We Say Fight Back!

Counterfeit Unions Seek to Shut Down Oklahoma Wildcaters

by Rich Gibson

After nine days of a rank and file organized wildcat strike, the boss of the Oklahoma Education Association, Alicia Priest, moved to end it, sell it out, because, “Republicans in the State Senate would not consider additional revenue sources.”

Since the other side said, “NO,” she wants to quit.

The other side always says, “No,” until they say, “We yield.”

As the OEA is conceding (the unions have so much practice) a sizeable force supporting the teachers grew. That powerful solidarity came from working people in Oklahoma, and even around the world.

Alicia Priest seeks to staunch what she knows is a dangerous social movement rising up from the grassroots. School staff occupy the centripetal organizing place in North American de-industrialized live, producing not merely the next generation of workers and soldiers, but the ideas which can propel a serious social movement for equality and justice.

The strike so far has made no gains whatever, but Priest calls this “a victory.”

It’s a victory for her and those like her if the school workers indeed return to school and abandon a long term battle against her and the Oklahoma state bosses she serves.

Some Oklahoma teachers are meeting online, as I write, to try to continue the strike they created.

The educators had heroically shut down the schools, demanding that the state tax the rich in order to improve every conceivable condition in a decayed school system, and for wage and benefits for the school staff. richgibson.com/counterfeitunions.htm

www.facebook.com/jordan.f.clark/videos/10215899284696850/

Oklahoma teachers rally at capitol as walkout enters 7th day (Video within)

Oklahoma teachers rallied at the state Capitol Tuesday on the seventh day of their walkout as classes remained canceled in the state’s largest school districts.

A group of teachers marched over 100 miles from Tulsa to Oklahoma City, where the state capitol is. They are asking the Oklahoma Legislature to provide $50 million more in funding and to repeal a capital gains tax exemption. They are also asking Gov. Mary Fallin to veto a lodging tax repeal bill, which would eliminate $42 million in funding, according to the Oklahoma Education Association, the state’s largest union.

The walkout comes after the West Virginia teachers’ strike catalyzed a movement of teachers demanding higher pay. Arizona and Kentucky teachers have voiced their frustrations regarding teachers’ salary and education underfunding.  abcnews.go.com/US/oklahoma-teachers-rally-capitol-walkout-enters-7th-day/story?id=54374538

Oklahoma girl is excited her ‘new’ textbook belonged to Blake Shelton, but her mom is mad

When 6-year-old Blake Shelton went to school  in 1982, the future superstar was given an almost brand-new textbook to learn from. More than 35 years later, that same book made its way to a first grader in 2018.

Marley Parker, 7, discovered her assigned textbook belonged to Oklahoma-born Shelton when she went to add her own name to the front of the book. She was excited that she had a connection to country music singer and The Voice star.  However, her mom,  Shelly Bryan Parker, decidedly did not feel the same way.

In a now viral post,  Parker wrote, “Marley is EXCITED that her ‘new’ reader belonged to Blake Shelton, but I am EMBARRASSED!!!! I’m 40 and these people are my age!!”  www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/little-girl-excited-new-textbook-belonged-blake-shelton-mom-mad-170524106.html?soc_src=hl-viewer&soc_trk=fb

www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/1178827932258712/

Arizona governor offers teachers 20% pay raise, but educators have questions

)Faced with growing pressure from educators, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey announced Thursday his plan to give teachers 20% pay raises by the beginning of the 2020 school year.

Under his proposal, teachers’ pay would increase 9% in the 2018 school year, then another 5% for the next two years, which would boost the average salary to $58,130 from the current $48,372 by 2020.

…Noah Karvelis, a teacher and an Arizona Educators United organizer, said, “It feels like an attempt to stop whatever action we may have been taking, instead of a legitimate groundwork for future investment in education and to fulfill our demands.

Schiff declines to attend school event due to teacher protest

PDF Here: b-ok.xyz/book/3426493/dbeef9

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AIKS has chalked out a detailed course of the struggle to raise the burning issues of peasants across the country.

After leading the victorious farmers’ long march in Maharashtra this March, the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) has chalked out a detailed course of the struggle for the next six months to further intensify the peasants’ struggles as decided in its Central Kisan Committee (CKC) meeting held on 19-20 March at Delhi.

On April 3, marking the first death anniversary of Pehlu Khan, the dairy farmer from Haryana who was murdered by cow vigilantes, AIKS joined the protest march in Delhi’s Parliament Street against such attacks organised by Bhumi Adhikar Andolan (BAA). Simultaneously, today, AIKS is also leading a ‘March to Vidhan Sabha’ in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh against the recently announced BJP- led state government’s anti-farmers’ policies. The farmers are demanding the government to immediately stop the unlawful eviction of farmers from lands and their homes, stop cutting (fruiting) trees, allotment of land to landless peasants, effective implementation of MGNREGA throughout the state among others.  newsclick.in/farmer-protests-intensify-next-six-months-if-govt-fails-fulfil-their-demands

Congratulations on the launch of:

March of the penguins meets the ‘March For Science’ in California

www.usatoday.com/videos/tech/science/2018/04/14/march-penguins-meets-march-science-california/33845585/

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Howard University reveals that fired employees misappropriated $369,000

Howard University on Monday said six former employees misappropriated $369,000 in financial aid from 2011 to 2016, revealing for the first time the scope of the scandal that helped ignite more than a week of student protests.

The historically black university released a report on the investigation that led to the firing of half a dozen employees last year. What began as a routine internal review of the financial aid office in August 2016 resulted in the hiring of a forensic accounting firm months later, after a consultant grew suspicious about the awarding and distribution of university aid.

