We Say Fight Back!

www.facebook.com/bbcscotlandnews/videos/2037375576286650/?t=59

Brits Don’t Mince Words: The Most Irreverent and Radical Signs From UK’s Historic Anti-Trump Protest

www.commondreams.org/news/2018/07/13/brits-dont-mince-words-most-irreverent-and-radical-signs-uks-historic-anti-trump

www.facebook.com/colbertlateshow/videos/1461163514028395/?t=10

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www.facebook.com/theroyalwatch/videos/263999977461185/?t=138

They are shooting at a church’: Inside the 15-hour siege by Nicaraguan paramilitaries on university students

 The first student I met outside the Church of the Divine Mercy had a fresh bullet hole in his lower back.

“It’s ugly in there,” he said.

“In there” was the vast, jungly campus of the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN), which by Friday afternoon had become a battleground. Far from the initial fighting was the Catholic church, a supposedly safe place for triage, and beleaguered and wounded students were arriving from the front lines by pickup truck, by motorbike and on foot.

“We had to evacuate,” Jonas Cruz, 18, said. “They are invading the barricades. They are already inside.”

These students, and much of Nicaragua, have been in revolt against President Daniel Ortega’s government for the past three months, enraged by how he has consolidated near total power over his four terms as president, undermined democratic institutions and allowed his security apparatus to employ deadly force against protesters. More than 300 people have been killed since the conflict began in April, the vast majority civilians.

Starting Friday afternoon, a new crisis emerged. Pro-government militias set out to crush the student rebellion at the university, one of the last strongholds of open resistance in the capital. During a 15-hour siege, some 200 university students and others were pinned down by gunfire inside this small Catholic church compound. Two students were killed and at least 10 were injured before top Catholic clergy were able to negotiate their release on Saturday morning and escort the surviving students across police lines.  www.washingtonpost.com/world/students-in-nicaragua-trapped-in-church-amid-gunfire-by-pro-government-militias/2018/07/14/c7f04512-86e3-11e8-9e06-4db52ac42e05_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.781257732acb

www.facebook.com/PhotographyisNotaCrime/videos/1910327405657002/?t=51

The “Bought-Off” Black Caucus

“They won’t do anything for us and, in fact, they’ll vote alongside our enemies,” said BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley, referring to the Congressional Black Caucus’s overwhelming support for a bill to make police a protected class. “They are actively supporting a group of people that have a license to kill,” said Kimberley.  www.blackagendareport.com/index.php/bought-black-caucus

Congratulations to Detroiter Charlie Leduff on the publication of “Shit Show”

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The Little Red Schoolhouse

How the Startup Mentality Failed Kids in San Francisco

Huge contributions from tech titans, a STEM-packed curriculum, gadgets everywhere: Willie Brown Middle School was supposed to set the bar. Then it opened.

Willie Brown Middle School was the most expensive new public school in San Francisco history. It cost $54 million to build and equip, and opened less than two years earlier. It was located less than a mile from my house, in the city’s Bayview district, where a lot of the city’s public housing sits and 20 percent of residents live below the federal poverty level. This new school was to be focused on science, technology, engineering, and math—STEM, for short. There were laboratories for robotics and digital media, Apple TVs for every classroom, and Google Chromebooks for students. A “cafetorium” offered sweeping views of the San Francisco Bay, flatscreen menu displays, and free breakfast and lunch. An on-campus wellness center was to provide free dentistry, optometry, and medical care to all students. Publicity materials promised that “every student will begin the sixth grade enrolled in a STEM lab that will teach him or her coding, robotics, graphic/website design, and foundations of mechanical engineering.” The district had created a rigorous new curriculum around what it called “design thinking” and a “one-to-one tech model,” with 80-minute class periods that would allow for immersion in complex subjects.  www.wired.com/story/willie-brown-middle-school-startup-mentality-failed/#nws=mcnewsletter

The current measure takes last year’s average scores by grade and subtracts it from this year’s average scores by grade to derive a schoolwide average. The difference becomes a key factor on the California School Dashboard, the system that creates color-coded ratings for schools, districts and student ethnic, racial and demographic groups.

