We Say Fight Back!

Rail strikes and other walkouts in France in June

Rail strikes and other walkouts in France in June

Yanquis crowd loudly boos Giuliani on his birthday

World Closely Watching Anti-Government Protests In Jordan

There have been antigovernment protests in the Middle East kingdom of Jordan. It’s one of the most stable countries in the region and a key U.S. ally, so any unrest there, which has been relatively rare, is watched closely. These protests are over the economy. NPR’s Jane Arraf joins us from the Jordanian capital Amman. And, Jane, how did these protests begin? What are people upset about?

JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Well, they were initially started as a strike by trade unions. And then they just sort of carried on from there. And for the last two nights, people have been out in the streets – now, not in huge numbers, just a few hundred at a time in some places. But the thing is this is such a tightly controlled country that demonstrations not approved by the government are really rare.

And here’s the problem. Jordan is a really poor country that in many ways acts like a rich one. The Jordanian capital is routinely ranked as one of the most expensive in the Middle East, and the city is full of luxury building projects. But people are really suffering. They’re having a very hard time getting by.  www.npr.org/2018/06/01/616257719/world-closely-watching-anti-government-protests-in-jordan

Brazil oil company Petrobras boss resigns amid truckers’ strike

Pedro Parente’s resignation was one of the demands of striking workers due to worries that he was going to privatise Brazil’s share of the Latin American oil company.

Where has Hersh been?

Seymour Hersh’s Memoir Is Full of Useful Reporting Secrets

The best of his generation writes a how-to that undermines the industry of Access Journalism–

he great test is being able to get information powerful people don’t want you to have. A journalist who is handed something, even a very sensational something, should feel nervous, sick, ambivalent. Hersh never stopped feeling that way, remaining an iconoclast and a thorn in the side of officialdom to this day.  www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/seymour-hersh-reporter-w520927

The strategy Americans can no longer grasp:

In THE STRATEGY OF VICTORY: How General George Washington Won the American Revolution (Da Capo, $28), the veteran historian Thomas Fleming tells the story well, albeit with a regrettable bias in favor of the role played by the regular Army. He emphasizes that Washington was an instinctively aggressive commander, and had to learn the hard way how to pursue an “indirect” strategy. Even then, Washington was not a pure “Fabian,” a reference to the style of the Roman general who wore out the invading Hannibal by avoiding battle. Fleming shows that Washington knew it was important for the morale of Americans — both military and civilian — to strike a blow when he could, and he indeed did so at Trenton, Princeton, Monmouth and Stony Point. Like all effective strategies in war, this hybrid approach addressed military and political problems at the same time, and enabled the new United States, though deeply divided, to achieve a surprising triumph over the world’s most powerful military. Fleming died last year, not long before this book was published. He will be missed.  www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/books/review/army-of-none-paul-scharre.html

The Little Red Schoolhouse

 

Detroit schools chief–and flimflam man Vitti: Detroit children treated ‘second class’  He Discovers RACISM!

above, summary of the Kerner Commission, 1968, written in part re: 1967 Detroit uprising

Detroit children have been treated as political pawns amid years of continued low performance and a lack of growth and opportunities, according to Detroit schools superintendent Nikolai Vitti, who said during a panel discussion Thursday that it has been driven partially by racism.

“There is a racist element to what has happened,” said Vitti, who participated in a panel, Detroit’s New Era of Collaboration on Education, moderated by Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley, during the Mackinac Policy Conference. “Children in Detroit have been treated like second-class citizens. When a system is allowed to be run over a decade by individuals that had no track record of education reform … no governance structure, years and years of low performance, a lack of growth, drop in enrollment, that would never, ever happen in any white suburban district in this country.”

Vitti said race has continued to be an underlying factor in the educational sphere, in terms of what opportunities are afforded.  www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/05/31/detroit-schools-second-class/660428002/

above, the semi-literate, habitual fondler, Otis Mathis, former chief of DPS

San Diego State University’s new president will take office amid faculty uproar

Was she fired? Placed on leave? Simply not retained?

Did he resign? Or was he pushed out? Or put on leave?

There’s deep confusion, anger and mystery among faculty at San Diego State University, where two influential executives — Joanna Brooks and Chukuka Enwemeka — have left, or been told to leave, their jobs with little or no public explanation.

In an extraordinary move, some of the faculty are asking Adela de la Torre to deal with the uproar a full month before she becomes SDSU’s next permanent president.

A May 8th email distributed among faculty summarizes the problems, saying there’s little trust between faculty and administrators, particularly when it comes to a historic principle in academia — shared governance.

The email, written by Mark Wheeler, the chair of the philosophy department, also says there have been “administrative threats to faculty.” He didn’t specify who made the threats, or what they were.

NPR, MSNBC and the Daily Show.

Brooks also is a Mormon who has chronicled her disagreements with church policy. As noted in a 2012 Union-Tribune profile, she returned her diploma shortly after she graduated from Brigham Young University, and exiled herself from the Mormon faith for nearly a decade.