Investigators discovered that some employees who received tuition benefits to cover the cost of taking classes were also receiving university grants. That double dipping exceeded the cost of tuition and resulted in employees receiving refunds for the excess aid, according to the report.

Howard reviewed the records of 131 people who received the tuition benefit from 2011 to 2016. During that time, six individuals inappropriately were awarded or received about $90,000 in employee tuition benefits and $279,000 in university grants. Howard has not named any of the six employees. The university said that as matter of policy it does not disclose employee records to the public. (WAPO 4/11)

Data showing what percentage of faculty appointments are part-time can vary depending on what universe and types of positions you are counting. Here, we show a breakout of part-time positions as a percentage of faculty positions by institution type, and highlight which portion of those part timers are graduate employees.   www.facebook.com/AAUPNational/photos/a.190682337631926.43108.114892038544290/1904651719568304/?type=3&theater

The Material Reason for the complacency and complicity of faculty

…To that last point, AAUP data this year show that 93 percent of all participating institutions pay men more than women at the same rank.

…AAUP’s survey historically has been criticized for focusing primarily on full-time professors. This year it offers some insight into an understudied aspect of part-time employment: benefits. Just 5 percent of institutions reported offer part-time faculty members a full benefits package, while another 33 percent of institutions reported offering part-timers some benefits.

Joseph Roy, a senior researcher at AAUP, said this week that part-time faculty salary data remain underreported by participating institutions — at just about 20 percent. That’s in part because they often don’t have the data in a central location, he said, due to the decentralized manner in which adjuncts are typically hired.

Moreover, participation in AAUP’s annual survey is voluntary, Roy said, and institutions may not want to share information that could put them in a “poor light” — namely the relatively low pay that adjuncts often get, especially as compared to their full-time colleagues.

Below are some data on what reporting institutions pay part-timers who teach on a per-course basis, but they don’t include how many courses those professors are teaching. The data therefore lack context — and meaning.  www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/04/11/aaups-annual-report-faculty-compensation-takes-salary-compression-and-more

Judge Signs Off on Trump University’s $25 Million Settlement

A federal judge in San Diego signed off Monday on a $25 million settlement in lawsuits filed by former students of now-defunct Trump University, who claimed they were bilked out of millions of dollars by the real estate program.

The settlement was initially approved a year ago by U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, but a former Trump University student challenged the agreement, saying she wanted to file her own lawsuit in hopes of recouping more money and getting now-President Donald Trump to apologize.

A federal appeals court in February rejected Sherri Simpson’s challenge, ruling the plaintiff did not have the right to opt out of the appeal under the terms of the class-action suit. Curiel approved the settlement once Simpson agreed to drop further appeals.

About 8,000 former students are eligible to receive 80 to 90 percent of what they paid for Trump University programs, totaling $21 million in two lawsuits filed in California and $4 million in a case filed in 2013 by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who welcomed the finalization of the settlement.  timesofsandiego.com/politics/2018/04/09/judge-signs-off-on-trump-university-25-million-settlement/

above DPS book warehouse

Michigan students were flat on a rigorous national exam, with scores virtually unchanged from the last time the test was given. But the bad news in the latest results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress is out of Detroit, where student performance is the poorest in the nation. Again.

The district’s new leader pledges that will change.

“Our students, parents, teachers and principals are ready to embrace change for improvement. They know we can do better,” said Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools Community District.

In Detroit, students had the worst performance not only among large, urban districts but also compared with all states in fourth- and eighth-grade math, as well as fourth-grade reading. Detroit shared the bottom spot with Cleveland for eighth-grade reading.

The results for Michigan’s largest school district illustrate the urgency of  Vitti’s aggressive steps to turn around the district, which critics have said suffered under years of state control. An audit released in February found teachers have been using a curriculum so inferior, Vitti said it’s leaving students “at a significant disadvantage.”

Consider:

• In fourth-grade math, 4% of Detroit students scored at or above proficient, compared with 36% statewide, 31% in large cities and 40% nationwide for public school students.
• In fourth-grade reading, 5% of Detroit students scored at or above proficient, compared with 32% statewide, 28% in large cities and 35% nationwide for public school students.
• In eighth-grade math, 5% of Detroit students scored at or above proficient, compared with 31% statewide, 27% in large cities and 33% nationwide for public school students.
• In eighth-grade reading, 7% of Detroit students scored at or above proficient, compared with 34% statewide, 27% in large cities and 35% nationwide for public school students.

Vitti said the results for the state’s largest district aren’t a reflection of the talent or potential of students.

“Instead, they are indicative of a school system that has not implemented best practices regarding curriculum, instruction, academic intervention and school improvement for over a decade.”

Here’s a Trump Judicial Nominee Refusing to Say if She Supports Brown v. Board of Education

It’s been more than 60 years since the Supreme Court struck down school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education—a decision now almost universally considered to be an undeniably good thing.

On Wednesday, however, Wendy Vitter, Donald Trump’s nominee for a federal judgeship in the Eastern District of Louisiana, refused to say at her Senate confirmation hearing whether she thought the case had been ruled correctly. And by “refused to tell,” I mean “awkwardly squirmed while trying repeatedly to avoid saying that the court was right to have ruled against segregation.”  splinternews.com/heres-a-trump-judicial-nominee-refusing-to-say-if-she-s-1825189107

NAEP Discovers Capitalist Inequality in Schools! Nation’s Report Card: Achievement Flattens as Gaps Widen Between High and Low Performers

Across the board, struggling American students are falling behind, while top performers are rising higher on the test dubbed the “Nation’s Report Card.”