“That doesn’t work for a lot of reasons,” Polikoff said. One reason is that this model fails to consider student mobility. Particularly in high-poverty neighborhoods, large numbers of students move, so a cohort of students by grade is often different from the year before, undermining the validity of the comparison. Paul Warren, research associate for the Public Policy Institute of California, reached a similar conclusion in a report released late last month.

Instead, more than 40 states track the growth in individual students’ scores from year to year on standardized tests like Smarter Balanced, which students take in grades 3 to 8 and again in grade 11. Ed Source July 18

Ex-schools police chief keeps high pay to patrol elementary school

Posted: 6:03 a.m. Friday, July 13, 2018

They are masters of the fat paycheck.

The headmasters of New York City’s toniest private schools are raking in salaries, bonuses and benefits up to $1 million — five times what the leaders of the city’s best public high schools get annually.

Many also get perks like free housing, housekeeping, or reimbursement for gym and country-club dues.

Topping the list of elite earners is Bruce Dennis, head of school at the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, whose total 2016 compensation came to $1,002,643, including base pay of $702,450 and a $186,656 payout from his retirement plan, according to the school’s latest tax filing.

The Brooklyn Heights school enrolls about 1,000 students in grades K-12, charged tuition in 2017-18 ranging from $43,700 to $44,700 and counts “Good Day New York” anchor Rosanna Scotto and “True Blood” actress Deborah Ann Woll among its alumni. Its Gothic buildings also served as a set for “Gossip Girl.”

Close behind Dennis was Thomas Kelly, head of school at Horace Mann, whose total 2016 compensation came to $996,136, including base pay of $951,498.

The Riverdale, The Bronx, school, whose graduates include Eliot Spitzer and Jack Kerouac, has been rocked in recent years by revelations of past sexual abuse of students by faculty, prompting Kelly and the school’s board chairman in 2013 to issue an apology letter.  nypost.com/2018/07/14/nycs-private-school-headmasters-rake-in-huge-salaries/?utm_campaign=iosapp&utm_source=facebook_app

Temple business dean forced out over falsified MBA data used in rankings

www.philly.com/philly/education/temple-business-school-dean-resigns-mba-rankings-u-s-news-and-world-report-20180709.html?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar

The teacher supply is plummeting. Pa. will spend $2M to stem the tide

Pennsylvania used to license more than 14,000 new teachers annually. Now, it issues certificates to fewer than 5,000. The state is aiming to do something about that.

Gov. Wolf announced grants Thursday to eight universities around the commonwealth — including Drexel, Cabrini, Lehigh, and the University of Pennsylvania — to develop and implement residency programs for educators.

“While Pennsylvania’s educator preparation system is one of the largest in the country, the commonwealth faces significant challenges, including a steep decline in the number of qualified teaching candidates,” Wolf said in a statement. “These grants will benefit our students by providing advanced training to better prepare teachers and school leaders to serve in our most high-need areas.”

The number of education majors in Pennsylvania colleges and universities has dropped 55 percent since 1996, officials said. And the number of new teaching certificates issued in the state sunk 71 percent between 2009-10 and 2016-17, to just 4,412 from 14,247.  www.philly.com/philly/education/teacher-supply-plummeting-pa-governor-wolf-grants-2m-recruitment-retention-20180712.html?mobi=true

S.D. school district board sends $3.5 billion bond to November ballot (after spending last bond $ on football fields)

The San Diego Unified School District will ask taxpayers to approve borrowing $3.5 billion to improve school safety, technology and infrastructure.

It is the largest bond request in the district’s history and the third in the last 10 years…

San Diego Unified’s capital improvement projects are already funded by two measures known now as Proposition Z and Proposition S.