She also earned praise for writing Ask Mormon Girl, a blog in which she urged people with different viewpoints to consider the views of others.

When word of her apparent dismissal began to circulate last summer, faculty pressed interim President Sally Roush to reinstate her. Their demand wasn’t met.

So some faculty members changed tactics in August and September and sought an early job performance review of Enwemeka, who some believed played a major role in her departure.

Early reviews are rare in academia, especially when it involves a provost, the chief academic officer.

The idea didn’t go over well with Enwemeka.

He came to suspect that Douglas Deutschman, a biology professor, was part of a movement to have him removed. So he sent Deutschman an email that has come to be known across campus as the “Samuel L. Jackson” message because it reflects the biblical tone that Jackson used in a scene in the movie, “Pulp Fiction.”

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.”

Deutschman declined to comment about the incident.

The letter surfaced publicly last week, after Enwemaka resigned his position. Or appeared to resign. He couldn’t be reached for comment about what actually happened.

His departure was announced by interim President Sally Roush, who won’t talk about it. Several key faculty also won’t publicly talk about it either, even though they’re protected by tenure.

The controversy threatens to overshadow concerns about equally serious problems, notably the graduation rate. In recent years, only one-third of SDSU’s bachelor degree students have earned their degree within four years.

The campus also has been struggling to increase graduate student enrollment — something that needs to improve if the university is to ever achieve its goal of becoming a top 50 public university in research.

New SDSU president withheld email from investigators

Former USC medical school dean used hard drugs while employed at university, attorney says

 

Court finds teacher evaluation system flawed (shocker!)

A boom resonated a few days ago from the Houston area stemming from the felling of the much-flawed EVAAS, the state’s system of teacher evaluation. Judge Stephen Smith of the Texas Southern District Court agreed with HISD teacher and union plaintiffs that the district’s use of the system to make employment decisions is a violation of the plaintiffs’ rights to due process. The decision is likely to affect the outcome of similar suits levied in other states, including New Mexico.

Houston’s EVAAS is one form of several existing systems of evaluation known as a VAM or Value-Added Model. As statistical models go, VAM is a sound system for what it was originally designed for: agriculture. So, if you are interested in increasing plant growth or seek to optimize levels of dairy production, get yourself a VAM. As a measure of teacher effectiveness in the classroom however, VAMs have been troubled from the start.

Like all statistical models, VAMs come with several underlying assumptions which many in the educational arena appear to be very willing to overlook. The first major assumption is that all conditions that can affect the outcome of what you’re measuring are readily identifiable, and more importantly, quantifiable. On a farm you can easily monitor soil composition, water levels, types and amounts of fertilizer and seed and other information that might affect the growth rate of plants. Similarly, a cow’s food and water intake and output at milking time are not challenging to compute.

www.lcsun-news.com/story/opinion/2017/05/26/court-finds-teacher-evaluation-system-flawed/102219102/

List of Supported Colleges: Koch Foundation (too long for the RFD)

www.charleskochfoundation.org/our-giving-and-support/higher-education/list-of-supported-colleges/

New Yorker raises a bourgie eyebrow to A Teachers’ Strike

n February, teachers in West Virginia went on strike to protest low wages and underfunding of schools. Since then, teachers have gone on strike in Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina and Oklahoma. The New Yorker contributor and Oklahoman Rivka Galchen recently talked with the striking teachers in Oklahoma and joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss how the teacher protest movement is contributing to grassroots political change across the country.  www.newyorker.com/podcast/political-scene/a-teachers-strike-and-a-democratic-movement-in-oklahoma

A venture capitalist on schooling in America

As Advocates See Hundreds of Civil Rights Cases Dismissed by Trump’s Education Dept, National Groups Take on DeVos

Weeks after civil rights advocates began receiving notifications from the Department of Education that their cases regarding discrimination in schools were being dismissed, three national groups filed a lawsuit Thursday arguing that the department’s new complaint guidelines are undermining its own obligation to investigate civil rights violations.

“You don’t have be an attorney to know these revisions are unlawful,” Marcie Lipsitt, a disability rights advocate, told Education Week. “They go against the [Office for Civil Rights’] mission statement. “These provisions strip every American of their civil rights and their ability to file civil rights complaints. And the beauty of civil rights complaints has been that everyone has been able to file one.”

Claiming that civil rights complaints can place an “unreasonable burden” on its Office for Civil Rights (OCR), Education Secretary Betsy DeVos as revised the department’s procedures. The new guidelines allow officials to dismiss hundreds of complaints regarding unfair treatment of students of color, inadequate resources for students with disabilities, and other forms of systemic discrimination. The appeals process for resolutions has also being eliminated.  www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/01/advocates-see-hundreds-civil-rights-cases-dismissed-trumps-education-dept-national

 

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www.facebook.com/boredteachers/videos/1722150841136101/

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

‘What the hell was he thinking?’: Families of McCain sailors tear into former CO at court-martial

 

VOICE: Regime Change for Dummies

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Puzzling over U.S. wage growth

The state of U.S. wage growth these days is puzzling. The unemployment rate is below where it was before the Great Recession back in 2007, but nominal wage growth is below its level that year and hasn’t picked up in recent years (according to some data series). For economists and analysts who believe that a tighter labor market should lead to higher wages, this disconnect is confusing.

