Rouge Forum Update: Beats Hell Out of Time or Newsweek (or EdWeek)
Little Red Schoolhouse
Linda Lovelace Sucks Money Out of San Francisco Schools: Ms. Lovelace was in charge of administering contracts between the school district and Bay Area Community Resources. According to her termination letter, she signed contracts on behalf of officials who had not given her authorization and submitted false claims that she had worked 12-hour days during the school year.
“Your conduct in intentionally requesting and receiving an additional four hours of compensation every single day is tantamount to stealing,” stated the dismissal notice, which was written by Roger Buschmann, the chief administrative officer. “Particularly at a time when the district faces a multimillion-dollar deficit and forced layoffs of many skilled and diligent professionals, such conduct is appalling.” www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/us/14bcstudents.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
Detroit School Union Boss: “We’re Shortchanged so Let’s Attack….Students”
The president of the Detroit Public Schools teachers union wants substitute teachers to stop developing lesson plans, grading assignments and participating in parent-teacher conferences.
The move is meant to send a message to Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb, who hasn’t restored pay and benefits of substitute teachers serving as a daily classroom teachers due to teacher shortages this year, said Keith Johnson, president of Detroit Federation of Teachers.
Next Target, after merit pay, abolition of tenure, mass racist layoffs, etc: Teacher Pension Funds: Today there is an almost $500 billion shortfall for funding teacher pensions, and that gap is growing. Why should you care? Because ultimately taxpayers are on the hook for that money. But the problem doesn’t just end there. The way teacher pensions operate is badly suited to today’s teacher workforce, where 30-year careers are no longer the norm. The current setup penalizes teachers who move between states, switch to private or public-charter schools that do not participate in the pension system or leave teaching altogether. Meanwhile, it becomes financial suicide for teachers to change careers after a certain point, even if they no longer want to teach or are not good at it. www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2030708,00.html#ixzz15H0C4UUy
Perpetual War
Above US Multibillion Dollar Baghdad Embassy Drawing–Opened in 2009
War Means Work–job openings in Embassy: iraq.usembassy.gov/iraq/jobs.html
McClatchy on Failed US/Afghan Construction Projects (see the vids!) :
www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/14/103393/afghan-business-model-connections.html
When Does Karzai Become Diem? Juan Cole: Not only is it unclear that the U.S. and NATO are winning their war in Afghanistan, the lack of support for their effort by the Afghanistan president himself has driven the American commander to the brink of resignation. In response to complaints from his constituents, Afghanistan’s mercurial President Hamid Karzai called Sunday for American troops to scale back their military operations. The supposed ally of the U.S., who only last spring petulantly threatened to join the Taliban, astonished Washington with this new outburst, which prompted a warning from Gen. David Petraeus that the president was making Petraeus’ position “untenable,” which some speculated might be a threat to resign.
Bush: “I Blame Nato.” Mr Bush said he assumed allied forces would take up the slack while US troops were busy toppling Saddam Hussein and coping with the ensuing insurgency.
‘What happened in Afghanistan was that our NATO allies, some of them, turned out not to be willing to fight,’ he said.
‘Therefore, our assumption that we had ample troops – US and NATO troops – turned out to be not a true assumption. So we adjusted,’ he added. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1330072/George-Bush-blames-allied-forces-prolonged-war-Afghanistan.html
We Say FIGHTBACK!
Photo Slide Show of Protesters Arrested at UC Regents Tuition Meeting on November 16: www.insidebayarea.com/top-stories/ci_16637525 Police arrested 13 protesters outside a meeting of University of California regents Wednesday morning.
Members of a group that included about 300 students, employees and union leaders rallied against proposed tuition increases and pension cuts as regents met at UC San Francisco’s Mission Bay campus.
Some protesters tried to push past police barriers and into the building, leading officers to use pepper spray on demonstrators. One UC officer drew his gun after a group of about 20 people surrounded him.
A UC Merced student grabbed the officer’s baton and hit him in the head with it…
University of Sussex Occupation and Freedom School Continues:
Chris Hedges (20 mins vid) on Hope as Courage and Anger (doesn’t our moment look like the days before WWI?) : www.grittv.org/2010/11/13/chris-hedges-the-death-of-the-liberal-class/
There Goes the Economy
Weaker Dollar Won’t Help Workers: Another reason increased sales abroad might not translate into American jobs is that American companies have moved steadily overseas in recent decades. The number of workers employed by American companies abroad more than doubled from 1989 to 2008, to 10.5 million, according to the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis. Companies mostly wanted to open up foreign markets, and in some cases take advantage of cheaper labor, studies show, but less vulnerability to currency movements was an important fringe benefit.
Hot Damn! Cheap American Workers For Sale! GREER, S.C. —When German automaker BMW put out the call recently to hire a thousand factory workers here, the people who responded reflected the upheaval occurring in the U.S. economy.
Among the applicants: a former manager of a major distribution center for Target, a consultant who oversaw construction projects in four Western states and a supervisor at a plastics-recycling firm. Some held college degrees and résumés in other fields where they made more money.
