Rouge Forum Dispatch: Ever More Unfit to Rule
We Say Fight Back!
French Workers Go on General Strike in Support of Yellow Vests
In solidarity with the popular ‘yellow vests’ movement, France’s workers have gone on national strike Friday, a move called by the General Confederation of Labor (CGT).
The best way to protest is to go on strike,” the CGT’s Philippe Martinez told BFM TV Friday. “We must multiply actions at companies. We must strike everywhere.”
The French trade union announced the day of action Tuesday after negotiations with the government over unemployment benefits failed.
“The CGT, like the yellow vests, is fighting for claims on salaries, what (French president Emmanuel) Macron announced is not enough because there isn’t any general raise in salaries,” Union representative for health workers Francoise Doriate told Reuters.
“The minimum wage isn’t a minimum wage… the increase of an income tax on only a part of pensioners is a scam and there is a freeze on pensions which means we are losing buying power.”
On Monday, President Macron announced wage rises for the poorest workers and tax cuts for pensioners in further concessions meant to quell weeks of often violent protests that have challenged his authority. However, the government’s decision has been seen by some as a sham. www.telesurenglish.net/news/French-Workers-Go-on-General-Strike-in-Support-of-Yellow-Vests-20181214-0009.html?fbclid=IwAR2b_zvMdem97a25HHJqvtaJw1O07ETymVGUmqAm_cL25c26MJL-Yf0mPig
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Yellow Vest protesters erect a GUILLOTINE in Paris bearing French President’s political party name amid revolt that has forced Macron to address the furious nation Monday evening
Yellow Vest protesters in Paris erected a guillotine bearing the name of Emmanuel Macron’s political party in a direct threat to the under-fire French President.
The move came as the country’s finance minister warned the violent protests sweeping the country are a ‘catastrophe’ for the nation’s economy.
The demonstrators torched cars, vandalised and looted shops and restaurants, and hurled stones in a fourth weekend of protests in Paris. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6477953/Yellow-Vest-protesters-erect-GUILLOTINE-bearing-French-Presidents-political-party-amid-riots.html?fbclid=IwAR1lAlcS9L5tvtWcC6fvOg6RzXd4qikik20mMTWjsWOEBb3tdxe4lGHk-IU
Police arrest roughly 17 members of CUNY’s faculty union during contract rally
Police arrested roughly 17 leaders of the City University of New York’s faculty and staff union after they blocked the entrance of Baruch College — where the CUNY board of trustees was meeting — to demand a fair contract.
“We are going to block the CUNY doors unless they give us the contract we need,” Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Congress, shouted ahead of the action.
The leaders from PSC — which represents more than 30,000 full-time and adjunct faculty and staff — blocked the main entrance of Baruch on 24th Street and Lexington Avenue late Monday afternoon. Protesters hoped to pressure the board to push city and state leaders for funding to offer faculty and staff competitive salaries as well as raise the pay for adjuncts from $3,500 to $7,000 a course.
The arrested leaders included Bowen, the PSC vice president and secretary, along with local campus leaders and union executive council members.
Members of the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group were seen arresting the union members as roughly 200 other protesters yelled in support of the action. Officers could be heard saying that the leaders would be arrested for disorderly conduct if they did not move. www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2018/12/10/police-arrest-roughly-17-members-of-cunys-faculty-union-during-contract-rally-736620
The Wildcat Underground
Oakland, California
Indonesia’s Forgotten Bloodbath
Cold War Crime and Cover-Up
![The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66 (Human Rights and Crimes against Humanity Book 29) by [Robinson, Geoffrey B.]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51JZp%2BAkU8L.jpg)
In The Killing Season, an authoritative and harrowing account of the massacres in Indonesia and their aftermath, Geoffrey Robinson seeks to recover this episode from historical oblivion. Robinson, a history professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who previously worked for Amnesty International, tempers his indignation with scholarly rigor. Confronted with a void, he fills it with archival citations. What emerges is a scathing and persuasive indictment of the Indonesian military and the foreign powers—especially the United States and the United Kingdom—that were complicit in the brutality.