But some analysts, myself included, suggest that the seemingly very tight labor market might not be that tight. The unemployment rate may be low (3.9 percent in April), but the share of workers in their prime years (ages 25 to 54) with a job (79.2 percent) is still below its 2007 level. The prime employment rate can predict wage and compensation growth quite well. Such a continued strong relationship between these variables would suggest that slack remains in the labor market. Stronger wage growth will show up, according to this line of thinking, if the prime employment rate further increases.

Jason Furman, the former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, isn’t sold on this narrative. Furman (now at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics and a member of Equitable Growth’s Steering Committee) lays out his concerns in a series of tweets to which Evercore ISI economist Ernie Tedeschi and I have responded. While this might be a quick way to engage on this topic, Paul Krugman has a point that the arguments can be hard to follow. So, let’s lay out some of Furman’s concerns here, as well as some of Krugman’s substantive thoughts, and then turn to a “statement of principles” about this question.

Furman’s critiques of the prime employment rate’s “answer” to the wage growth puzzle can be separated into two parts. The first has to do with the measures of wage growth. Furman notes the differences among the main metrics of wage growth. The commonly cited average hourly earnings, or AHE, data series shows that wage growth is stuck at around 2.5 percent. It hasn’t accelerated much, as the unemployment rate has dropped and the prime employment rate has increased. In contrast, the growth in wages and salaries according to the Employment Cost Index, or ECI, is moving slowly but steadily upward. (See Figure 1.)

Tom Dispatch on the Fake Healthy Economy

“In a healthy economy in which one job can provide for a family and meet basic living expenses, a 3.8 percent unemployment rate would certainly be fantastic economic news. As Reuters reported, the unemployment rate hasn’t been this low in 18 years. ABC News reported that the current unemployment rate is ‘tantalizingly close’ to the 3.5 percent unemployment rate in 1969, when the American auto industry was at its peak.

Most Uber and Lyft drivers in L.A. work full time and still struggle to make ends meet, study says

Trump voters allowed themselves to believe they had a successful billionaire who knew the art of the deal when he only knew the art of the con. They bought his seductive campaign narrative, that the system was rigged and corrupt and only he could fix it. After winning by warning voters they were being suckered, he’s made them all suckers.

Those who ignored whispers about Weinstein’s grotesque behavior burned to believe that Hollywood was more than juvenile comic-book movies, that it could still make classy, sophisticated films with great roles for mature actresses like Meryl Streep and Judi Dench. And despite tales of misogyny and sickening transgressions, they wanted to buy Harvey’s grand narrative, that he was a liberal feminist who could raise enough money to help elect the first woman president.

With Holmes, people were longing for a young woman to break into the club of boy geniuses conjuring unicorns. She played to that, imitating Steve Jobs by wearing a black turtleneck and driving a car with no license plate. She pitched a Jobs-like mythic story about her company, that it was not merely about making money, it was designed to be “the most important thing humanity has ever built.”

High-minded elites like to scornfully say that Trump voters fell for his scam because they were ignorant and racist. But the high-minded elites fell for Holmes’s scam, even the fake deep authoritative voice she put on. Her board had George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Jim Mattis and David Boies; Rupert Murdoch and Robert Kraft were investors.

“It’s a controversial thing to say now, but Holmes wowed all these older men and wrapped them around her finger with her charm and youth and good looks and cool vision,” says John Carreyrou, The Wall Street Journal reporter who broke the scam story and who wrote a book, “Bad Blood” www.nytimes.com/2018/05/26/opinion/sunday/grifters-gone-wild.html

UniParty Activates – Koch Brothers Defend Democrat Senator Heidi Heitkamp…

The North Dakota senate seat currently held by Democrat Senator Heidi Heitkamp is one of the targeted seats Republicans are looking to take in the 2018 mid-terms.  To flip the seat the White House helped convince Republican Kevin Cramer to challenge Heitkamp.

With the North Dakota election considered a ‘toss up‘, between Heitkamp and challenger Cramer; and with election outcome looking positive toward republicans; the UniParty quickly jumps into action.

Notorious UniParty control agents David and Charles Koch, aka ‘The Koch Brothers’, now begin spending money to help Heitkamp retain her seat.

Washington (CNN) – Americans for Prosperity, a Koch brothers-backed political advocacy group, is running a digital ad thanking a vulnerable Democratic senator for her support of bank deregulation legislation ahead of the midterm elections.

