes, accessories and perfume worth £28.6m last year to protect its brand.

It takes the total value of goods it has destroyed over the past five years to more than £90m.

Fashion firms including Burberry destroy unwanted items to prevent them being stolen or sold cheaply.

Burberry said that the energy generated from burning its products was captured, making it environmentally friendly.

“Burberry has careful processes in place to minimise the amount of excess stock we produce. On the occasions when disposal of products is necessary, we do so in a responsible manner and we continue to seek ways to reduce and revalue our waste,” a spokesperson for the company said.  www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44885983

How Amazon gets away with not paying tax

Meanwhile, Amazon is looking for even more sweet tax deals. You’ve probably heard of HQ2, the new campus that it’s trying to build somewhere in the United States, and cities are tripping over themselves to come up with new incentives to get Amazon to come into their town. New Jersey, for example, is offering $7 billion in tax breaks if Amazon builds its new campus somewhere around Newark, New Jersey. Those aren’t the only tax deals Amazon has gotten. From 2005 to 2014, it’s gotten over $600 million in tax breaks to build warehouses in certain states. It got another $147 million in tax breaks for building data centers around the country. Keep in mind Amazon is valued at over $700 billion, it’s not like the company is struggling to save money. Amazon may be getting a lot of attention right now because of President Trump’s attacks, but its tax practices aren’t unique. A lot of big companies find ways to pay as little tax as possible.  www.businessinsider.com/amazon-not-paying-taxes-trump-bezos-2018-4

U.S. Treasury moves to protect identities of ‘dark money’ political donors

The U.S. Treasury said on Monday that it will no longer require certain tax-exempt organizations including politically active nonprofit groups, such as the National Rifle Association and Planned Parenthood, to identify their financial donors to U.S. tax authorities. The policy change, heralded by conservatives as an advance for free speech, maintains donor disclosure requirements for traditional charity groups organized to receive tax-exempt donations under a section of the Internal Revenue code known as 501(c)(3), the Treasury said. But the move frees labor unions, issue advocacy organizations, veterans groups and other nonprofits that do not receive tax-exempt money from meeting confidential disclosure requirements set in place decades ago. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-groups/us-treasury-moves-to-protect-identities-of-dark-money-political-donors-idUSKBN1K704F

Las Vegas shooting: Mandalay Bay hotel owner sues 1,000 victims

The owner of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas has filed a lawsuit against more than 1,000 victims of a mass shooting that killed 58 people in 2017.

The MGM Resorts International’s lawsuit does not seek money and appears to be a judicial bid to avoid liability and dismiss claims against it.

A lawyer for several victims called the lawsuit “outrageous” and “verging on unethical”, according to US reports.

Stephen Paddock, 64, opened fire on festival-goers before killing himself.  www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44859238

Luxury Lounge Wars Heat Up as Airlines Vie for High-End Passengers

Lounge access has become paramount for business travelers, especially those on overnight flights from the Northeastern United States to Europe, experts say. They want to shower and eat fresh food in the lounge, and then sleep on their flight, so when they arrive in Europe they can head directly to their meeting.

For other travelers, lounges can provide “a reprieve from the chaos of the airport, an oasis from the storm,” said Jack Ezon, president of New York-based Ovation Vacations, an upscale leisure travel agency.

To Michael Holtz, owner of SmartFlyer, another upscale travel agency, a lounge can extend a luxury hotel experience. Guests staying in certain high-end suites at the Rosewood London, for example, qualify for free access to the V.I.P. private terminal at London’s Heathrow Airport. Qatar Airways’ Al Safwa first-class lounge at Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar, offers 12 private bedrooms. (NYTimes 7/16/18)

Ex-Health Secretary Tom Price Wasted $341,000 on Improper Travel, Inquiry Finds

Tom Price, the former secretary of health and human services, repeatedly violated government travel rules and wasted at least $341,000 by billing taxpayers for his use of chartered jets and military aircraft, federal investigators said Friday.

The inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, Daniel R. Levinson, documented the abuses in a blistering report on what he described as Mr. Price’s “lack of compliance with federal requirements.”

He said the government should try to recoup the money improperly spent on Mr. Price’s travels to such places as Florida, Colorado and Texas, as well as China, Germany, Japan, Liberia, Switzerland and Vietnam.

The inspector general examined 21 trips for which Mr. Price had used chartered aircraft, military aircraft, commercial aircraft or the fleet of planes equipped for use by the president and the vice president. He found that 20 of the 21 flights did not comply with federal requirements

The total cost of the 21 trips was $1.2 million, the report said. The most expensive trips were an eight-day visit to Asia on military aircraft, which cost $432,400; a weeklong visit to Africa and Europe on military planes, which cost $234,400; and a charter flight from Seattle to Washington, D.C., which cost $121,500.