Comic Strip of Alan Watts’ Lecture: What If Money Was No Object?
Kaiser psych employees start five-day statewide strike
Kaiser Permanente San Diego has rescheduled an unspecified number of non-urgent mental health appointments this week due to a five-day statewide strike over a range of issues from staffing and resource management to pay and benefits.
Though its San Diego-area hospital emergency rooms remained open to handle urgent psychiatric illnesses, Jennifer Dailard, a spokeswoman for Kaiser San Diego, said in an email that the strike made it necessary to pull back on office-based care. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/sd-no-kaiser-strike-20181210-story.html
Border Angels below, thirty two arrested at SW US border
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The Little Red Schoolhouse
More U.S. University Presidents Rake in Millions of Dollars
Lucrative packages rise as the student loan crisis worsens. Clinton nemesis Ken Starr tops the latest list—with an asterisk.
As tuition continues to rise and the U.S. student debt crisis intensifies, some private college presidents are bringing home more money than ever. Sixty-one of them, to be exact, are being paid more than $1 million.
That figure, from the Chronicle of Higher Education’s ranking of compensation for the heads of U.S. colleges, is up from the previous year’s total of 58 million-dollar winners. Former Baylor University president Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who pursued President Bill Clinton, led the pack for 2016, the latest year for which data are available—but there should be a big asterisk next to his name.
The former Baylor University president saw his compensation more than triple to $4.9 million due to his severance agreement with the school, according to the report, published Sunday. Starr left after an investigation found that the university mishandled sexual assault allegations against football players. In 2015, he was 29th on the list.
There is an abundance of rankings of US institutions of higher education. In compiling the 100 most militarized schools in America, we did not endeavor to determine the “best” of anything. We instead calculated what universities and colleges had the closest ties to US national security, in terms of education and training, and ranked them accordingly. To do that, we asked the essential questions: What schools did the people who work in and around US intelligence attend, and what did they study?
To determine this, we started with a unique dataset of resumes of more than 90,000 people who have worked for, in, and around the Intelligence Community (IC) since 9/11. These include military personnel, government civilian employees, and contractors at the federal, state, and local levels. The criteria for inclusion in the dataset is the possession of a Top Secret clearance or, in cases where an individual did not identify his or her security clearance level, direct employment in one of the 17 agencies that comprise the IC. Apart from the overwhelming number of resumes that explicitly identify a Top Secret clearance, we have used material evidence, including job announcements and descriptions, to deduce that everyone who works in a “substantive” job in the national intelligence program has a Top Secret clearance. news.vice.com/en_us/article/ywjbpj/the-most-militarized-universities-in-america-our-ranking-methodology-explained
Completely Rebuilt Lincoln High School was designed to fail
A father of two former Lincoln High School students says San Diego Unified School District filed false criminal charges against him after he started speaking out against the district for their failures to protect children in schools. He says he wants San Diegans to know the true nature of the people overseeing their children’s education. But he withholds his full name because he and his family have been through a nightmare they don’t wish to relive.
“Call me SD,” he says.
Bullies vs. brothers
On September 28, 2017, SD Harris and T Daniels were at home with their oldest son, a 16-year-old junior at Lincoln High School, who was browsing videos on Snapchat.
Meanwhile, at Lincoln High School, the bell rang and their younger son, a 15-year-old honor roll student, walked down the hallways of education, eager to learn about the world and his place in it. But he didn’t make it to his next class. He was jumped by a group of bullies, one of whom stood by and recorded the attack. The video was uploaded to the internet and went viral.
As the eldest son browsed the video sharing site at home, he saw the fight. Then he noticed the face of the victim — it was his younger brother. Terrified, he ran to tell his parents.
Harris and Daniels rushed down Imperial Avenue to Lincoln. On their way, they tried calling the office repeatedly. Nobody answered. Nobody called back. When they arrived to evac their younger son, the office staff was clueless about the fight.