The ad, which launched Friday, thanks North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, who is fighting to hold onto her seat in a state that Trump carried by 36 points in 2016, for cosponsoring a rollback of some Dodd-Frank Act regulations.  theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/06/02/uniparty-activates-koch-brothers-defend-democrat-senator-heidi-heitkamp/

Italy’s Political Crisis: The Danger It Poses for the Global Economy

One thing that has become clear over the last decade is how effects can spread unpredictably across countries in times of financial disruption.

The New Political Risk in Italy

The Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, rejected an anti-E.U. nominee for economy minister, setting the stage for elections later in the year that, if a recent pattern repeats, could put in place a parliamentary majority that is hostile to European institutions.

In effect, those events have made it more likely that there will be a showdown between authorities in Rome and officials in Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt over deficit spending, with an unraveling of the European Union one potential outcome, even if not the most likely one.

New Italian elections would help decide whether that is the case. In the last elections, in March, populist parties skeptical of European institutions won a comfortable majority of seats in parliament, but included both right-wing and left-wing parties that have struggled since then to form a coalition.

If the populists maintain or expand their advantages in elections, it raises the prospect of serious friction between Italian politicians looking to increase spending and a European Commission, European Central Bank and German government that insist upon fiscal austerity as a condition for, among other things, continued E.C.B. purchases of Italian bonds.  www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/upshot/italy-political-crisis-global-economy.html

Inequality in India can be seen from outer space

Are night lights on earth captured by satellites from outer space a good way to measure inequality?

Economists Praveen Chakravarty and Vivek Dehejia certainly believe so. They acquired images grabbed by satellites from the US Air Force Defence Meteorological Satellite Programme. These satellites circle the earth 14 times a day and record lights from the earth’s surface at night with sensors. They superimposed a map depicting India’s districts on their images, allowing them to develop a unique data set of luminosity values, by district and over time.   www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44193144

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

Origins of an Epidemic: Purdue Pharma Knew Its Opioids Were Widely Abused

A confidential Justice Department report found the company was aware early on that OxyContin was being crushed and snorted for its powerful narcotic, but continued to promote it as less addictive.

Student Protesters in Puerto Rico Face Trial as Government Criminalizes Dissent

With the second round of trials underway in Washington, D.C., for protesters charged in connection with the J20 demonstrations against Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, another legal battle over the right to dissent is unfolding hundreds of miles away in Puerto Rico, where seven students are facing charges in connection to a protest over tuition hikes at the island’s public university.

In April 2017, leaders of the University of Puerto Rico’s student body demanded a meeting with the school’s governing board to discuss alternatives to a program of sharp disinvestment from the university, one in a slew of public service cuts in Puerto Rico in recent years. When their requests were ignored, a few dozen protesters stormed the building where the university board was meeting. There were no serious injuries or damage, and nobody was arrested.

In the following days, however, several students who had assumed leadership roles in the protest movement received citations ordering them to appear in court. When they did, they were handcuffed and paraded before TV cameras in the middle of the night, then booked and, finally, released on bail.

While students at UPR continue to fight the new measures — the university board ultimately approved the tuition hikes last month, a year after the students stormed the meeting — they are also rallying around students arrested after the 2017 protest. As with the unfolding prosecutions in Washington, officials in Puerto Rico are throwing the book at protesters with unprecedented zeal.  theintercept.com/2018/05/31/university-of-puerto-rico-protests/

www.facebook.com/yahoonews/videos/10157165888181037/

D’Souza’s Reward

The pardon of Dinesh D’Souza shows how far the racist fringe has risen under Donald Trump.

President Trump’s recent pardons don’t even pretend to address actual injustice in the criminal justice system. They are borne entirely and transparently out of Trump’s self-interest. The pardon of former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, convicted of criminal contempt of court, was a reward for a close supporter who shares the president’s hostility to immigration. The pardon of Scooter Libby, convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice, was a reminder to Trump’s associates, who are under investigation by the FBI. And this week’s pardon of Dinesh D’Souza, convicted for a felony violation of campaign finance law, marks both a strike against a political foe—former U.S Attorney Preet Bharara, a vocal Trump critic whose office pursued the case—and a show of solidarity with a figure who built his career on the same prejudice and conspiracy theorizing that fueled Trump’s rise through the Republican Party.

In a healthier political system, D’Souza would be a fringe figure, whose open bigotry and shoddy intellectualism would leave him on the outside looking in. Instead, he is a conservative in good standing  slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/dinesh-dsouzas-pardon-shows-how-far-the-racist-fringe-has-risen-under-donald-trump.html

www.facebook.com/victoria.ayovaughan/videos/10212128733196496/

New Study Finds Hurricane Maria’s Death Toll in Puerto Rico Likely More Than 4,600

A new Harvard study estimates that at least 4,600 people in Puerto Rico have died from causes related to Hurricane Maria, a far larger number than the official government death toll of 64.