Mr. Price took chartered aircraft to many cities in the United States when lower-cost commercial flights were available, Mr. Levinson said. He found that Mr. Price had spent $14,955 on a round-trip charter flight between Washington and Philadelphia. www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/us/politics/health-secretary-tom-price-wasted-money-improper-travel.html

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

Reports tally internal misuse of powerful police data network

For decades, law enforcement officials across California have had access to a powerful computer network that, with a few keystrokes from a desk terminal or patrol car, can access information on any Californian with a drivers license, registered car, parking ticket, restraining order or dozens of other digital records.

The sprawling California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, or CLETS, also gives police access to national databases maintained by the FBI and the neighboring state of Oregon. It’s a little known and widely used police tool — officials estimated it’s used by law enforcement about 2.8 million times every day.

But sometimes law enforcement workers tap into the vast trove of information improperly, breaking the rules about when the detailed information can be properly accessed, according to a batch of records of CLETS misuse held by the state Attorney General and collected by a privacy rights group.

In 2017, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department investigated 19 suspected incidents of misuse of the network by department employees. Records show four were determined to have violated CLETS-use policies: two people received reprimands, one was suspended, and one resigned over the misuse. The other 15 cases resulted in no administrative action taken.

That wasn’t an unusual year. In 2015, there were 22 investigations that resulted in one termination and one suspension. And in 2014, there were 28 investigations that found four violations. Three people resigned; one was fired that year.  www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/sd-me-clets-misuse-20180718-story.html

 

I Was a White House Stenographer. Trump Wasn’t a Fan.

Mr. Trump likes to call anyone who disagrees with him “fake news.” But if he’s really the victim of so much inaccurate reporting, why is he so averse to having the facts recorded and transcribed?  www.nytimes.com/2018/07/17/opinion/trump-recording-press-news.html

www.facebook.com/CBSEveningNews/videos/10160549281345721/?t=45

Democrats: Party of Capital and Empire

Tom Malinowski, who served in the State Department during the Obama administration, working on issues related to democracy and human rights, is taking on Republican Rep. Leonard Lance. Malinowski is eloquent during an interview in describing “the all-American middle-ground issues that the Trump Republicans” have ceded to Democrats in moderate districts.

“We’re now the party of fiscal responsibility in America. We didn’t just add $2 trillion to the national debt for that tax cut that Warren Buffett didn’t want,” he tells me. “We’re the party of law enforcement in America; we don’t vilify the Federal Bureau of Investigation every single day. We’re the party of family values. We don’t . . . take kids from their parents at the border. We’re the party of patriotism in America that wants to defend this country against our foreign adversaries.”  www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/does-the-blue-wave-start-in-jersey/2018/07/15/db44a0b2-86e4-11e8-8f6c-46cb43e3f306_story.html?utm_term=.7dc095e7980b

Attacks on Roma Force Ukraine to Confront an Old Ethnic Enmity

The Roma who live in tarpaulin camps and abandoned buildings in and around Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, say they make their money harmlessly by picking wildflowers and selling the bouquets to lovers on the city’s streets.

But members of Ukrainian nationalist groups say that, instead, the Roma pick pockets, steal scrap metal and foul the city with their presence, often dressed in rags or hand-me-downs while begging.

Tensions over the Roma are as old as Ukraine, and run as deep here as anywhere in Eastern Europe, but the ancient enmity has taken a twist recently.

Beginning in April, Ukrainian nationalist groups that were given free rein four years ago to fight the Russian military incursion have taken instead to attacking the softer targets of Roma camps, saying they are “cleaning” Ukraine’s cities.

After an attack in April on a camp in Lysa Hora park outside Kiev, when a nationalist group threw rocks, squirted pepper spray and burned down tents, it seemed like an outbreak of the old ethnic scourge, and the episode drew criticism from Western governments and rights groups.

The Ukrainian government seemed to see the assault differently, at least at first. Far from prosecuting the nationalist group, known as C14, which filmed the attack and posted photographs on the internet, the government gave it a state grant in the form of free rent for auditoriums to support “patriotic education.”  www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/world/europe/ukraine-roma-attacks.html

Seduced by Hate, Indian Politician Embraces a Lynch Mob

Jayant Sinha is a Celtics fan. He graduated from Harvard. He worked for McKinsey.

Born and raised in India but minted in the United States, he found wealth and success in the Boston area. His American friends say his politics were moderate, maybe even progressive.