Harris and Daniels say the video shows security guards standing idly by during the attack. The principal was nowhere to be found. They were assured he would call them. He never did.
Over the next couple of months, both brothers were repeatedly harassed and threatened by the same group of bullies.
In the past, Lincoln staff members have suffered the wrath of principal Jose Soto Ramos and vice principal Myeshia Whigham when they spoke out about problems that needed to be solved. A few have joined Harris and Daniels to expose what has been happening at the school, but they ask for anonymity. “Whigham and Soto don’t do anything without each other. It’s really bizarre,” says one. Another says that while Whigham projects strict authority, Soto lets people do whatever they want, except speak out about problems at Lincoln.
They all agree that for the better part of a year, the two top Lincoln administrators allowed a gang of bullies to rampage across campus, seemingly with impunity. Multiple victims were left in their wake. Incident after incident followed the attack on Harris’ and Daniel’s son. Some Lincoln insiders say the main bully was especially hostile toward the two brothers while enjoying special protection from Whigham. www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2018/dec/12/lincoln-high-school-was-designed-fail/#
San Ysidro School District still waiting on refund for $276,000 program that never happened
It’s been two months since inewsource reported that the San Ysidro School District was trying to recoup some or all of the $276,000 it paid for an after-school program that never happened, but so far it hasn’t received any reimbursement.
The Greater San Diego After-School All-Stars, a nonprofit run by Tyree Dillingham, was given a no-bid contract in 2016 to provide a yearlong sports and cheer program for more than 1,600 San Ysidro students. The district canceled the contract three months later when no program had started.
District officials first requested reimbursement from the company in 2016 under former Superintendent Julio Fonseca, and again this past October when inewsource began asking questions about the payment.
“The District’s legal counsel is still in the process of negotiating the details of the reimbursement with Ms. Dillingham and her attorney,” district spokesman Francisco Mata told inewsource in a statement Friday.
Mata did not answer questions about how much money the district has asked to be refunded or what has caused negotiations to last more than two months. inewsource.org/2018/12/11/san-ysidro-school-district-refund/
The Learning Curve: Unfunded Pension Liabilities, the Gift San Diego Keeps on Giving Itself
An audit that found $400 million worth of pension debt on San Diego Unified’s books. Board members were told about the audit at the same meeting where they also learned they may need to cut $37 million from next year’s budget and an additional $38 million the following year.
Pension debt is like a snowball rolling down a hill in a far-off forest. No one notices it until it crashes through the tree line and is heading straight for the ski lodge full of hundreds of people (or teachers’ jobs in this case).
Why, you might ask, are so many districts in the state facing perpetual budget cuts, even as the state has been making large spending increases in education each year for the last several years? Well, a few things:
One: The increases aren’t exactly increases like you might think. The state has actually been making these large “increases” to make up for post-recession cuts. This is the first year local school districts have received pre-recession levels of funding.
But two: That doesn’t totally explain it. School districts also made lots of cuts during the recession, so in theory they should only be adding back to their budgets now, not taking away.
Three: This is the real problem. Districts costs are increasing faster than the money coming from the state. Special education costs are going up. Mandated pension costs are going up. And to boot, lots of districts like San Diego Unified are shedding students. One less kid, means that much less money from the state.
Finally: There is one cost districts can control. It’s a cost they don’t want to talk about and they probably think I’m part of the alt-right for talking about it. (Will H. is funded by Michael Blooberg and Wal-Mart, they will say!) What I’m talking about is teacher raises. www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/the-learning-curve-unfunded-pension-liabilities-the-gift-san-diego-keeps-on-giving-itself/
Too few Michigan students are showing up to school. This study says fix unstable housing, not schools. Remember Jean Anyon!
All of the educational techniques that have ever been tried have one thing in common. They don’t work if the students don’t show up.
Michigan is learning this firsthand. It has the nation’s sixth-worst rate of chronic absenteeism: Fifteen percent of Michigan students miss 1 in 10 school days. The state’s policymakers have responded by tying consequences for schools to their attendance rates.