According to the new study, which was conducted by a group of independent researchers from Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, these deaths could often be attributed to delayed and limited health care in the aftermath of the storm, which shuttered several hospitals, crippled the power grid, knocked out cell service, and made many roads impassable.

The study, released Tuesday, is based on researchers’ visits to more than 3,000 homes on the island. The residents reported that 38 people in those homes had died between the day of the storm and the end of the year, and that mortality rate allowed researchers to extrapolate a larger death toll from the overall population. They then could figure out how much higher that number was from the number of deaths during those three months the year before, giving them the number of “excess” deaths. The research leaves room for a more precise, exhaustive study of the death toll.  slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/harvard-study-finds-high-hurricane-maria-death-toll.html

Egypt’s el-Sissi begins 2nd term amid crackdown on dissent

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was sworn in for a second four-year term on Saturday after being re-elected in a vote earlier this year in which he faced no serious challengers

El-Sissi took the oath of office before parliament amid tight security across much of Cairo. Police sealed off roads leading to parliament in central Cairo for more than three hours. After the oath, artillery fired a celebratory 21-gun salute.

In an address to the packed chamber, el-Sissi vowed to continue working to restore stability, revive the economy and combat an insurgency by Islamic militants centered in the northern Sinai Peninsula. He said in his second term he would focus on education and health care.

“Egypt can include all of us, with all our diversity and richness… except those who choose violence and terror to impose their will and power. Egypt is for all and I am a president of all those who agree with me or disagree,” he said at the ceremony, also attended by his Cabinet and religious leaders.

Since el-Sissi’s re-election in March, authorities have intensified a crackdown on dissent with a wave of arrests of high-well-known activists and human rights campaigners. Among those arrested are blogger Wael Abbas, pro-democracy activist Shady el-Ghazaly Harb, young comedian Shady Abu Zeid and activist Amal Fathy. They all face an array of charges including disseminating false news and belonging to an outlawed group.

The European Union and human rights groups have voiced concern over the latest wave of arrests and called for the detainees to be released.

El-Sissi won more than 97 percent of the vote in the March election,  apnews.com/30269d6316484d59a6227d893d49e1f9

Solidarity for Never

Democrats are From Hell; Republicans are From Hell’s Lowest Circle, and Trump is From Somewhere Else Altogether

For nearly three decades, the right has been going after the Clintons – first mainly Bill, then mainly Hillary – for all the wrong reasons.

The right reasons are the many ways that the Clintons and those who think like them — that would be most Democrats — are like Republicans.

Democrats are more decent, more socially liberal, more civil (right-wingers would say “politically correct”), and less wedded to retrograde causes and notions. This can and often does matter around the margins.

But the respects in which Democrats are better are of little or no consequence for the fundamental economic and political problems faced by Americans, and peoples around the world who live under the sway of the American hegemon. On those problems, Democrats and Republicans are as alike as peas in a pod.

The Republican Party is a party of the center right and the far right, but contrary to the conventional wisdom, the Democratic Party is not a party of the left or even the center left.

There is no politically significant left in the United States today; there are only remnants and individuals, vast numbers of them, yearning for left alternatives. What is called a left is actually, to use Tariq Ali’s apt expression, an “extreme center.”

The extreme center is now going after Donald Trump with fervor equal to or greater than that of the right and far right towards the Clintons and likeminded Democrats.  www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/01/democrats-are-from-hell-republicans-are-from-hells-lowest-circle-and-trump-is-from-somewhere-else-altogether/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lprtS0XCj20

Ex-FCA employee pleads guilty to charge in UAW training center scandal

A former Fiat Chrysler Automobiles employee pleaded guilty Friday for his role in $4.5 million-plus corruption scandal at the UAW-Chrysler National Training Center — where he was a co-director.

Michael Brown, 60, pleaded guilty to one count of lying to a federal grand jury about the scope of the conspiracy, as part of a plea deal with federal investigators. Brown was a director in FCA’s employee relations department from 2009 to 2016. Before a grand jury on Dec. 16, 2015, he first denied knowing about the FCA executives’ conspiracy to violate the Labor Relations Act. Brown has since left the company.

Brown is the seventh person charged in the corruption scandal and the sixth to plead guilty. Prosecutors contend that FCA employees and executives paid UAW representatives to influence union business, such as collective bargaining negotiations in 2011 and 2015, siphoned money and used false charitable donations and credit cards to pay for items not related to business.

Brown was charged in April, one day before UAW official Keith Mickens, who oversaw training center operations, became the fifth person to plead guilty as part of the criminal probe.

Plea deal

Brown knew the goal of the conspiracy was “to provide prohibited payments to UAW officials, was to grease the skids in order to obtain benefits, advantages, and concessions in the negotiation, implementation, and administration of the collective bargaining agreements between FCA and the UAW,” according to a 14-page plea deal he signed on March 29.