Then he returned to India.

He ditched the suits he had worn as a partner at McKinsey & Company, an elite management consulting firm, in favor of traditional Indian kurtas. He joined the governing Hindu right political party and became a member of Parliament and then a minister, leading Hindu parades and showering worshipers with flower petals from a helicopter.

This month, he also feted and garlanded eight men who were part of a Hindu lynch mob that the authorities said beat an unarmed and terrified Muslim man to death. His embrace of the attackers, who were convicted of murder, has become the political stunt that Indians can’t stop talking about.

Across the country, the images of Mr. Sinha draping wreaths of marigolds around the men’s necks have started a conversation about whether the state of Indian politics has become so poisoned by sectarian hatred and extremism that even an ostensibly worldly and successful politician can’t resist its pull.  www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/world/asia/india-jayant-sinha-lynch-mob.html

Solidarity for Never

She’s back! Hillbillary speaks at the AFT Convention in Pittsburgh, successfully steering a rank and file wildcat strike movement back into voting booths.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7QHuhQwsUk

AFT’s Millionaire boss (beloved to intersectionality saps) introduces Hillary’s fishhook, Bernie Sanders, at the AFT convention, 2018 ( video link below at 14 minutes)

www.aft.org/convention/live

NEA’s Gambit to Increase Membership Is Defeated in Vote; Leadership Pledges to Try Again Next Year

Faced with the loss of hundreds of thousands of members due to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Janus ruling, the National Education Association sought to throw open membership to the general public, only to see the measure fail to achieve the necessary two-thirds majority at the union’s representative assembly, held over the July 4th holiday.

NEA leaders presented a constitutional amendment that would have created a new “community ally” category of membership for a person who does not work in public education but “demonstrates support in advancing the cause of public education” and “who advocates for the mission, vision, and core values of the Association.”  www.the74million.org/article/neas-gambit-to-increase-membership-is-defeated-in-vote-leadership-pledges-to-try-again-next-year/

NEA boss Garcia rigged NEA’s Internal processes for Hillbillary

wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3695

Analysis: UTLA attempts to move American Federation of Teachers to the left (but the bottom line at AFT was Hillbillary)

Last week we highlighted how the California Teachers Association and its largest local affiliate, United Teachers Los Angeles, wield a disproportionate amount of power over the policies of their parent union, the National Education Association.

UTLA is also affiliated with the smaller of the two national teacher unions, the American Federation of Teachers. AFT just concluded it four-day convention in Pittsburgh.

AFT and NEA are structured differently, due to the geographic areas they represent. NEA is much larger and present in all 50 states, therefore it is internally organized around its state affiliates.

AFT is made up of large urban locals in New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, and elsewhere. These locals act as independent fiefdoms for the most part. In turn, AFT national headquarters is not particularly beholden to them.

AFT’s formula for representation at the national convention is byzantine, but the results let you know clearly who holds the reins. Chicago sent 144 delegates. UTLA sent 22. The United Federation of Teachers in New York City sent 732.

With no hope of overriding the wishes of New York individually, other locals must team up to move their agenda. The prime example this year concerned AFT’s political endorsements.

As was also the case within NEA, there was a significant faction within AFT that was unhappy with the union’s early and full-throated endorsement of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016. Many preferred Bernie Sanders or at least thought to use the endorsement process to angle for concessions from the Clinton campaign.

With this in mind, last weekend delegates from the Chicago Teachers Union, UTLA, and the Professional Staff Congress, which represents faculty at the City University of New York, joined forces to submit a resolution that directed AFT to support the following demands nationally:

1. Single-payer healthcare/Medicare for All;
2. Free college for all;
3. Universal/full-day and cost-free child care;
4. Double the per-pupil expenditures for low-income K-12 districts; and
5. Tax the rich to fully fund the IDEA and Title I.

AFT’s convention rules dictate that resolutions must first clear the relevant committee before reaching the floor for a vote. In committee, the resolution was amended and altered, but this version made it to the floor and passed with a unanimous vote:  laschoolreport.com/analysis-utla-attempts-to-move-american-federation-of-teachers-to-the-left/