Proposition Z, the most recent measure, passed in 2012 as a similar property tax hike. Totaling $2.8 billion, its main purpose was to repair deteriorating classrooms, libraries, wiring, plumbing, bathrooms and leaky roofs, according to ballot language at the time.

If passed, all three bonds total $8.4 billion, leaving some to question where previous money has gone and why more funds are necessary.

“We’re still paying off the last two,”  www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/sd-me-sdunified-bonds-20180709-story.html

Pencils down: Major colleges drop essay test requirement

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

Analysis of Latest Developments in U.S.-China Trade War

The helicopters arrived shortly after midday and sent a rocket hurtling into an area at the back of the crowd where children were sitting.

As people began to flee, witnesses said, heavy machine gun fire followed them.

It was the latest deadly example of how a ferocious new air campaign against the Taliban has caused a spike in civilian casualties from US and Afghan air operations.

This Afghan Air Force attack on 2 April in north-eastern Kunduz province killed at least 36 people and injured 71, the UN says. Although witnesses said Taliban fighters and senior figures were in the crowd, 30 of those killed were children.

Hundreds of people had gathered outside a madrassa in the Taliban-controlled district of Dasht-e-Archi to watch a group of students have turbans tied around their heads in a traditional ceremony to recognise their memorisation of the Koran.

Heavy bombing against the Taliban and IS saw more Afghan civilians killed and injured from the air in 2017 than at any time since the UN began counting in 2009. In the first quarter of this year – before the Dasht-e-Archi incident – 67 people were killed and 75 injured by the strikes, more than half of them women and children. There was no let-up in the bombardment even during the bitter Afghan winter, a time when fighting usually draws down before picking up again in the spring. www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44282098

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Goldman Sachs Warns That Rising Wages Could Cut Into Corporate Profits. The Horror!

Corporate executives and Wall Street types come up with all sorts of reasons why it’s supposedly dangerous to let the unemployment rate drop too low. They talk about how the economy might “overheat,” leading to a dreaded bout of inflation. They may talk about “worker shortages” that make it hard to find the right talent.

But in the end, most of this is just verbiage meant to skirt the real concern: Companies are worried that if unemployment falls far enough, they’ll have to pay workers more, and that will cut into their profits. With the official jobless rate at 4 percent, that’s already beginning to happen at some companies, the Wall Street Journal reports today. Ten percent of companies in the S&P 500 have claimed that higher wages hurt their earnings in the first quarter, it notes. Goldman Sachs is predicting that “every percentage-point increase in labor-cost inflation will drag down earnings of companies in the S&P 500 by 0.8%.

This, of course, is considered a nightmare. “At the end of the day, I haven’t heard this many CEOs talk about shortages in skilled labor and wage increases to attract talent in a long time—in at least a decade,” one money manager told the paper.

Keep that quote in mind the next time you read an overwrought article about ill-defined “worker shortages.” C-suiters have created an entire coded language that lets them spin a strong labor market as a threat to the economy, when in reality it mostly just poses a marginal threat to their bottom line. A CEO can go on CNBC and say that his company is coping with a “labor shortage” without seeming like a self-interested capitalist, when in reality, he’s just trying to explain why a healthy economy is bad for his shareholders.  slate.com/business/2018/07/goldman-sachs-warns-that-rising-wages-could-cut-into-corporate-profits-the-horror.html

Paychecks Lag as Profits Soar, and Prices Erode Wage Gains

Wage Gains Threaten to Squeeze Retail, Industrial Profits

Higher labor costs pose risk to some U.S. companies already facing trade-related tensions, limited pricing power

Rising wages are beginning to eat into the profits of some U.S. companies.

Businesses from dollar stores to hotel operators to fast-food chains have warned in recent months that higher labor costs have been a drag on their profits—a potential headwind for the nine-year stock-market rally as it struggles for momentum ahead of the second-quarter earnings season.