According to the plea deal Brown and other officials authorized hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to the UAW, in the guise of reimbursements for the salaries and benefits the union paid to members of its staff, knowing many of the individuals had done no work on behalf of the center. He also authorized further prohibited payments to the UAW in the form of a 7 percent administrative fee that was added to the monthly demand by the union for reimbursement of salaries and benefits, according to the plea deal.  www.autonews.com/article/20180525/OEM01/180529789/fiat-chrysler-uaw-training-center-michael-brown-guilty-plea

Trump lashes out as Obama-era photos of immigrant children in steel cages linked to current administration

The Sunshine Economy: State of Teachers’ Unions

Florida teachers’ unions are planning to sue the state over a new law that threatens their long-term survival.

Unions’ right to collectively bargain for their members has been enshrined in the state constitution since 1968 and state law since 1974. The legislation followed a massive teacher walkout in 1968 — the first statewide teacher strike in U.S. history.

But lawmakers put new restrictions on collective bargaining in this year’s controversial House Bill 7055 — affecting only teachers’ unions. The law says if at least half of eligible teachers aren’t dues-paying members of a union, the group could lose its state certification.  wlrn.org/post/sunshine-economy-state-teachers-unions

Spy versus Spy

The US holds terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay without charging them

Lithuania and Romania complicit in CIA torture – European court

European judges have ruled that Lithuania and Romania violated the rights of two al-Qaeda terror suspects by allowing the CIA to torture them.

The US captured Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri after the September 2001 attacks in the US and they are now at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

The CIA operated secret prisons, including in Lithuania and Romania.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said both countries had violated the European prohibition of torture.

The ECHR issued a similar ruling against Poland in 2014.

The US military allows very little access to prisoners at Guantanamo

www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44313905

CIA interrogation report: The 20 key findings

What did the Senate committee find out?

1) The CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining co-operation from detainees.

2)The CIA’s justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness.

3) The interrogations of CIA detainees were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others.

4) The conditions of confinement for CIA detainees were harsher than the CIA had represented to policymakers and others.

5) The CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice, impeding a proper legal analysis of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.

6) The CIA has actively avoided or impeded congressional oversight of the programme.

7) The CIA impeded effective White House oversight and decision-making.

8) The CIA’s operation and management of the programme complicated, and in some cases impeded, the national security missions of other executive branch agencies.

9) The CIA impeded oversight by the CIA’s Office of Inspector General.

10) The CIA co-ordinated the release of classified information to the media, including inaccurate information concerning the effectiveness of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.

www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30401025

U.S. Navy Reserve Doctor on Gina Haspel Torture Victim: “One of the Most Severely Traumatized Individuals I Have Ever Seen”

An American doctor and Naval reserve officer who has done extensive medical evaluation of a high-profile prisoner who was tortured under the supervision of Gina Haspel privately urged Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to oppose Haspel’s confirmation as CIA director, according to an email obtained by The Intercept.

“I have evaluated Mr. Abdal Rahim al-Nashiri, as well as close to 20 other men who were tortured” in U.S. custody, including several who were tortured “as part of the CIA’s RDI [Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation] program. I am one of the only health professionals he has ever talked to about his torture, its effects, and his ongoing suffering,” Dr. Sondra Crosby, a professor of public health at Boston University, wrote to Warner’s legislative director on Monday. “He is irreversibly damaged by torture that was unusually cruel and designed to break him. In my over 20 years of experience treating torture victims from around the world, including Syria, Iraq, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mr. al-Nashiri presents as one of the most severely traumatized individuals I have ever seen.” theintercept.com/2018/05/17/gina-haspel-cia-director-torture/

Senate Democrats Provide Key Votes to Confirm Gina Haspel as CIA Director

Gina Haspel, the CIA veteran who supervised the torture of a War on Terror detainee and helped order the destruction of videotapes depicting torture, has been approved by the Senate as the agency’s director. Two of the Senate’s 51 Republicans—Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul—voted against Haspel. Arizona Sen. John McCain was absent for medical reasons but said previously that Haspel should not be confirmed. Six Democrats—Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly, North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner—voted to confirm her.  slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/gina-haspel-cia-torture-nominee-confirmed-six-democrats-provide-key-votes-in-senate.html

Fred Kovaleski, Once a Spy in a Tennis Disguise, Dies at 93

Within three years, his ability to play tennis and his Russian-language training with the C.I.A. became essential when Yuri Rastvorov, a K.G.B. lieutenant colonel and avid tennis player, defected to the United States.

Mr. Rastvorov — a major espionage asset who revealed important information about the K.G.B. and the Soviet government — defected in Tokyo and was taken to a C.I.A. safe house in Potomac, Md., where agents interrogated him for hours every day for months. Mr. Kovaleski, his handler, did not participate in the interrogations; at night, they talked, and the information he gleaned went into his reports….