However, a new study suggests that the most important solutions start with the family. Using new data on student homelessness, researchers at Poverty Solutions, a project at the University of Michigan, found that housing instability is by far the largest predictor of chronic absenteeism.
“If we want to actually improve attendance, we need to think about how poverty and homelessness are contributing to kids’ being absent,” said Jennifer Erb-Downward, a research fellow at Poverty Solutions who co-authored the study.
Other factors like race and poverty also predict whether a student will show up regularly for school, but housing insecurity has the largest effect by far, according to the study.
Consider the Detroit city district, the Michigan district that has been hit hardest by declining school attendance. Its rate of chronic absenteeism for all students is 56 percent — already a staggering number of missed school days.
The rate for homeless students? Eighty-six percent. chalkbeat.org/posts/detroit/2018/12/06/too-few-michigan-students-are-showing-up-to-school-this-study-says-fix-unstable-housing-not-schools/
Private School Superintendent and Teacher Resign
Late Wednesday, Coastal Christian Academy posted on Facebook an email it had sent parents announcing that the superintendent of the school and the teacher who were subjects of our story Monday have resigned. The school’s Cathy Dobbs wrote:
As discussed at yesterday’s meeting, both Mr. Cates and Mr. Brady have resigned and are no longer at the school.
I have had the pleasure of teaching your elementary school children for the past 1 1/2 years, and during that time I have also assisted the Superintendent on several occasions on various matters at Coastal. With that, I have been appointed as the acting Superintendent of Coastal.
VOSD’s Kayla Jimenez reported Monday that school officials in Oceanside had substantiated multiple incidents of misconduct by Brady against students, as well as harassment complaints made by Brady’s female coworkers, and that he’d found employment at Coastal Christian Academy despite his teaching credential being revoked over those incidents. www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/morning-report-the-city-said-it-had-no-lead-pipes-the-truth-is-it-doesnt-know/
Sleepless No More In Seattle — Later School Start Time Pays Off For Teens
Many American teenagers try to put in a full day of school, homework, after-school activities, sports and college prep on too little sleep. As evidence grows that chronic sleep deprivation puts teens at risk for physical and mental health problems, there is increasing pressure on school districts around the country to consider a later start time.
In Seattle, school and city officials recently made the shift. Beginning with the 2016-2017 school year, the district moved the official start times for middle and high schools nearly an hour later, from 7:50 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. This was no easy feat; it meant rescheduling extracurricular activities and bus routes. But the bottom line goal was met: Teenagers used the extra time to sleep in.
Researchers at the University of Washington studied the high school students both before and after the start-time change. Their findings appear in a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. They found students got 34 minutes more sleep on average with the later school start time. This boosted their total nightly sleep from 6 hours and 50 minutes to 7 hours and 24 minutes. www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/12/12/676118782/sleepless-no-more-in-seattle-later-school-start-time-pays-off-for-teens?fbclid=IwAR1UKi6OGMUD2xAHwn8Y8YDicYN3PrfrE5AVV23GaX7MEr6VOGP8gePKLno
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
The Yemeni Dead: Six Times Higher Than Previously Reported
The number of people killed by the violence in Yemen has for the first time risen above 3,000 dead in a single month, bringing the total number of fatalities to over 60,000 since the start of 2016. The figure is six times greater than the out-of-date figure of 10,000 dead often cited in the media and by politicians.
“We have recorded 3,068 people killed in November, bringing the total number of Yemenis who have died in the violence to 60,223 since January 2016,” says Andrea Carboni, a researcher on Yemen for the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), formerly based at Sussex University, that studies conflicts and seeks to establish the real casualty level.
The figures do not include the Yemenis who have died through starvation or malnutrition – the country is on the brink of famine, according to the UN – or from illnesses caused by the war such as cholera.