A nationally representative group of nearly 585,000 4th- and 8th-graders took the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2017, the first time the tests were administered digitally. The results, released Tuesday, show no change at all for 4th grade in either subject or for 8th graders in math since the tests were last given in 2015. Eighth graders on average made only a 1-point gain in reading, to 267 on the NAEP’s 500-point scale.

That meager gain in reading was driven entirely by the top 25 percent of students. During the last decade, 8th grade reading was the only test in which the average score for both high and low performers rose. By contrast, in math, the percentage of students performing below basic (30 percent) and those performing at the advanced level (10 percent) both increased significantly since 2007. The same pattern emerged in 4th grade math and reading. blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2018/04/nations_report_card_2018_us_achievement.html?cmp=eml-eb-popweek+04132018&M=58447454&U=1666178

Nassar survivor: Engler offered $250,000 during meeting

 A survivor of abuse at the hands of former Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar said Friday that interim President John Engler offered her $250,000 during a sit-down meeting where they discussed what the university has done in the wake of the Nassar scandal.

Kaylee Lorincz, who spoke during public comment at Friday’s MSU Board of Trustees meeting, said she asked for a meeting with Engler two weeks ago, hoping to share her story and be a part of MSU’s healing process.

After explaining the steps MSU has taken in response to the Nassar scandal, Engler told Lorincz and her mother, Lisa, that cooperation between survivors and the university couldn’t occur until settlements in the civil litigation were reached, said Lorincz, who is one of the more than 200 women and girls suing MSU over Nassar’s abuse.

“Mr. Engler then looked directly at me and asked, ‘Right now, if I wrote you a check for $250,000 would you take it?'” Lorincz said. “When I explained that it’s not about the money for me and that I just want to help, he said, ‘Well give me a number.’ He also said that he had met with Rachael Denhollander and that she gave him a number.”  www.freep.com/story/news/local/2018/04/13/nassar-survivor-john-engler-offered-250-000-during-meeting-board-lawsuit-settlement/513948002/

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

Five things to know about the US-led strikes in Syria

What is Russia’s response?

Russia’s ambassador to the US warned that there would be consequences for the strikes, adding that it was not acceptable to insult Russia’s president.

“A pre-designed scenario is being implemented,” Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov said on Twitter.

“Again, we are being threatened. We warned that such actions will not be left without consequences.”

“Insulting the President of Russia is unacceptable and inadmissible. The US – the possessor of the biggest arsenal of chemical weapons – has no moral right to blame other countries.”

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 10h10 hours ago

 

Explosions rock east Damascus after Trump announces Syria strikes

youtu.be/Vx5ez_KuV5c

Friday’s strikes saw over 100 missiles launched at Syria, US Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters. It remains unclear which weapons were used, but the US deployed 59 Tomahawk missiles against Shayrat air base in Syria last year.

“We used a little over double the number of weapons this year than we used last year,” Mattis said on Friday. “We were very precise and proportionate, but at the same time it was a heavy strike.”  www.rt.com/news/424097-syria-strike-video-air-defense/

Crow Hopping to WW III–The Biggest U.S. Navy Force Since Iraq Invasion May Be Sailing Toward Syria

The biggest U.S. Navy force since the 2003 invasion of Iraq may be headed toward Syria as President Donald Trump weighs a military response to the suspected chemical weapon attack in Douma, a town on the outskirts of Damascus.

The Times of London reports that the U.S. Navy is sending a total of ten warships and two submarines into the Mediterranean Sea. Any Navy task force will likely be led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Harry S. Truman, which set out from Norfolk, Virginia, this week with a strike group of five escort warships, according to the Times.

The American aircraft carrier is capable of carrying 90 aircraft, including F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets.

The guided missile destroyer the U.S.S. Donald Cook, which is capable of launching cruise missiles, is already in the area. There are believed to be three other destroyers and two submarines in the Mediterranean, as well, the Times reports. The French frigate Aquitaine has also been reported off the coast of Lebanon.

The Russian Navy has at least two Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates, which can launch cruise missiles, in the Mediterranean as well as submarines and support vessels, Reuters reports. There are also dozens of Russian warplanes stationed at the Hmeymim airbase in Syria. Russia also has an advanced S-400 anti-aircraft system, which is believed to be capable of shooting down both warplanes and cruise missiles.   time.com/5239044/us-navy-warships-sailing-syria/

Trump’s hefty military budget

…will boost San Diego’s economy..War Means Work..good for city/state!

No wonder San Diego is called a Navy town. Federal military spending in San Diego on uniformed and civilian payrolls, along with veterans, is almost entirely related to the Navy, and half of military contract spending is for the Navy.

Beginning in 2012, military spending declined in San Diego. However, this year and next, San Diego’s total output of goods and services should rebound sturdily, thanks mainly to an increase in military spending, which could exceed 22 percent of the total local economy, or gross regional product.

During the years of contract and personnel decline, the San Diego economy swooned, too. According to San Diego economist Kelly Cunningham, the county’s total output of goods and services grew only 0.4 percent in 2015, a mere 0.3 percent in 2016, and an anemic 0.2 percent last year. Through those years, Cunningham heaped much of the blame on the decline in defense spending, accounting for about one-fifth of the total economy.