Fred Thomas Kovaleski was born on Oct. 8, 1924, in Maynard, Mass., and grew up in a Polish enclave in Hamtramck, Mich. Like his mother, Mr. Kovaleski’s father, Frank, an automotive assembly line worker, had immigrated from Poland. As a boy, Fred played handball well, which prompted a gym teacher, Jean Hoxie, to suggest that he play tennis. When his father declined to buy him a $10 racket, Ms. Hoxie did, and she taught him to play. By 17, he was a member of the U.S. Junior Davis Cup team.

“Hoxie says to me, ‘Fred, I want you to get out of this town,’ ” he told the William & Mary magazine. She helped arrange for him to attend William & Mary on a tennis scholarship.  www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/obituaries/fred-kovaleski-once-a-spy-in-a-tennis-disguise-dies-at-93.html

Pakistan military summons ex-spy chief over book controversy

 

Pakistan’s army has summoned the ex-head of the intelligence agency, accusing him of violating the military code of conduct over a book he co-authored with the former spy chief of arch rival India.

Retired Lieutenant General Asad Durrani, who headed Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) from 1990 to 1992, also came under fire from former prime minister Nawaz Sharif for allegedly disclosing national secrets in the book.

In a surprise move, Durrani co-authored “The Spy Chronicles: RAW, ISI and the Illusion of peace” with A.S. Dulat, the ex-chief of India’s Research and Analysis Wing intelligence agency.

The book is based on a series of discussion between Durrani and Dulat with Indian journalist Aditya Sinha on various topics including Afghanistan, Kashmir and the tense relations between Pakistan and India.

Military spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said Durrani had been called to the general headquarters on May 28 — and “will be asked to explain his position on views attributed to him in book ‘Spy Chronicles'”.

“Attribution taken as violation of Military Code of Conduct applicable on all serving and retired military personnel,” the spokesman added.

Durrani was summoned after Sharif Friday criticised him for disclosing secrets in the book.

Sharif apparently tried to draw a parallel between Durrani’s revelations and his own statement suggesting Pakistani militants were behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which sparked a firestorm at home and in India and was later slammed by Pakistan’s National Security Council.

The former prime minister had approached what is seen as a red line by touching on criticism of Pakistan’s powerful armed forces, especially their alleged use of proxies in India, in his interview with Dawn newspap  er published last week.

“Militant organisations are active. Call them non-state actors, should we allow them to cross the border and kill 150 people in Mumbai? Explain it to me. Why can’t we complete the trial?” Sharif told Pakistan’s leading English daily, referring to stalled court cases against several suspects.

The Mumbai attacks left 166 people dead and brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

Media reports said Durrani had admitted Pakistan’s role in the unrest in Indian-administered Kashmir in the book.

Sharif had called for the National Security Council to convene over Durrani’s views in the book and accused the general of disclosing classified information.

Sharif was ousted from the premiership by the Supreme Court last July but his party remains in power.  www.france24.com/en/20180526-pakistan-military-summons-ex-spy-chief-over-book-controversy

The Magical Mystery Tour

Billy Graham Was One of America’s Richest Pastors. Here’s What We Know About His Money

Much is unknown about the famous evangelist’s wealth. According to the wealth-tracking site TheRichest.com, Billy Graham’s net worth was an estimated $25 million at the time of his death.

That would rank Graham as one of America’s eight richest pastors, Beliefnet.com reported. Graham’s estimated $25 million net worth is equal to that of Rick Warren, but lower than pastors such as Joel Osteen ($40 million) and Kenneth Copeland ($760 million).

Forbes has reported that two nonprofits associated with Billy Graham are among the biggest charities in the U.S. Samaritan’s Purse posted revenues of $635 million in 2016, while the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association had $101 million in revenues in 2010. Both organizations are now run by Billy Graham’s son William Franklin Graham III, who is paid well for his leadership roles. Better known as Franklin Graham, he received a whopping total of $1.2 million in 2008 and $880,000 in compensation in 2014 for running the two charities,    …

Billy Graham lived for decades at a mountaintop compound in Montreat, N.C., near Black Mountain. Graham has famously met and prayed with every U.S. president since Harry Truman, and among the visitors to Graham’s North Carolina home was President Barack Obama, who stopped by in 2010.

Graham and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association have purchased vast acres for various museums, libraries, and religious training centers, and spent tens of millions in their construction.

The Billy Graham Library, opened in Charlotte in 2007, was built at a reported cost of $27 million time.com/money/5168865/billy-graham-net-worth-quotes-money-greed/

Prosperity Gospel Preacher Asks For Donations to Buy $54 Million Jet “For the Lord”

A New Orleans televangelist known for preaching the “prosperity gospel” has asked his followers from all over the world to send him donations for him to buy a $54 million jet.

Jesse Duplantis, the leader of Jesse Duplantis Ministries, is asking for a new Dassault Falcon 7X, a three-engine jet he justified in a five-minute video posted last week on his website by saying it could go farther, therefore saving on airplane fuel. “Pray about becoming a partner to it,” he tells viewers.