But they’re all in the factory now making $15 an hour — about half of what the typical German autoworker makes.
The trade debate in the United States usually focuses on the jobs lost to factories in the developing world. But the recession has forced countless skilled workers in this country to consider jobs they would have rejected in the past. They now offer foreign manufacturers a resource that was far less common just a few years ago: cheaper wages for better talent…At GM and Chrysler, new hires make $14 an hour, or half the amount that existing workers take home. Likewise, at the BMW plant, which is not unionized, new workers earn a little more than half of what those hired earlier make. Some still seemed stunned by their change of circumstances. But they are almost uniformly grateful for the opportunity. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2013389893_bmwworkers14.html
Below: Bernanke and Jim Leher 
Bernanke: What is Good For the USA is Good For the World Or Else!: The best way to underpin the dollar and support the global recovery “is through policies that lead to a resumption of robust growth in a context of price stability in the United States,” Bernanke said in a speech in Frankfurt today. Countries that undervalue their currencies may eventually inhibit growth around the world and risk financial instability at home, he said.
While Bernanke didn’t identify China in his speech, he took aim at “large, systemically important countries with persistent current-account surpluses.” Bernanke’s comments come a week after leaders of the Group of 20 developed and emerging nations meeting in South Korea failed to agree on a remedy for trade and investment distortions. At the summit, President Barack Obama attacked China’s policy of undervaluing its currency.
Bernanke, a scholar of the Great Depression, drew a comparison between the current period and events leading to the 1930s economic disaster. The U.S. and France maintained “persistently undervalued” exchange rates by preventing inflows of gold from feeding into money supplies, which created deflationary pressures in other countries and helped bring on the Depression, Bernanke said.
The BiPartisan SSI Scheme:
Executive Committee & Armed Weapon of the Rich Shuts Down UCB for 2 Million Workers: Unemployment insurance runs out on Nov. 30 for 2 million jobless Americans. Democrats sought to extend coverage during the holiday season through February, when another 2 million would be without benefits. www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-congress-20101119,0,3000845.story
Solidarity Forever
Harry Kelber on the Crimes of the AFL-CIO (this is just one): (4) Trumka unilaterally decreed that there would be no mention of Iraq or Afghanistan in the AFL-CIO’s midterm election campaign. On his orders, not a word about the two wars—their continuing cost in lives and treasure—was mentioned in the tons of literature and torrents of e-mails issued by the Federation, despite the fact that millions of union families had relatives, friends, neighbors and co-workers serving, and some dying, in these wars(www.laboreducator.org)
Big Bosses Beat On Workers with Union Bosses’ Help: Organized labor appears to be losing an important battle in the Great Recession. Even at manufacturing companies that are profitable, union workers are reluctantly agreeing to tiered contracts that create two levels of pay.
In years past, two-tiered systems were used to drive down costs in hard times, but mainly at companies already in trouble. And those arrangements, at the insistence of the unions, were designed, in most cases, to expire in a few years.
Now, the managers of some marquee companies are aiming to make this concession permanent. If they are successful, their contracts could become blueprints for other companies in other cities, extending a wage system that would be a startling retreat for labor. www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/business/20wages.html?hp
Below this Photo of the Great Flint Strike is a link to “With Babies and Banners,” the true story of that strike on video FREE!: 45 minutes. This is how we fought the bosses when they had even greater advantages.
flinthistory.com/general-motors/with-babies-banners/
Coke head, former union big Michael Forde gave his drug dealer union job, lavish trips and meals: The coke-snorting ex-boss of the carpenter’s union put his personal drug dealer on the union payroll and treated him to lavish dinners and junkets, prosecutors have revealed.Michael Forde faces up to 11 years in prison when he’s sentenced Friday for selling out the powerful union’s rank and file for his own enrichment.Court papers filed Thursday detail the labor leader’s well-known lust for the high life: fancy dinners, expensive hotels and trips to resort towns.They also contain the bombshell allegation that Forde put his “personal cocaine supplier” on the payroll as assistant director of the union’s training school.
CSEA Members Sue Company Union For Dues Eater’s Crimes: A $1 million suit has been filed in U.S. District Court against the Civil Service Employees Association in connection with CSEA’s relationship with convicted arsonist Steven Raucci.
The suit was filed by four union members and is based on the CSEA allowing Raucci to keep his job as the union’s representative after he was promoted to facilities director of the Schenectady City School District back in 2003
The lawsuit claims union members spoke to CSEA leaders about Raucci’s alleged abuse of his union position for his own benefit and that nothing was done about it.
The lawsuit also suggests the CSEA worked to silence those who spoke out against Raucci and CSEA by removing them from the union. Once the plaintiffs were expelled, they lost benefits.
Raucci was convicted earlier this month of 18 out of 22 counts involving vandalism and threats against fellow school district employees and local union members. He faces up to life in prison
The Emergence of Fascism as a Mass, Multi-Tentacled, Movement:
Justice Department still Covering Up About Operation Paperclip and the Import of Thousands of Nazi War Criminals to the USA:
A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad.The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades.