Average hourly earnings increased 2.7% in June from a year earlier, according to the Labor Department’s monthly jobs data released Friday. Although that is below the 2.8% economists expected, wages have risen at least 2.5% for 16 of the past 17 months, a faster pace than recorded earlier in the economic expansion.

That is good news for U.S. workers who have seen tepid wage increases over the past few years and may benefit some businesses as consumers become more willing to open their wallets for discretionary purchases.

But the higher costs pose a threat to some U.S. companies that are already facing trade-related tensions and a limited ability to raise prices to keep up with inflation. Fears about rising wages sparked concerns back in February and sent stocks tumbling as investors worried the tightening labor market may finally trigger higher inflation.

Economists at Goldman Sachs predict that every percentage-point increase in labor-cost inflation will drag down earnings of companies in the S&P 500 by 0.8%. In total, the bank estimates labor costs equate to 13% of revenue for companies in the S&P 500.  www.wsj.com/articles/wage-gains-threaten-to-squeeze-retail-industrial-profits-1531134000

When a company buys back some of its outstanding shares, the effect is usually to boost the value of the rest of its stock, sometimes making the company appear more valuable on paper. Because many senior executives are paid in company shares, buybacks temporarily boost their pay (as well as other shareholders’ portfolios), sometimes at the expense of investments in infrastructure or workers.

The popularity of stock buybacks in the wake of the corporate tax cuts has drawn lawmakers’ attention. A group of senators wrote to the SEC late last month, asking the agency to review the rules around buybacks. “The explosion of stock buybacks has funneled corporate profits to wealthy shareholders and corporate executives instead of workers and long-term investments that spur sustained economic growth,” they wrote.

The money that has trickled down to workers this year hasn’t been permanent, PayScale found.  www.cbsnews.com/news/worker-wages-drop-while-companies-spend-billions-to-boost-stocks/

Global debt is becoming a bigger worry as the global policy tightening cycle takes hold, a top boss at the World Bank warned Monday.

“After a decade of low interest rates, the corporate and public debt in many places has ballooned to a staggering $164 trillion,” Kristalina Georgieva, chief executive officer of the World Bank, said in an interview in Singapore on Monday with Bloomberg Television’s David Ingles and Haidi Lun. “With interest rates going up, that attention on debt sustainability has to be stronger.”

Central banks across the world are under pressure to follow a Federal Reserve that’s raising interest rates faster than initially anticipated, putting particular stress on emerging markets and developing economies. The need for structural policy changes, including responses to waves of anti-globalization, remains great as policy makers in most economies haven’t taken sufficient action during the extended period of low borrowing costs, Georgieva said.

“We don’t see many countries taking advantage of this period of strong economic growth to carry forward structural reforms,” she said. “And our advice to countries is, do not wait. Good times may not last — they usually do not last forever.”

World debt, including household debt, ballooned to $237 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2017,  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-09/world-bank-ceo-adds-to-voices-of-worry-over-global-debt-pileup

Detroit is America’s worst big city to drive in, report says

– Detroit may be the Motor City, but its not one you want to be motoring around in, according to one study.

WalletHub, a personal finance website that has become known for producing surveys on a wide variety of topics, released a study on Tuesday, July 10 titled “Best and worst cities to drive in.”

As part of the study, WalletHub analysts compared the 100 largest cities across 29 key indicators of driver-friendliness including average gas prices, average annual hours of traffic delays and auto-repair shops per capita. Detroit finished dead last at No. 100 with a cumulative score of 35.13.

Unsurprisingly, Detroit’s highest ranking was in the access to vehicles and maintenance rank, but at a surprisingly low ranking of 47. Other ranks included cost of ownership and maintenance (86), traffic and infrastructure (94) and safety (99). The safety category includes car theft, a metric in which Detroit is one of the highest in the nation.