Kaboom! With President Trump pounding the drums for a stronger military, United States defense spending in this budget year will be $700 billion, a record, and more than the military outlays of Russia and China combined. The Pentagon will get a 15.5 percent leap in spending — a $94 billion increase. The president signed an omnibus bill that included the big military spending bump last month. In the 2019 budget year, federal defense spending should rise to $716 billion.

Expecting a more generous defense budget, Cunningham had predicted San Diego’s economic growth would rise 1.8 percent this year. Now he thinks it will go over 2 percent, maybe significantly above that. If the 2019 budget is truly $716 billion, the San Diego economic output should rise again, unless the overall economy goes into a tailspin, and that does not appear to be on the horizon now.

 In February, Propel San Diego, a group that keeps tabs on military spending, released a report on 2017 defense contract spending in San Diego, showing that last year’s activity of $9 billion was up from $8.5 billion in 2016. This made San Diego the nation’s second-largest county in terms of military spending. Fairfax, Virginia, was in first place and Los Angeles County in fourth.   www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2018/apr/11/city-lights-military-budget/

 

China Military Tells Russia ‘We’ve Come to Support You’ Against U.S.

War crimes court-martial starts for SEALs; Navy’s top attorney accused of unlawful command influence

• The court-martial trial of three SEALs accused of committing war crimes began with a flurry of motions Monday morning inside the courtroom of Naval Base San Diego.
• Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Daniel V. Dambrosio Jr. and two Special Operator Chief Petty Officers — Xavier Silva and David N. Swarts — stand accused of abusing unknown male prisoners at Village Stability Platform Kalach in the Chora District of Afghanistan’s Uruzgan Province on May 31, 2012.
• A trial for their commander, Navy Lt. Jason L. Webb, waits in the wings.

The Navy’s top attorney might have scuttled a war crimes case against three SEALs by unlawfully meddling behind the scenes to bring charges against them.  www.sandiegouniontribune.com/military/sd-me-seal-trials-20180409-story.html

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www.facebook.com/bbcworldservice/videos/1530936146925506/

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 The death toll for rising aviation accidents: 133 troops killed in five years

Two doctors plead guilty in $65 million prescription fraud involving San Diego Marines

Two physicians in Tennessee pleaded guilty Wednesday in San Diego federal court, admitting to their role in prescribing expensive and unnecessary medications as part of a $65 million fraud against the military’s healthcare system.

Carl Lindblad and Susan Vergot, who worked for Choice MD in Cleveland, Tenn., wrote 4,442 total prescriptions in the span of a year and a half as part of the scheme, according to the investigation.

According to prosecutors, military members in San Diego were paid to recruit Marines and their family members to participate in a fake medical study, which included speaking to a doctor in a telemedicine session and being prescribed compound medication.

Lindblad, 53, and Vergot, 31, admitted to writing the prescriptions despite never examining the patients in person, and then sending the prescriptions to a pharmacy in Bountiful, Utah, which would bill TRICARE health insurance an exorbitant amount of money for the specialized medicine. Compound prescriptions are much more expensive than standard medicine because they are custom-made by pharmacists to tailor to a patient’s special needs. The medications have not been specified but many were in cream form, according to authorities.

In May 2015, TRICARE put a stop to filling prescriptions using non-FDA approved ingredients — used in compound prescriptions — after an audit uncovered suspicion of fraud.

The two doctors pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/courts/sd-me-tricare-doctors-20180412-story.html

Syria conflict: Israel blamed for attack on airfield

The Syrian government and its ally Russia have blamed Israel for a deadly attack on a Syrian military airport.

Monday’s attack hit the Tiyas airbase, known as T4, near the city of Homs. Observers say 14 people were killed.

Israel, which has previously hit Syrian targets, has not commented. Syria initially blamed the US for the strike.

The incident comes amid international alarm over an alleged chemical attack on a Syrian rebel-held town. The US and France had threatened to respond.

US President Donald Trump said there would be a “big price to pay” for the alleged chemical attack in Douma, in the Eastern Ghouta region, near the capital Damascus. He branded Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad an “animal”.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said accusations that Mr Assad is behind the attack were a “provocation”.

Moscow favoured an “honest investigation” of such incidents but opposed apportioning blame without any proof, he added.

Meanwhile, Ahmet Uzumcu, head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, expressed “grave concern” about the alleged attack. The OPCW is currently gathering information about the possible use of chemical weapons.  www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43694588?SThisFB

Tomgram: Alfred McCoy, A New Age of Sea Power?

Gunboat Diplomacy and the Ghost of Captain Mahan
Or How China and the U.S. Are Spawning a New Great Power Naval Rivalry
By Alfred W. McCoy

Amid the intense coverage of Russian cyber-maneuvering and North Korean missile threats, another kind of great-power rivalry has been playing out quietly in the Indian and Pacific oceans. The U.S. and Chinese navies have been repositioning warships and establishing naval bases as if they were so many pawns on a geopolitical chessboard. To some it might seem curious, even quaint, that gunboats and naval bastions, once emblematic of the Victorian age, remain even remotely relevant in our own era of cyber-threats and space warfare.

Yet if you examine, even briefly, the central role that naval power has played and still plays in the fate of empires, the deadly serious nature of this new naval competition makes more sense. Indeed, if war were to break out among the major powers today, don’t discount the possibility that it might come from a naval clash over Chinese bases in the South China Sea rather than a missile strike against North Korea or a Russian cyber attack.

The Age of Empire

For the past 500 years, from the 50 fortified Portuguese ports that dotted the world in the sixteenth century to the 800 U.S. military bases that dominate much of it today, empires have used such enclaves as Archimedean levers to move the globe. Viewed historically, naval bastions were invaluable when it came to the aspirations of any would-be hegemonic power, yet also surprisingly vulnerable to capture in times of conflict.