This number of Yemenis dying in the war has been played down by the Saudi and UAE-led coalition, which has active military support from the US, UK and France, and has an interest in minimising the human cost of the conflict. The coalition has been trying since March 2015 to reinstate in power Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, whose government had been overthrown by the rebel Houthi movement in late 2014. www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/14/the-yemeni-dead-six-times-higher-than-previously-reported/
The head of US special operations is putting out new guidance following ethics concerns, high-profile scandals in his force
In the midst of a Defense Department review of U.S. Special Operations Command, including a dissection of the organizations ethics programs, the four-star in charge of all American special operations troops is calling for an in-house analysis starting in the new year.
In an email to the force sent Wednesday morning, Army Gen. Tony Thomas alluded to a raft of alleged criminal activity that has put his special operations forces in the headlines in recent months.
“A survey of allegations of serious misconduct across our formations over the last year indicate that USSOCOM faces a deeper challenge of a disordered view of the team and the individual in our SOF culture,” he wrote.
Thomas and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict Owen West are calling for a 90-day review to focus on the organization’s core values and identify where they might be falling short.
“Left unchecked, a disordered value system threatens to erode the trust of our fellow comrades, our senior leaders, and ultimately the American people. Correcting this trend will take committed leadership at all levels of our command and personal moral courage by all,” he wrote. www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/12/13/the-head-of-us-special-operations-is-putting-out-new-guidance-following-ethics-concerns-high-profile-scandals-in-his-force/?utm_campaign=Socialflow+MAR&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR25HDCsHIdFhnhtxBDOHEA4czwZ0Nyt1Y8TlHPdDJLWRadYHGQsTxvTVpg
Bill to extend Agent Orange benefits to U.S. Navy Vietnam vets dies in U.S. Senate
Montana Jody moved in to a deployed service member’s home, sold his stuff to buy meth
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The Butte man was sentenced to 15 years for a laundry list of crimes, including squatting in a deployed service member’s home and selling his belongings.
Being deployed can be tough business. While you’re busy hookin’ and jabbin’ (ah-punchin’ and ah-stabbin’) overseas, concern is ever-present that the infamous, devious snake called Jody might slither his way into the affections of your gal back home.
Sure, you met your wife at Applebee’s just nine days before you deployed, but your marriage is as rock solid as those private first class chevrons you just pinned on.
Despite such concrete relational foundations, however, Jody’s back-home conquest of relationship-demolishing chicanery has coexisted alongside far-flung military deployments throughout all of human history.
But now, Jody isn’t just after your special someone — he’s graduated to coming after your house and belongings as well.
That was the case for the evolved Montana Jody, Erik Robert Hunt, 39, who received a 15-year sentence Wednesday for a laundry list of charges, some of which included squatting in a deployed service member’s Butte, Montana, home for weeks on end, barricading the front door, then selling the man’s belongings, the Montana Standard reported.
Hunt was originally released from jail while awaiting trial for the squatting charges, but just 22 days after being cut loose, he was apprehended again after gallivanting about town on a crime spree, stealing a truck and lifting items from a local Walmart.
Not even the department store’s famous rollback prices could satisfy the Butte man’s desire for thievery.
“I was not out to harm a man that served our country,” Hunt told District Court Judge Ed McLean Wednesday, before adding that he and his girlfriend were homeless and wanted a place “to get warm.” www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2018/12/13/montana-jody-moved-in-to-a-deployed-service-members-home-sold-his-stuff-to-buy-meth/?utm_campaign=Socialflow+MAR&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR1O185cEvNFXlRTYVY6P9-zH3IJkKiemuthdwN-c_9vDL0FTa_ZwsGM0y8
Owner of Carlsbad jewelry store sentenced for scamming Navy sailors and Marines
A Carlsbad jewelry store owner was sentenced Thursday to 90 days in jail and placed on probation for three years for targeting young sailors and Marines with predatory loans to pay for jewelry.
Ramil “Randy” Abalkhad, 55, who owned the now-shuttered Romano’s Jewelers, will also be required to pay restitution to the victims named in the criminal complaint brought by state Attorney General Xavier Becerra and filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Romano’s, which had stores across the state, and its associated lending company, MBNB Financial Inc., will be required to cancel outstanding debts owed by those same victims.