San Francisco, Oakland, Philadelphia, Seattle and Boston are the cities just ahead of Detroit.  www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2018/07/detroit_is_americas_worst_big_1.html

Ivanka Trump’s Chinese-made products spared from tariffs

Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods won’t touch Ivanka Trump’s foreign-made products for her fashion line.

While Trump rails at Harley-Davidson motorcycles for moving some production to Europe to dodge EU tariffs, the first daughter and senior White House adviser has never manufactured a single product for her Ivanka Trump brand on American soil.

Trump enacted tariffs Friday morning on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods, affecting hundreds of products from boats to medical devices and auto parts. Products spared include those manufactured by his daughter.

That means Chengdu Kameido Shoes in Sichuan province can continue to supply shoes for the Ivanka Trump brand as it has in the past. It’s currently bidding for a new contract to manufacture 140,000 pairs of shoes for Trump’s company, a spokesman told The South China Morning Post.

Hangzhou HS Fashion in Zhejiang province also said it’s filling orders for orders for the G-III Apparel Group, which supplies shoes to Trump’s brand.

Until January 2017 all of Ivanka Trump’s products were made in factories in China and Hong Kong,  www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/ivanka-trump-s-chinese-made-products-spared-from-tariffs/ar-AAzLWEH?ocid=ob-fb-enus-280

Trump’s fight with federal employee unions gets real on Monday (idiot union bosses turn to courts)

Federal agencies on Monday begin implementing executive orders from President Trump on how to confront employee unions, following strict guidelines likely to escalate tensions that have been building since the president took office.

The administration describes Trump’s new rules, issued in May, as an effort to streamline a bloated bureaucracy and improve accountability within the federal workforce of 2.1 million. The unions counter that the orders are only the latest in Trump’s aggressive actions intended to weaken their bargaining power and make it easier to fire government workers.

Jeff Pon, chief of the Office of Personnel Management, gave agencies details late last week for implementing the presidential orders.

The administration wants agencies to reopen collective bargaining agreements to reduce the on-duty time union representatives spend representing employees. Managers are directed to “monitor and carefully report” on the time and make the information publicly available. And agencies are directed to move swiftly to fire poor performers, renegotiating any contracts that allow for progressive discipline.  www.washingtonpost.com/politics/largest-federal-employee-union-sues-trump-over-rollback-of-union-protections/2018/05/31/335da8c8-64e6-11e8-a69c-b944de66d9e7_story.html?utm_term=.c1c5883ee91c

J&J vows to overturn $4.7 billion talc verdict but experts see hurdles

Johnson & Johnson has vowed to appeal a $4.7 billion verdict awarded to 22 women who claim asbestos-contaminated talc in the company’s products gave them ovarian cancer by arguing the plaintiffs’ science was flawed and the case should not have been heard in Missouri.

But several legal experts said that even though J&J has been successful in winning appeals of other talc cases in Missouri, it will face a challenging road in appealing the verdict handed down on Thursday in the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis.

John Beisner, a lawyer for Johnson & Johnson, said, “One of the hardest things will be prioritizing what to appeal first.” He described to Reuters the company’s jurisdictional and scientific arguments for overturning Thursday’s verdict.

In a statement responding to the verdict, J&J reiterated its position that its products never contained asbestos and were not carcinogenic.

Thursday’s verdict is the largest to date arising from lawsuits alleging talc-based products like J&J’s baby powder have caused cancer. The jury reached its decision in less than a day, following five weeks of expert testimony from both sides.  www.reuters.com/article/us-johnson-johnson-cancer-lawsuit-analys/jj-vows-to-overturn-4-7-billion-talc-verdict-but-experts-see-hurdles-idUSKBN1K32T8?il=0

Trump’s Personal Driver for 25 Years Sues for Unpaid Overtime

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

Paul Manafort’s VIP jail treatment: A private phone line, a laptop and his own shower

The Price of Freedom: What Happens to the Wrongfully Convicted?