Throughout the twentieth century and the first years of this one, military bases in the South China Sea in particular have been flashpoints for geopolitical change. The U.S. victory at Manila Bay in 1898, the fall of the British bastion of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942, America’s withdrawal from Subic Bay in the Philippines in 1992, and China’s construction of airstrips and missile launchers in the Spratly Islands since 2014 — all have been iconic markers for both geopolitical dominion and imperial transition.

Indeed, in his 1890 study of naval history, that famed advocate of seapower Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, arguably America’s only original strategic thinker, stated that “the maintenance of suitable naval stations…, when combined with decided preponderance at sea, makes a scattered and extensive empire, like that of England, secure.” In marked contrast to the British Navy’s 300 ships and 30 bases circling the globe, he worried that U.S. warships with “no foreign establishments, either colonial or military… will be like land birds, unable to fly far from their own shores. To provide resting-places for them… would be one of the first duties of a government proposing to itself the development of the power of the nation at sea.”

So important did Captain Mahan consider naval bases for America’s defense that he argued “it should be an inviolable resolution of our national policy that no European state should henceforth acquire a coaling position within three thousand miles of San Francisco” — a span that reached the Hawaiian Islands, which Washington would soon seize. In a series of influential dictums, he also argued that a large fleet and overseas bases were essential to both the exercise of global power and national defense.   www.tomdispatch.com/post/176408/tomgram%3A_alfred_mccoy%2C_a_new_age_of_sea_power/

Where is the failed General, Fired CIA director, Petraeus?

David H. Petraeus

General (Ret) David H. Petraeus (New York) joined KKR in June 2013 and is Chairman of the KKR Global Institute, which supports KKR’s investment committees, portfolio companies, and limited partners with analysis of geopolitical and macro-economic trends, as well as environmental, social, and governance issues. Prior to joining KKR, Gen. Petraeus served over 37 years in the U.S. military, culminating his career with six consecutive commands, five of which were in combat, including command of coalition forces during the Surge in Iraq, command of U.S. Central Command, and command of coalition forces in Afghanistan. Following his service in the military, Gen. Petraeus served as the Director of the CIA  www.kkr.com/our-firm/leadership/david-h-petraeus

Jill Kelley leaves her home Tuesday in Tampa, Fla. Kelley is identified as the woman who received harassing emails from Gen. David Petraeus‘ paramour, Paula Broadwell. She serves as an unpaid social liaison to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa,…www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjc0MOg0LbaAhVxplkKHeOPDU8QFgg5MAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nola.com%2Fpolitics%2Findex.ssf%2F2012%2F11%2Fflorida_socialite_at_center_of.html&usg=AOvVaw0uNeXeZRqZwH5I2kZSlYHV

The Real Reason Why KKR Wants Petraeus On Call

In essence, KKR wants Petraeus, a former four-star general with a uniquely intellectual bent, to help establish the private-equity firm as a citadel of big-picture insights. That would be a welcome change for Kravis and Roberts, who doubtless have grown tired of endless allusions to “Barbarians at the Gate,” an archly titled account of KKR’s 1988 takeover battle for RJR Nabisco.

Blackstone has always had a bit of geopolitical cachet, thanks to founding partner Pete Peterson’s days as Commerce Secretary and his ongoing interest in fiscal policy and Social Security. Carlyle at one time had former President George H.W. Bush as an adviser, helping to buttress that firm’s image as deeply connected to the political realm. Now it’s KKR’s turn to try. www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2013/05/30/the-real-reason-why-kkr-wants-petraeus-on-call/#1e355aba5924

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Groveling Trump Proposes Rejoining Trans-Pacific Partnership

President Trump, in a sharp reversal, told a gathering of farm-state lawmakers and governors on Thursday morning that the United States was looking into rejoining a multicountry trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal he pulled out of days after assuming the presidency.

Mr. Trump’s reconsideration of an agreement he once denounced as a “rape of our country” caught even his closest advisers by surprise and came as his administration faces stiff pushback from Republican lawmakers, farmers and other businesses concerned that the president’s threat of tariffs and other trade barriers will hurt them economically.

Larry Kudlow, Mr. Trump’s top economic adviser, said in an interview on Thursday with The New York Times that the request to revisit the deal was somewhat spontaneous. “This whole trade thing has exploded,” Mr. Kudlow said. “There’s no deadline. We’ll pull a team together, but we haven’t even done — I mean, it just happened a couple hours ago.”  www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/us/politics/trump-trans-pacific-partnership.html

U.S. National Debt Adds $1 Trillion in 6 Months, Partially Due to Trump Legislation

In just over six months, the U.S. has added a trillion dollars to its national debt. The benchmark was achieved earlier in March, increasing from the $20 trillion mark reached in early September 2017.

According to MarketWatch, the debt is expected to increase after President Donald Trump signed a debt limit suspension in February. The debt limit suspension allows for unlimited borrowing through March 1, 2019.

The national debt first hit the $20 trillion mark on September 8, 2017, according to government records. MarketWatch noted the debt took 20 months to add a trillion dollars to exceed $20 trillion. It tacked on an additional trillion dollars on March 15, hitting $21,031,067,004,766.25.  www.newsweek.com/us-national-debt-adds-1-trillion-six-months-surpassing-21-trillion-mark-855946

Tronc cuts dozens of employees, including Lewis D’Vorkin

They were blamed for the biggest financial disaster in a century. Subprime mortgages – home loans to borrowers with sketchy credit who put little to no skin in the game. Following the epic housing crash, they disappeared, due to strong, new regulation, and zero demand from investors who were badly burned. Barely a decade later, they’re coming back with a new name — nonprime — and, so far, some new standards.