Abalkhad pleaded guilty in April to felony conspiracy to engage in illegal financing and debt collection practices, according to Becerra’s office. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/courts/sd-me-romanos-sentencing-20181213-story.html
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and a host of Bollywood’s biggest names were among guests as the daughter of India’s richest man got married.
Mukesh Ambani’s daughter Isha, 27, married Anand Piramal, the 33-year-old son of another multi-billionaire, Ajay Piramal, on Wednesday in a traditional ceremony in Mumbai.
Mukesh Ambani, who is worth $43bn (£34bn) according to Forbes magazine, is the chairman of Reliance Industries, which owns businesses in energy, textiles and telecommunications firms.
The wedding took place at the Ambanis’ 27-storey billion-dollar home (0f cards) in Mumbai, which is known as one of the most expensive homes in the world.
twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1072677985252192256
The structure was draped in red roses and lit up with lights for the occasion.
According to India’s Filmfare magazine, 600 people were expected at the event, which has been dubbed “the big, fat Indian wedding”.
It comes after international pop star Beyonce was hired to perform at an elaborate pre-wedding bash in Udaipur, Rajasthan, in the lead up to the big day.
Bloomberg previously reported that the wedding was expected to cost up to $100m (£79.8m), while someone close to the family said it would cost no more than $15m (£12m). news.sky.com/story/hillary-clinton-among-partygoers-at-billionaire-kids-wedding-in-india-11579116
Tomgram: Nomi Prins, A World That Is the Property of the 1%
Wall Street, Banks, and Angry Citizens
The Inequality Gap on a Planet Growing More Extreme
As we head into 2019, leaving the chaos of this year behind, a major question remains unanswered when it comes to the state of Main Street, not just here but across the planet. If the global economy really is booming, as many politicians claim, why are leaders and their parties around the world continuing to get booted out of office in such a sweeping fashion?
One obvious answer: the post-Great Recession economic “recovery” was largely reserved for the few who could participate in the rising financial markets of those years, not the majority who continued to work longer hours, sometimes at multiple jobs, to stay afloat. In other words, the good times have left out so many people, like those struggling to keep even a few hundred dollars in their bank accounts to cover an emergency or the 80% of American workers who live paycheck to paycheck.
In today’s global economy, financial security is increasingly the property of the 1%. No surprise, then, that, as a sense of economic instability continued to grow over the past decade, angst turned to anger, a transition that — from the U.S. to the Philippines, Hungary to Brazil, Poland to Mexico — has provoked a plethora of voter upheavals. In the process, a 1930s-style brew of rising nationalism and blaming the “other” — whether that other was an immigrant, a religious group, a country, or the rest of the world — emerged.
This phenomenon offered a series of Trumpian figures, including of course The Donald himself, an opening to ride a wave of “populism” to the heights of the political system. That the backgrounds and records of none of them — whether you’re talking about Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, Rodrigo Duterte, or Jair Bolsonaro (among others) — reflected the daily concerns of the “common people,” as the classic definition of populism might have it, hardly mattered. Even a billionaire could, it turned out, exploit economic insecurity effectively and use it to rise to ultimate power. www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176507/?fbclid=IwAR2XRZ355P11Y4FJk3nCOViNpl7LXd8R29PDfjs7u7soxEGEyLVYU_fTMpE
The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement and The War on Reason
Water-balloon fight in the ruling class! 44 ex-senators warn U.S. is ‘entering a dangerous period’
A bipartisan group of nearly four dozen former senators warned current and future members of the Senate on Monday that the United States is “entering a dangerous period,” and urged them to defend America’s democracy by serving national interests rather than political ideologies.
“We are on the eve of the conclusion of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation and the House’s commencement of investigations of the president and his administration,” the 44 ex-lawmakers wrote in an op-ed published by The Washington Post. “The likely convergence of these two events will occur at a time when simmering regional conflicts and global power confrontations continue to threaten our security, economy and geopolitical stability.