Katherina Reitz Brow was stabbed to death in her home in Ayer, Massachusetts. Three years later, the man accused of the crime was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. That man, Kenneth (“Kenny”) Waters, would serve eighteen years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

Kenny’s story doesn’t end there. He appealed his sentence a number of times unsuccessfully. Frustrated at the process and convinced of his innocence, his older sister, Betty Anne Waters, went back to school and earned her college degree and a law degree. Nearly two decades after his conviction, Kenny Waters was set free.

At trial, most of the evidence against Kenny had been circumstantial and, it was alleged, marred by false testimony and bungled police work. Betty Anne believed that DNA evidence, which had previously been withheld from the defense team, would be the key factor in his release. She worked with lawyers from the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal clinic affiliated with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, to have an independent lab examine the evidence. That DNA proved what Betty Anne knew: her brother did not kill Katherina Brow….

What happens to those folks whose lives have been turned upside down after a wrongful conviction? In addition to the years of lost time with friends and family, they walk into a world that may be completely different than before they were sent away. Some have never seen or used a cell phone and are wowed by a world that includes gadgets like iPads and Nooks. Others may be looking forward to things you don’t expect: in Kenny’s case, “He couldn’t wait to go to a Home Depot. He had never been to such a big store before.”  www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2012/05/01/the-price-of-freedom-what-happens-to-the-wrongfully-convicted/amp/

www.facebook.com/TheOther98/videos/1973370192673949/

China’s Terrifying Surveillance State Looks a Lot Like America’s Future

Until recently in Silicon Valley, it was taken as an article of faith that technology could enhance democracy. “One could change the world with one hundred and forty characters,” Twitter C.E.O. Jack Dorsey declared in 2007. That may be true to some extent—in many countries, services like Twitter and Facebook have made it easier than ever to organize, and have eliminated many media gatekeepers. But in China, which is undergoing a tech boom, innovation seems to be expanding in the opposite direction: instead of allowing for free and open platforms, the country is implementing an authoritarian tech dystopia. Already, local Chinese governments and schools have employed surveillance technology to do everything from fine residents for jaywalking to pinpoint an alleged thief in a 20,000-person crowd. It is, as The New York Times reports, a chilling alternative vision of the future—and one that will almost certainly go global. While the use of facial-recognition  glasses to apprehend drug smugglers at train stations. In the western part of the country, mass-surveillance technology is used to track members of the Uighur Muslim minority, mapping out relationships with friends and family. Information on plane trips and hotel stays is readily available. A start-up called Eyecool gives more than 2 million facial images every day to a big-data policing system called—perhaps a bit heavy-handedly—Skynet.

The human psyche has played a crucial role in the success of China’s new system. Last summer, when police posted a large, outdoor screen showcasing the photos, names, and government I.D. numbers of people who sped or jaywalked at a certain intersection, the number of incidents quickly declined. “If you are captured by the system and you don’t see it, your neighbors or colleagues will, and they will gossip about it,” Guan Yue, a spokeswoman, told the Times. “That’s too embarrassing for people to take.”  www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/china-surveillance-state-artificial-intelligence

MSNBC Does Not Merely Permit Fabrications Against Democratic Party Critics. It Encourages and Rewards Them.

Whatever your views might be about Stein and her third-party candidacy, there is no disputing the fact that Nance’s statement was a falsehood, a fabrication, a lie. Stein did not have a show on RT, nor did she ever host a show on RT. What Nance said was made up out of whole cloth — fabricated — in order to encourage MSNBC viewers to believe that Stein, one of the candidates running against Clinton, was a paid agent of the Kremlin and employee of RT.