California-based Carrington Mortgage Services, a midsized lender, just announced an expansion into the space, offering loans to borrowers, “with less-than-perfect credit.” Carrington will originate and service the loans, but it will also securitize them for sale to investors.

“We believe there is actually a market today in the secondary market for people who want to buy nonprime loans that have been properly underwritten,” said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of Carrington Mortgage Holdings. “We’re not going back to the bad old days of ninja lending, when people with no jobs, no income, and no assets were getting loans.”  www.cnbc.com/2018/04/12/sub-prime-mortgages-morph-into-non-prime-loans-and-demand-soars.html

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

Trump Pardoned Libby to Protect Himself From Mueller

“There is a cloud over the White House as to what happened. Don’t you think the F.B.I., the grand jury, the American people are entitled to a straight answer?”

With those words, uttered over a decade ago, Patrick Fitzgerald, a prosecutor appointed as special counsel to investigate whether the president and his closest aides had broken the rules of espionage for their own political gain, sealed the conviction of I. Lewis Libby Jr., known as Scooter, for obstructing his investigation into the White House.

Even with that conviction, we never learned the real story about whether Vice President Dick Cheney had ordered Mr. Libby, his chief of staff, to leak the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson to the press in retaliation for a Times Op-Ed by her husband, Joseph Wilson, calling out the president’s lies. We never learned whether Mr. Cheney gave those orders with the approval of the president or on his own. That’s because President George W. Bush added to the obstruction by commuting Mr. Libby’s sentence, ensuring that nothing would happen to the firewall that protected his own White House. Mr. Libby wouldn’t go to prison, but neither would he lose his Fifth Amendment privilege, which could make it easy to compel further testimony about his bosses.

On Friday another president with a special counsel investigation raging around him pardoned Mr. Libby. “I don’t know Mr. Libby,” President Trump said in the pardon announcement. “But for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly. Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life.”…

Mr. Trump’s action does nothing to change the past.

But it might change the lives or convictions of people whom President Trump does know: his own personal firewall. By pardoning Mr. Libby, Mr. Trump sends a message to Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen and any of his other close aides who are facing or may face potential prosecution pursuant to the investigation by Robert Mueller, the special counsel.   www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/opinion/trump-scooter-libby-pardon.html

Leaked Apple memo says company found 29 ‘leakers’ last year, and arrested 12

Apple Inc. warned employees this week against leaking product updates and other coveted information with some sobering stats: the company had snatched 29 leakers last year, including 12 whose transgressions got them arrested.

Shy of arrest, the penalty for loose lips can mean instant firing and trouble finding a replacement job as the taint would spread in the tech world, Apple executives cautioned.

The warning, however, came in an internal — meaning employee eyes-only — blog that was shared with and roundly reported by media outlets late this week. Bloomberg, in fact, reprinted the memo.

Clearly, leaks about leaks get out.  www.marketwatch.com/story/leaked-apple-memo-says-company-found-29-leakers-last-year-and-arrested-12-2018-04-14

It was among the most notorious show trials of the 20th century, the prosecution and sentencing to death of Czechoslovakia’s leading communist, who had been arrested in a brutal purge ordered by Stalin.

For decades, events surrounding the revolutionary tribunal that resulted in the execution of Rudolf Slánský, general secretary of the Czechoslovak party, and 10 other defendants was shrouded in mythology – with most visual and verbal evidence apparently lost to posterity.

But an event that has fascinated historians could soon be seen in graphic detail after footage and audio recording of the 1952 trial was found. Hours of film and voice recordings, much of it mould-damaged, believed to cover most of the eight-day procedure were found stashed in metal and wooden boxes – along with millions of classified Czechoslovak Communist party documents – in the basement of a bankrupt former metal research business in Panenské Břežany, near Prague.

The discovery came after Czech historians and archivists lost trace of recordings known to have been made on the orders of the communist authorities in preparation for a propaganda film that was never produced.The material was found by an insolvency specialist, who alerted historians after seeing labels on the boxes that clearly advertised their content.

By strange coincidence, the bankrupt plant occupied the same grounds as a castle which, during the occupation of Czechoslovakia, was used as a residence by the Nazi governor of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich, an architect of the Holocaust, until his assassination in 1942.  www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/08/rudolf-slansky-czechoslovakia-show-trial

Solidarity for Never

WV + OK school employee strikes Sold Out

Continuing chants of “A freeze is not a fix!” from previous strike days — alongside new chants of “We got sold out!” — crowds of teachers and other public school workers returned to the state Capitol Wednesday, saying they were not satisfied with Tuesday’s proposal.  www.wvgazettemail.com/news/education/wv-school-employee-strike-to-continue-across-state/article_d824f764-2c6f-51ac-bf00-68f1873ca2a6.html

…There still was no permanent fix to the state’s health insurance system, and the task force proposal remained the same. Only those on the fringe seemed to notice the deal was substantially the same as the one rejected days earlier. The end of the wildcat strike was as startling as its beginning.

Spurred on by events in West Virginia, Oklahoma teachers threatened a walkout if they did not receive a $10,000 raise phased in over three years. Who originated that specific demand is a matter of debate, but ultimately the Oklahoma Education Association, the Oklahoma City Federation of Teachers, and an independent group called Oklahoma Teachers United all signed on to the work stoppage.