Corruption is endemic in the capitalist unions of the empire

• On June 27th, 2018, in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, Annette Jones, former Secretary-Treasurer of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 331 (located in Perry Point, Md.), was indicted on one count of bank fraud, two counts of mail fraud, and two counts of aggravated identity theft, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1344, 18 U.S.C. 1341, and 18 U.S.C. 1028A, respectively.
• On June 26th, 2018, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Newport News Division, Dorian Nicely, former business agent of International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 264 (located in Hampton, Va.), was charged in a criminal information with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and embezzle labor union assets for embezzling $57,310 from the union, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371.
• On June 26th, 2018, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Newport News Division, Dennis Nicely, former Vice President of International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 264 (located in Hampton, Va.), was charged in a criminal information with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and embezzle labor union assets for embezzling $57,310 from the union, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371.
• On June 18th, 2018, in the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda, Daniel Ross, former Treasurer of Transportation and Communications Union/International Association of Machinists (TCU/IAM) Lodge 6721 (located in Oakland, Calif.), pleaded no contest to one misdemeanor count of Grand Theft of Personal Property in the amount of $4,607, in violation of California Penal Code Section 487(a). Ross was immediately sentenced to 30 days of incarceration (suspended) and three years of probation.
• On June 18th, 2018, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Cheryl Angell, former Treasurer of United Steelworkers of America Local 2-144 (located in Combined Locks, Wisc.), was sentenced to 13 months in prison and three years of supervised release. Angell was also ordered to pay $98,711 in restitution and a $100 special assessment. On March 22, 2018, Angell pleaded guilty to one count of embezzling $98,711 in union funds, in violation of 29 U.S.C 501(c). The sentencing follows an investigation by the OLMS Detroit-Milwaukee District Office.

Spy versus Spy

Maria Butina: Alleged Russia agent ‘offered sex for job’

An alleged Kremlin agent offered sex for a job with an American special interest organisation she targeted, say US officials.

Maria Butina’s ties with Russian intelligence make her a flight risk, a federal judge ruled, and she will be held until her trial.

A lawyer for the 29-year-old said she has been co-operating with the US government for several months.

The case is not part of the US inquiry into alleged Russian election meddling.

US Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson ruled that the government had proved there are no conditions of her release that would guarantee her return to court for trial.

She is facing charges of failing to register as a foreign agent and conspiring against the US government. She is not charged with espionage.

On Wednesday, Moscow’s foreign ministry said Ms Butina’s arrest was designed to undermine the “positive results” of a summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on Monday.  www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44865626

What Was Maria Butina Doing at the National Prayer Breakfast?

America’s Christian nationalists have been finding common cause with the Russian government for a while now.

Does it seem strange that, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Monday by the Justice Department, a Russian woman stands accused of “acting as an agent of a foreign government” in part because she hoped “to establish a back-channel of communication” with American politicians at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington?

It shouldn’t. As Jeff Sharlet, an associate professor of English at Dartmouth, has pointed out, the National Prayer Breakfast has long offered “a backdoor to American power.” And America’s homegrown Christian nationalists have evinced an admiration for Russia’s authoritarian leader that appears to have grown apace with his brutality.  www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/opinion/maria-butina-putin-infiltration.html

U.S.-Funded Broadcaster Directed Ads to Americans (remember Wurlitzer? Mockingbird?)

A broadcasting organization backed by the federal government has used Facebook to target ads at United States citizens, in potential violation of longstanding laws meant to protect Americans from domestic propaganda.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which typically broadcasts to audiences in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, bought several ads on Facebook in recent days that were targeted at users in the United States. The ads included several human-interest stories about Russia and a graphic about NATO’s popularity. As with other state-funded media organizations, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is mostly restricted by law from promoting its content in the United States except on request….“I’m concerned that we’re seeing the beginning of government efforts to try to influence public opinion in the United States through the B.B.G. and its affiliate entities,” Mr. Sager said. “It’s one thing to read a tweet by Donald Trump. It’s another to receive a very polished news story from an organization that holds itself out as objective and fact-based.”  www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/technology/facebook-ads-propaganda.html

The Magical Mystery Tour

Police: $63K found stashed above the ceiling in priest’s basement

Police said they found more than $63,000 in cash during a second search of the home of a Catholic priest charged with embezzling more than $5 million from an Okemos parish.

The money was found above ceiling tiles in the basement of the Rev. Jonathan Wehrle’s lavish home on Noble Road, Michigan State Police said Wednesday in a news release.

Investigators obtained a search warrant based on information gathered by Lansing police who were working with MSP’s Special Investigation Section, according to the news release.

The search was conducted Tuesday and turned up $63,392, most of it in $2,000 bundles of $20-bills, police said. The bundles of bills were wrapped in paper bands stamped with the words: “For deposit only – St. Martha Parish and School,” police said. Other evidence related to the investigation also was seized, although police did not specify what that evidence includes.  www.freep.com/story/news/local/2018/07/18/father-wehrle-embezzlement-police-find-more-than-63-k-stashed/797883002/

Could ‘culture of cover-up’ force Pope Francis to defrock McCarrick?