Reid allowed Nance’s lie to stand. Perhaps she did not realize at the time that it was a lie. But subsequently, a campaign was launched to urge MSNBC to correct the lie it broadcast, based on the assumption that MSNBC — which is part of NBC News — was a normal news outlet that functions in accordance with basic journalistic principles and would, of course, correct a false statement  theintercept.com/2018/07/08/msnbc-does-not-merely-permit-fabrications-against-democratic-party-critics-it-encourages-and-rewards-them/

Solidarity for Never

NEA Budget Cuts Don’t Include Executives’ Salaries

We reported exclusively in May that the National Education Association planned to cut $50 million from its budget, anticipating that it would lose 300,000 members in the wake of a Supreme Court decision ruling agency fees unconstitutional.

NEA’s national headquarters took in $385 million last year, and its proposed two-year budget will affect virtually every aspect of operations. Vacant staff positions will go unfilled, leading to a reduction of 16 percent of spending on compensation. No layoffs are planned.

Spending on travel will be cut 4 percent. Publication costs cut 27 percent. Office expenses cut 15 percent. And so on.

Even the national union’s largest and most important expense, cash grants to its state and local affiliates, will be cut by 9 percent.

But one line item in the budget will actually increase: salaries for the union’s executive officers.

The base salary for NEA president Lily Eskelsen García will increase to $293,434. NEA’s vice president and secretary-treasurer will each receive $257,954. Additionally, all three executive officers receive cash allowances equal to 40 percent of their base salary — at least $103,182 each — to cover benefits and living expenses.

NEA and its affiliates had money problems before the Supreme Court ruling. Their ability to adapt to a new environment depends less on their political and organizing skills and more on their willingness to reform themselves financially. They are not off to a good start.

NEA barely headed off a staff strike last month. State affiliates will have similar labor problems when they try to cut costs. All public-sector unions will have to re-evaluate how much they spend on themselves in order to devote the necessary resources to their remaining members, who now have the option of taking their business elsewhere. www.the74million.org/article/nea-budget-cuts-dont-include-executives-salaries/?utm_source=The+74+Million+Newsletter&utm_campaign=5a4b3be635-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_11_08_39&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_077b986842-5a4b3be635-176109065

But these opportunists won’t create it.

Put about 2000 people in a room at the Hyatt under the leadership of the International Socialist Organization and the Democratic Socialists of America and you get identity politics, the Democratic party (much love for Hillary’s fishhook, Bernie), nationalism (especially in support for US imperialism), and high offices in completely corrupt and sold out trade unions like the Chicago Teachers Union. ISO and DSA hope to feed off one another. Skimpy meal each way. Which form of opportunism will win? Even Karl Kautsky would scoff.

Here we have Billy Ayers, once a liberal with a bomb whose Weatherman terrorists destroyed the largest radical student organization in the US, SDS, on the eve of the biggest outpouring of anti-war and strike activity of that era. The crux of Ayers’ life activity is his dishonest self absorption on the one hand, and his consistent opposition to the creation of a mass class conscious movement on the other hand. Now, he’s a grant seeking liberal and “Chicago Citizen of the Year.” He’s joined by the Rethinking Schools member who Ayers mentored. That makes sense.  www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=5958

UAW widow’s lawyer rips feds in sentencing spat

The case against Morgan-Holiefield offered a detailed look at how, according to the government, officials at Fiat Chrysler tried to tilt contract negotiations in the automaker’s favor by lavishing labor leaders with first-class airfare, expense accounts and hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal payments. Some of the illegal payments to Morgan-Holiefield coincided with 2011 labor negotiations between Fiat Chrysler and the UAW, and were hidden behind an alias and sham companies, including a fake hospice.

The payments are central to an ongoing federal investigation that has led to criminal charges against seven people, caused upheaval at the top ranks of the auto industry and raised questions about the sanctity of labor negotiations.

Morgan-Holiefield pleaded guilty seven months after being indicted in the conspiracy.  www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2018/07/09/monica-morgan-holiefield-fca-uaw-scandal/768692002/

twitter.com/twitter/statuses/981923384354312192

Holiefield widow gets 18 months in auto industry corruption scandal (wrist slap)

The widow of United Auto Workers Vice President General Holiefield was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison Friday for a tax crime intertwined in a widening federal investigation of the auto industry and labor movement.