In an effort to head off the walkout, the state legislature passed a $6,000 salary increase. The Oklahoma Education Association announced the strike was still on.  www.the74million.org/article/union-report-how-much-control-do-unions-have-over-teacher-walkouts-in-west-virginia-kentucky-and-arizona-not-as-much-as-youd-think/

For Weeks, The San Diego EA told members: Prepare to Strike. When the sellout came down, SDEA explained what a horrible action a strike would be–to get a TA approved.

How will our new contract compare to other San Diego County educator contracts?

Our contract will remain one of the strongest in the County. Out of 43 districts in San Diego County, we are the only one with fully paid family health benefits (let alone with a non-Kaiser option). We are now one of only three that will have paid maternity leave. Our newly expanded personal leave from three to eleven days is far greater than what most districts have. Our class sizes are very strong. Many districts have bargained higher class sizes than the 24:1 TK-3 average funded by the state, and our secondary class size cap of 36 is near the best in the County. We are the only district with an elementary enrichment program that provides elementary teacher prep time. Almost every other district has Resource Specialist caseloads of 28, compared to our 24. Our counselor and nurse staffing ratios are close to the best — a reflection of failure by California’s politicians to prioritize those crucial services, but a positive reflection on our union’s ability to win and protect what we have. Our newly bargained wage increases bring our raises to 10% over four years, plus the 1% one-time payment for 2017-18. And our third-year wage reopener will give us the opportunity to focus our bargaining on further improving our salary comparability, just like we did successfully in our last contract.

Why didn’t the bargaining team wait until mediation to settle?

You win the strongest contract when you have the most leverage. At our last bargaining session, we had two strong pieces of leverage that would have vanished by the time we reached mediation: Strong parent support driven by the District proposing 0% raises, and an arbitration scheduled for later this month that gave us the leverage we needed to get the 1% payment for 2017-18. With those things gone heading into mediation, we might not have been able to get a settlement as strong as we did. Both sides saw the arbitration as a toss-up, and many parents would feel very different about supporting a possible strike with the District offering us a 2% raise.

Could we have gotten more if we waited for the state budget May Revise?

Probably not. In our settlement, the District agreed to assume a very positive May Revise. The District’s current projected deficit for next year is $40 million. SDEA’s bargaining team argued that the May Revise will bring $50 million into the District. Our raise for next year will cost the District $9 million. That’s means nearly all of the new money that will remain after the deficit is filled is going to our salaries. If the final state budget gives our District even more, we will be well positioned to capture it when we go into our wage reopener bargaining in January of 2019.

What happens if we vote no on the TA?

If the TA is voted down, the bargaining teams go back to the table. We would almost certainly do so with decreased parental support and less leverage. There is no guarantee that we would get a deal any better than we got, and in fact, it could be worse. If we failed to reach agreement, the District could impose a two-year contract with the same wages already in our TA, but without the third year of fully paid family health benefits guaranteed.

If the District imposed a contract, couldn’t we strike?

Yes, if that’s what the vast majority of members voted to do. But for every day of a strike, members lose .5% of their wages for that year. Our settlement on wages is 1.5% less than what SDEA had on the table going into impasse. That means if our strike lasted three days, and we won everything we were asking for, we would just be breaking even. If a strike lasted longer, as they often do, we would actually lose money. For comparison, the SDEA strike in 1996 lasted a week. Plus, if a strike is going to be successful, you need close to 100% participation. It’s not clear that anywhere near 100% of SDEA members would be willing to strike with a raise and three years of fully paid family benefits being offered.

If the state is increasing our funding, why isn’t there money for a bigger raise right now?

Our District has severe declining enrollment. It has been averaging 1,000 a year, and this year jumped to a 1,300 student loss. We’re not just losing kids to charter schools. San Diego real estate prices are driving families out of our District and into more affordable areas in the County. That’s why even with state funding increases, our District still has multi-million dollar deficits every year.

To make matters worse, next year is the last year of big state funding increases to “pay back” districts under the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). After that, unless voters approve tax increases that change how California funds public schools, the only increases districts are guaranteed to receive are whatever Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) increases the state decides to include. The COLA was 1.5% for this year, and changes each year. If our trend continues, declining enrollment will wipe out our COLA and then some, potentially creating a pretty desolate budget scenario beginning in 2019-20. Winning a raise in this environment is a testament the power of our union and the strong organizing that more than 6,000 of us engaged in to support our bargaining campaign this year.

What can we do about declining enrollment?

A contract settlement does not mean that we let the pressure off of District decision-makers. We need to hold our School Board accountable for stemming the loss of our students to charter schools. We also need to hold them accountable to using natural attrition rather than layoffs or pay cuts so that we shrink naturally along with our enrollment. That’s why hundreds of SDEA members and parents still participated in five Town Halls in the week after we reached a contact settlement. We built strong union muscle this year. We need to keep flexing it if we are going to see success in our wage reopener bargaining and beyond.

For a full bargaining update and the text of all tentative agreements reached, visit the SDEA website. The ratification vote is tentatively scheduled to begin April 23. Full details about the ratification process will be shared soon.

Randi Weingarten, AFT  boss, selling out OK (Vote Dem as in Arne and Rahm!)

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents educators in Oklahoma City, said the movement could shake up national politics. “A lot of people in these states, including some of our teachers, voted for Trump,” she said. Now, she added, unions hope to spread the message that conservative policies lead to the school budget cuts that teachers and parents have been protesting.