The senators continued: “It is a time, like other critical junctures in our history, when our nation must engage at every level with strategic precision and the hand of both the president and the Senate. We are at an inflection point in which the foundational principles of our democracy and our national security interests are at stake, and the rule of law and the ability of our institutions to function freely and independently must be upheld.”
The senators — 32 Democrats, 10 Republicans and two independents — also stressed the importance of casting aside party differences in confronting impending challenges, noting that during their time in Congress, “we were allies and at other times opponents, but never enemies.” www.politico.com/story/2018/12/10/ex-senators-op-ed-1055429
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Day #2 of chronicling all crimes and fires in Detroit’s neighborhoods to determine how truthful Mayor Duggan’s administration is about response times and police staffing. Check out what we did yesterday on Facebook. There were so many violent crimes in the neighborhoods that the city ran out of police to respond, while cops sat idle downtown. In the past 40 minutes, there have been three shootings, including a shootout on Woodward. Be careful. We will be updating what happens throughout the night.
Former Baylor frat president indicted for sexual assault will serve no jail time
Solidarity for Never
Feds: UAW’s FCA unit ‘riddled with corruption’ during scandal
Tesla employees, Seeking a new layer of enemies, launch organizing drive with help of nationwide unions
Unions from across the nation are supporting Tesla employees at the company’s South Buffalo site.
The United Steelworkers, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the CWA, the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, the Public Employees Federation, the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York and the Coalition of Economic Justice are partnering together to help Tesla employees create a union. Reverend Kirk Laubenstein of the Coalition of Economic Justice says this isn’t to show the company in a bad light, instead it’s to help the company succeed.
“Family sustaining jobs, especially when there’s a huge $750 million investment from us, the taxpayers, are really crucial. Having a union allows people to be able to do that,” says Laubenstein. “They say okay, I need to change my life, my life needs to be better. I shouldn’t have to choose between paying rent or putting food on the table. There was a promise when this was first built, there would be $65,000 salaries but we’re not there. Do the math. $15.50 an hour isn’t that.” www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/tesla-employees-launch-organizing-drive-with-help-of-nationwide-unions?fbclid=IwAR2btTf3zXG-G3GJBZJs3DRw2ZPZqD3au8hMj3kTcQx6K2nE4c_LLJlTpKk
Spy versus Spy
Alleged Russian spy Maria Butina pleads guilty to engaging in conspiracy against US
Alleged Russian spy Maria Butina pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday morning to attempting to infiltrate Republican political circles and influence US relations with Russia before and after the 2016 presidential election.
Troubled by Lapses, Government’s Voice to the World Braces for New Trump Management
The American government’s broadcast service to the world has a problem: It is becoming the news itself.
TV Martí, which aims broadcasts at Cuba, aired a segment in May that called the financier and Democratic donor George Soros, a longtime opponent of authoritarianism, “a nonbelieving Jew of flexible morals.”
Voice of America, the flagship of American government efforts to promote its values abroad, was rocked in October when 15 of its journalists were fired or disciplined after an internal investigation found they accepted “brown envelopes,” or bribes passed to them by a Nigerian official.
And only weeks later, Voice of America fired the chief of its Mandarin-language section after a billionaire Chinese exile who is championed by some on the American right and is known for making unsubstantiated charges against Beijing was promised a three-hour live broadcast.
The debacles are the latest problems that for years have plagued the government’s efforts to meld journalism and political messaging across its array of radio and television channels around the world.
And they suggested that under President Trump, the broadcasts are at risk of greater ideological tilt as more political appointees eventually join the organization, the United States Agency for Global Media, formerly known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors.
Mr. Trump’s nominee as chief executive of the global government media agency is Michael Pack, who runs a conservative filmmaking business out of his house in suburban Washington. He declined to be interviewed. www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/us/politics/voice-of-america-trump.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
The Magical Mystery Tour
Third-Highest Ranking Vatican Official Convicted on Sex Abuse Charges in Australia
Cardinal George Pell, the third-highest ranking member of the Vatican and the top Catholic official ever to go to trial over the church’s sex abuse scandal, was found guilty Tuesday in Australia of charges of sexually abusing two choir boys in the late 1990s, the Daily Beast reports.