Monica Morgan-Holiefield, 55, of Harrison Township, is the first person sentenced in a scandal that has led to criminal charges against seven people and reshaped the top ranks of the auto industry as FBI agents investigate all three Detroit automakers.

Wearing a funeral black dress, she stared straight ahead as U.S. District Judge Paul Borman issued the sentence that capped the downfall of an accomplished photographer who prosecutors say succumbed to greed, living a high-flying lifestyle with money flowing from a conspiracy involving Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and the UAW.

“This was not some slip-up,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Gardey told the judge. “It was a cold and calculated effort to get money for herself and her husband … to satisfy simple greed.”

The scandal has aired damning allegations about Fiat Chrysler and the UAW conspiring to violate the Labor Management Relations Act, which prohibits employers or those working for them from paying, lending or delivering money or other valuables to officers or employees of labor organizations — and makes it illegal for labor leaders to accept such items.  www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2018/07/13/monica-morgan-holiefield-sentenced-uaw-fiat-chrysler/781882002/

This is Adam Urbanski. He’s been president of the Rochester Teachers Association (AFT) since 1981. Enough said.

www.aft.org/about/leadership/adam-urbanski

Capitalist Caudillo Cuba’s New Constitution Will Recognize Private Property: Report

Spy versus Spy

Indictment of Russian Intelligence Operatives Should Quell Harebrained Conspiracy Theories on DNC Hack

The Magical Mystery Tour

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The ‘King’ of Shambhala Buddhism Is Undone by Abuse Report

In a shrine on the sixth floor of a Manhattan office building, a photo of a man in golden robes hangs above an altar. Another photo of him sits upon a throne.

He is the head of one of the largest Buddhist organizations in the West, Shambhala International, a network of more than 200 outposts in over 30 countries where thousands come for training in meditation and mindfulness and some delve into deeper mysteries.

The man is Mipham Rinpoche. He is known as the Sakyong, a Tibetan word that translates roughly as king, and his students take vows to follow him that are binding across lifetimes. These days, they are feeling sad, confused, angry and betrayed.

Late last month, a former Shambhala teacher released a report alleging that the Sakyong had sexually abused and exploited some of his most devoted female followers for years. Women quoted in the report wrote of drunken groping and forcefully extracted sexual favors. The report said that senior leaders at Shambhala — an organization whose motto is “Making Enlightened Society Possible” — knew of the Sakyong’s misconduct and covered it up.

The Sakyong apologized a few days before the report was formally released, admitting to “relationships” with women in the community, some of whom “shared experiences of feeling harmed as a result.” Followers and Shambhala groups around the world demanded more action.

On Friday, it came: The governing council of Shambhala International, which is based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, resigned en masse, “in the interest of beginning a healing process for our community.” NYT July 1418)

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

For the team, being tough and resilient is not just in the name. Part of it comes from fighting to win. Victories have been rare for the Boars, who are usually defeated in regional tournaments, where their squad of onetime discards take on teams for whom soccer is part of the school curriculum.

But the run of defeats ended in May, when the boys won a regional tournament, boosting their pride and confidence.

“They say we are just delicious pigs, but look what we got,” Kamol said, flashing an image on his phone showing him and the head coach, Nopparat Kanthawong, holding giant trophies — the spoils of victory in the May competition.

As Kamol flicked through photos of himself out cycling with some of his young Boars, he explained that tortuous 60-plus-mile rides along hilly roads in tropical heat were regular outings for the boys, some of them as young as 11.

There is no doubt, he said, that gritty upbringings in this wild outpost had hardened the boys for any challenge they might face in life — including being stranded in a dark cave with no food to eat, dank air to breathe and no sign of escape before their discovery.               http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-thai-soccer-team-20180711-story.html        COMMENTS (12)

So Long

Candy Dowell, class warrior, clinical social worker, courageous and honest friend.