Revelations that one of the most respected U.S. cardinals allegedly sexually abused both boys and adult seminarians have raised questions about who in the Catholic Church hierarchy knew — and what Pope Francis is going to do about it.

If the accusations against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick bear out — including a new case reported Friday involving an 11-year-old boy — will Francis revoke his title as cardinal? Sanction him to a lifetime of penance and prayer? Or even defrock him, the expected sanction if McCarrick were a mere priest?

And will Francis, who has already denounced a “culture of cover-up” in the church, take the investigation all the way to the top, where it will inevitably lead? McCarrick’s alleged sexual misdeeds with adults were reportedly brought to the Vatican’s attention years ago.

The matter is now on the desk of the pope, who has already spent the better part of 2018 dealing with a spiraling child sex abuse, adult gay priest sex and cover-up scandal in Chile that was so vast the entire bishops’ conference offered to resign in May.

And on Friday, Francis accepted the resignation of the Honduran deputy to Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, who is one of Francis’ top advisers. Auxiliary Bishop Juan Jose Pineda Fasquelle, 57, was accused of sexual misconduct with seminarians and lavish spending on his lovers that was so obvious to Honduras’ poverty-wracked faithful that Maradiaga is now under pressure to reveal what he knew of Pineda’s misdeeds and why he tolerated a sexually active gay bishop in his ranks.  www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2018/07/revelations_of_us_cardinal_mccarrick_sex_abuse_wil.html

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

Fantasyland: Del Mar Race Track opened

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Fantasyland: Comicon San Diego Opened And the mass hysterical conversion crisis in the US continued apace.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4heXY31sO4

www.facebook.com/InspiredLifePage/videos/1853912244731320/?t=76

www.facebook.com/BadParentingPresents/videos/1700863846603474/?t=83

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So Long

Adrian Cronauer – the real Good Morning, Vietnam DJ

Adrian Cronauer, who served as inspiration for Robin Williams’ breakout character in the 1987 film Good Morning, Vietnam, has died in Virginia aged 79.

Like his eponymous character, Cronauer was a radio presenter in Saigon in 1965 and 1966 known best for his enthusiastic early morning greeting and penchant for playing rock’n’roll tunes to raise American troops’ morale during the Vietnam War.

But Hollywood took a lot of liberties in its depiction of the air force sergeant.

Cronauer was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in September 1938, to a steelworker father and teacher mother.

He told the Fayetteville Observer in 2011 that his initially timid “Good Morning, Iraklion” gradually became “wilder and wilder” into the dramatic, booming and protracted form he would become notorious for in Vietnam.

Keen to travel, Cronauer says he actually volunteered for a transfer to Vietnam, where he was hired initially as a news director for Armed Forces Radio there.

After his morning presenter left, he took up the 06:00 Dawn Buster show mantle, greeting troops with an enthusiastic yell of: “GOOOOOOOOD morning, Vietnam!”

Cronauer soon found out while interviewing troops that his ironic salute was often met with “the GI equivalent of: Get stuffed Cronauer” on bad days, he recounted at a veterans event in 2008.

“On one occasion, a guy picked up his M16 and blew away his radio,” he told the Americans Veterans Centre conference.

The famous greeting would be adopted by the show’s presenters after him.

Cronauer shunned traditional favourites and shelved them for music of the time: treating US troops to jams from the Righteous Brothers, Tom Jones and the Beatles.

He told the Fayetteville Observer he wanted to serve as an antidote to the homesickness and culture shock affecting thousands of young American men over in Vietnam, who in their teens and twenties had been picked up and “dumped in a totally alien environment”.

“The crowning achievement for me was when I heard from some guys that when they tuned into Dawn Buster for the first time, they assumed they had picked up some radio station from the States,” he would tell the Chicago Tribune.

But Cronauer was never the local celebrity or subversive that late comedy star Robin Williams made him out to be.

The role instead became a showcase for the frenetic Williams, who ad-libbed much of the broadcast depictions.

Williams acknowledged that the real-life Cronauer was not the “radio desperado” he portrayed.

“In real life he never did anything outrageous. He did witness a bombing in Saigon. He wanted to report it – he was overruled. He didn’t want to buck the system, because you can get court-martialled for that,” Williams told Rolling Stone magazine.

Cronauer was keen to point out the drastic changes: “There’s a lot of Hollywood exaggeration, and outright imagination.”  www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44897634

Coming Soon–the 50th Anniversary of the 1968 Chicago DEMOCRATIC Convention police riot.