On Wednesday, the Vatican announced Pope Francis had removed Pell and Francisco Javier Errázuriz, a cardinal from Chile, from the group of his nine close advisers, according to the BBC. Errázuriz has been accused of covering up allegations of abuse and actively working to discredit victims while serving as the archbishop of Santiago. As of now, Pell officially remains the secretariat for the economy—the treasurer of the Vatican, handpicked by Francis, and the third-highest role in the Vatican hierarchy—but he took an indefinite leave of absence to defend himself against the accusations in Australia. Pell has maintained his innocence of the charges.
Thanks to a ruling by an Australian judge, a “suppression” order to prevent “risk of prejudice” banned any press coverage of the trial in Australia, where the gag order remains in place. As a result, many details about the allegations and decision are not known. The unanimous verdict this week comes after a hung jury resulted in a mistrial in an earlier trial, which began in June in Melbourne. slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/12/cardinal-george-pell-convicted-sex-abuse-australia.html
The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World
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Teacher on crystal meth strips naked in class and bites 2 students
Olympia, Washington | An elementary school teacher was arrested this morning after a drug “bad trip” caused her to strip naked in class and physically assault her 4th-grade students, severely biting two of them and injuring six others.
According to the Olympia police department, 37-year old Laura James was “visibly intoxicated and behaving erratically” when she showed up for work this morning.
Due to a lack of replacement teachers, she was still allowed to teach her class but rapidly went out of control.
Olympia police spokesman, Lieutenant Robert Emery described the incident during a press conference held a few hours later.
“The children said she was screaming and talking in gibberish while drawing symbols on the board. She then started stripping off her clothes and throwing them around.”
Mad Magazine Goes For Madly Hilarious In New Book Bashing Trump Era
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So Long
William Blum, Renowned U.S. Foreign Policy Critic, Dead at 85
William Blum died in Virginia early this morning on December 9, 2018. He was surrounded by friends and family after falling in his Washtington D.C. apartment and sustaining serious wounds 65 days ago. He was 85 years old.
Bill was born March 6, 1933 at Beth Moses Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y. and became an American author, historian, and critic of United States foreign policy. He worked in a computer-related position at the United States Department of State in the mid-1960s. Initially an anti-communist with dreams of becoming a foreign service officer, he became disillusioned by the Vietnam War.
Blum left the State Department in 1967 and became a founder and editor of the Washington Free Press, the first “alternative” newspaper in the capital. In 1969, he wrote and published an exposé of the CIA in which were revealed the names and addresses of more than 200 CIA employees. He worked as freelance journalist in the United States, Europe and South America. In 1972–1973 Blum worked as a journalist in Chile where he reported on the Allende government’s “socialist experiment.” Its overthrow in a CIA designed coup instilled in him a personal involvement and an even more heightened interest in what his government was doing in various corners of the world.
In London in the mid-1970s, Blum collaborated with ex-CIA officer Philip Agee and his associates “on their project of exposing CIA personnel and their misdeeds.” The late 1980s found Mr. Blum living in Los Angeles pursuing a career as a screenwriter. Unfortunately, his screenplays all had two (if not three) strikes against them because they dealt with those things which makes grown men run away screaming in Hollywood: ideas and issues.
For the rest of his long life, Bill lived in Washington, D.C. ineligible to renew his lapsed security clearance because of his political views. Instead, he accepted many speaking engagements on college campuses around the world. Bill was a distinguished member of CovertAction Magazine and the Advisory Board, and worked on staff for many years with CovertAction Quarterly and CovertAction Information Bulletin covertactionmagazine.com/index.php/2018/12/09/william-blum-dead-at-85/
Friend Joan Kramer: Red Diaper and Resister