“I really believe that if Jesus was physically on the Earth today, he wouldn’t be riding a donkey,” he says in the video “He’d be in an airplane preaching the gospel flying all over the world.”

Duplantis also said that God specifically told him, “I want you to believe in me for a Falcon 7X.” When Duplantis worried about the price, God told him, “Jesse, I didn’t ask you to pay for it, I asked you to believe for it.”

The jet would actually be the fourth private aircraft for Duplantis, according to the video. He bought an airplane “for the Lord” in 1994, then again in 2004, and again in 2006:

I used them—and just burning them up for the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, some people believe that preachers shouldn’t have jets. I really believe preachers ought to go on every available voice, every available outlet to get this gospel preached to the world.

Duplantis preaches a “prosperity gospel,” in which God blesses people who please him with material wealth, to an audience on Trinity Broadcasting Network, which claims to be the largest Christian TV network in the world.  slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/televangelist-jesse-duplantis-asks-for-donations-for-private-jet.html

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZyoAtcw9Wk

Covington Diocese bans Holy Cross gay valedictorian graduation speech

Scroll to the bottom of this story to read the valedictorian’s banned speech.

The Diocese of Covington last weekend banned the graduation speeches from the valedictorian and student council president of Holy Cross High School, with officials saying they contained “elements that were political and inconsistent with the teaching of the Catholic Church.”

The school’s graduation was Friday night at Thomas More College, and valedictorian Christian Bales was told earlier that day that he would not be allowed to give his speech.

Bales, 18, later gave it outside the graduation using a megaphone, he told the Enquirer in an interview Tuesday.

Bales, who is openly gay, said he had already agreed to conform to a dress code for the event.

“I have been on their radar as a rather non-gender conforming individual,” said Bales who lives in Cold Spring. “I have worn makeup and bobby pins in my hair to school before. So it seems too much of a coincidence for my critical thinking to think this was just about the speech itself.  www.cincinnati.com/story/news/education/2018/05/29/covington-diocese-bans-holy-cross-graduation-speeches/650848002/

Minnesota Archdiocese Reaches $210 Million Settlement With 450 Clergy Abuse (that would be rape–again)Victims

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has reached a $210 million settlement agreement with 450 victims of clergy sexual abuse as part of a bankruptcy reorganization, officials announced Thursday.

At $210,290,724, it is estimated to be the second-largest payout by the Catholic church in the U.S., according to the Associated Press. It comes after nearly four years of bankruptcy proceedings and negotiations.

“I recognize that the abuse stole so much from you. Your childhood, your safety, your ability to trust and in many cases your faith. Relationships with family and friend relationships in your parishes and communities were harmed. Lives were forever changed. The church let you down. I am very sorry,” Archbishop Bernard Hebda said to survivors at a news conference Thursday.

He added that the deal brings “definitive resolution in a way that avoids further litigation and expense and that allows the local to church to carry on with its mission.”

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

The Most infamous snake bite (AG)

 

 

Meena Kandasamy: ‘The book I give as a gift? The Communist Manifesto’

The book I give as a gift
Used to be The Autobiography of Malcolm X. When I moved here, I found The Communist Manifesto in the form of a Penguin Little Black Classic an excellent choice – it only cost 80p, looks cute and is always worth a (re)read.  www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/01/books-that-made-me-meena-kandasamy

Wild goose chase 😂😂

wait for the end… (via @FoxSportsWest) pic.twitter.com/o3iBgUOeWE

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) May 31, 2018

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Student puts high school for sale on Craigslist, gets banned from graduation

One high school student’s senior prank did not go as planned.

As a joke, Kylan Scheele listed his school, Truman High School in Independence, Missouri, for sale on Craigslist. Scheele posted the list price as $12,725.

He wrote in the listing things like “Huge 20+ room facility” and “Has centralized air, heating, plumbling.”

Scheele also wrote, “Reason for sale is due to loss of students coming up.”

Scheele said he was referring to the school’s loss of seniors as they graduate and head to college. Unfortunately for Scheele, the prank landed him suspended and banned from graduation.

Some people interpreted the line “Reason for sale is due to loss of students coming up” as a threat to the school. The Craigslist posting was then reported to the school as a possible threat.  www.wsmv.com/story/38332369/student-puts-high-school-for-sale-on-craigslist-gets-banned-from-graduation

Siobhan Eagen / Staff Southwestern Sun

Donald Trump wants a war with China, while he’s fighting Iran. Bad plan

Trump Makes Pence Watch Him Issue Pardons to See How It’s Done

www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-makes-pence-watch-him-issue-pardons-to-see-how-its-done?mbid=nl_060218%20Borowitz%20(1)&CNDID=39165830&spMailingID=13627003&spUserID=MTMzMTg0NTgzNzgzS0&spJobID=1420160020&spReportId=MTQyMDE2MDAyMAS2