“The not-so-sleeper issue in this next election is public education,” Ms. Weingarten said.  www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/us/oklahoma-teachers-strike.html

Freire’s Farcical Catholic “Pedagogy”

There are celebrations of the 50th anniversary the publication of Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” which he claimed could lead to “Critical (not class) Consciousness.”

Freire was a devout Catholic. Ridiculous.

He was always complaining about being in exile. Put me in exile in Switzerland with a plum job with the World Council of Churches and you won’t hear a peep.

He was a revolutionary wherever he wasn’t and liberal wherever he was. When he returned to Brazil, he went to work for the hack Lula and complained about the school buildings, not the core of instruction. Lula is, rightfully, now in prison.

He was a plagiarist. See the “Texts of Paulo Freire.” He stole a lot of his material from Dom Halder Camera, a Brazilian trying to defeat communists with liberation theology.

He built an opportunist little publishing cult around himself, then insisted, too much, on his own humility.

He sought to mix Che, Lenin, Mao, and others–add postmodernism– uncritically. Stupid.

His last wife is/was a gutter racist.

Nobody can fully explain how he goes from Brazil to Chile to Harvard.

Critical consciousness is not class consciousness. That is a dodge–part of the Freire hustle.

He claimed to “invent” a teaching method that probably predated Socrates.

He is a dead end. richgibson.com/rouge_forum/CSSE2008/GibsonCSSE2008.htm

Spy versus Spy

Secret Things: Chelsea Manning Mum on Some at SDSU Talk

Admitting that she uses “paranoid levels of security,” Manning urged the audience to turn off social media and smart-phone apps that allow the government and corporations to invade their privacy.

“If you’re not using a locational service, why do you turn it on?” Manning said (although confessing to using such functions when she’s lost).

She didn’t directly address the latest news about Facebook being hacked for 87 million users’ private information, but said: “We don’t need to create a monster we have no ability to control.”  timesofsandiego.com/education/2018/04/09/secret-things-chelsea-manning-mum-on-some-at-sdsu-talk/

The Magical Mystery Tour

Guarded by tin soldier, Pope Francis Puts Caring for Migrants and Opposing Abortion on Equal Footing

Caring for migrants and the poor is as holy a pursuit as opposing abortion, Pope Francis declared in a major document issued by the Vatican on Monday morning.

Pushing back against conservative critics within the church who argue that the 81-year-old pope’s focus on social issues has led him to lose sight of the true doctrine, Pope Francis again cast himself, and the mission of the Roman Catholic Church, in a more progressive light.

“The other harmful ideological error is found in those who find suspect the social engagement of others, seeing it as superficial, worldly, secular, materialist, communist or populist,” Pope Francis wrote in an apostolic exhortation on the subject of holiness issued Monday morning. “Our defense of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned.”

The pope’s vision of holiness explicitly highlights migrants, whose plight he has sought to elevate to global attention perhaps more than any other issue.

“We often hear it said that, with respect to relativism and the flaws of our present world, the situation of migrants, for example, is a lesser issue,” he said.“Some Catholics consider it a secondary issue compared to the ‘grave’ bioethical questions.”    www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/world/europe/pope-francis-migrants-abortion.html

Caudillo Rat and Papist

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

America’s last moral compass, Judge Judy. on her $47 million salary win in real-life court: ‘We never question what guys earn’

Judge Judy Sheindlin experienced a win for herself and all other working women earlier this month, when another judge declared her $47 million salary to be legitimate. After Rebel Entertainment filed a complaint against the daytime television star back in 2016, an L.A. County Superior Court judge recently made the decision that what CBS is paying Sheindlin, 75, is in fact reasonable. And with Equal Pay Day — April 19 — coming up, Sheindlin has insinuated that it wouldn’t have been questioned in the first place if she were a man.

Days after the court decision by Judge Joanne O’Donnell, the television star responded to questions from TMZ about the ongoing issue of gender pay gaps.  finance.yahoo.com/news/judge-judy-47-million-salary-win-real-life-court-never-question-guys-earn-210919766.html

youtu.be/S0YUd331LtQ

It’s not Bezos’ 

Biblio offers over 100 million used, rare and out-of-print books, but that’s not truly what sets us apart. As discerning bibliophiles already know, less is often more. We work with the finest booksellers in the world to cultivate a truly remarkable collection that strikes the perfect balance between quantity and quality of selection

New Bomb Capable Of Creating 1,500 New Terrorists In Single Blast

New Bomb Capable Of Creating 1,500 New Terrorists In Single Blast

R.N.C. Official Who Agreed to Pay Playboy Model $1.6 Million Resigns

Remember April 1971

www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/videos/860636047454880/

So Long

Lois Wheeler Snow, a former actress and writer whose criticism of human rights abuses in China was amplified by the legacy of her husband, the American journalist Edgar Snow, the author of the landmark book “Red Star Over China,” died on April 3 at a hospital in Nyon, Switzerland. She was 97.

Her daughter, Sian Snow, confirmed the death. Her mother had lived in Switzerland since 1959.

Lois Wheeler was an up-and-coming Broadway actress in 1949 when she married Mr. Snow, who was best known for “Red Star Over China” (1937), a sympathetic portrayal of China’s struggling young Communist revolutionaries. It introduced many Western readers to Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and others who would go on to lead the People’s Republic of China.

“China became part of my life when I met and married Edgar Snow,” Ms. Snow wrote in an essay in 2011.

On her first visit to that country, in 1970, she and her husband were treated like royalty.  www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/obituaries/lois-wheeler-snow-dies.html

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