The Heavily Redacted Report is Here: documents.nytimes.com/confidential-report-provides-new-evidence-of-notorious-nazi-cases
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaZz4sK2aec
Happy Churchgoers Above Honor Romanian Iron Guard Fascist Bishop Valerian Trifa
El Al Boss on Illusions of US Airport (fascist) Security: As criticism mounts over the use of full-body scanners and physical pat-downs at U.S. airports, the former security director for Israel’s national airline told CNSNews.com that airline security in America is an “illusion,” and that the United States should adopt El Al’s passenger profiling approach to ensure safety. www.cnsnews.com/news/article/full-body-scanners-are-illusion-security
According to Isaac Yeffet, the former security chief for El Al Israel Airlines, the United States should adopt El Al’s security approach of ensuring that every passenger is interviewed by a well-trained agent before check-in, a move that involves profiling passengers, which he said is not discriminatory.
El Al is considered by most security analysts as the most secure airline in the world
US Goes 1 for 283 in Terror Trial Held Up by Torture and Detention: Because of the unusual circumstances of Mr. Ghailani’s case — after he was captured in Pakistan in 2004, he was held for nearly five years in a so-called black site run by the Central Intelligence Agency and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — the prosecution faced significant legal hurdles even getting his case to trial.
On the eve of Mr. Ghailani’s trial last month, the government lost a key ruling that may have seriously damaged its chances of winning convictions.
In the ruling, the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court in Manhattan, barred prosecutors from using an important witness against Mr. Ghailani because the government had learned about the man through Mr. Ghailani’s interrogation while he was in C.I.A. custody, where his lawyers say he was tortured. www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/nyregion/18ghailani.html?_r=1&hp
Spotlight India–Not a Sideshow:
Stratfor on India/Pakistan, and the Naxalites: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has labeled the Naxalites “the biggest internal security challenge” to India. Taken at face value, reports of such an alliance lead to visions of well-trained, well-disciplined Naxal militants expanding their near-daily attacks on low-level rural targets in eastern India (known as the “Red Corridor”) to political and high-tech targets in Calcutta, Hyderabad or even New Delhi. But such visions are alarmist and do not reflect the true nature of the very limited Pakistani-Naxalite relationship. http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20101117_pakistan_and_naxalite_movement_india?utm_source=SWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=101118&utm_content=readmore&elq=6d57753f875c4920928b9c9e745b8748
Owe the Man a Dollar–he owns you. Own the Man a Billion–you own him. India’s Microdebtors in Charge? local leaders urged people to renege on their loans, and repayments on nearly $2 billion in loans in the state have virtually ceased. Lenders say that less than 10 percent of borrowers have made payments in the past couple of weeks.
If the trend continues, the industry faces collapse in a state where more than a third of its borrowers live. Lenders are also having trouble making new loans in other states, because banks have slowed lending to them as fears about defaults have grown. www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/world/asia/18micro.html?src=me&ref=homepage
Magical Mystery Tour
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffIibtnzbTE&feature=related
Catholic Church Moves (further) Right: As archbishop, his outspoken style provoked a furious backlash when he described AIDS as a form of justice for promiscuous homosexual sex and suggested that prosecution of retired priests was vengeance that was not humane. www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/world/europe/17iht-bishop.html?scp=3&sq=catholic%20church%20bishop%20right&st=cse
But Wait! There’s More from the Most Encrusted Institution in the World: Professor George noted that Archbishop Dolan was the host of the meetings that produced the “Manhattan Declaration,” a manifesto issued last year by prominent evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders to reignite and unify religious opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and what the leaders considered as threats to religious freedom. Mr. George, who helped to draft the document, said Archbishop Dolan was one of the original signers…Several advocacy groups for victims of sexual abuse by priests had lobbied against Bishop Kicanas and Archbishop Dolan, saying both were involved in covering up abuse cases. www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/us/17bishops.html?scp=1&sq=catholic%20church%20bishop%20right&st=cse
Russia TV Documentary on Norman Finkelstein (video):
rt.com/programs/xl-reports/american-radical-holocaust-finkelstein/
Spy Versus Spy
CIA Says, “About Those Nazis We Were Protecting—We Were NOT either Protecting them–Honest!”
To the Editor:
“Secret Papers Detail U.S. Aid for Ex-Nazis” (front page, Nov. 14) cites the Central Intelligence Agency’s interaction with former Nazi officials in the early years of the post-World War II era.
We would like to make clear that the agency at no time had a policy or a program to protect Nazi war criminals, or to help them escape justice for their actions during the war. It is unfortunate that the article suggests otherwise.
The C.I.A. has cooperated for decades with the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations.
George Little
Director of Public Affairs
Central Intelligence Agency
Langley, Va., Nov. 17, 2010
www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/opinion/l19cia.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
But Wait, CIA! Weren’t You Lying About All this Other Stuff Too?
The House Intelligence Committee said Thursday that it had found 16 cases since the 1990s in which the intelligence agencies failed to provide Congress with “complete, timely and accurate information” about their activities, as the law requires. The report found that Congress was not properly informed about a Central Intelligence Agency program that explored dispatching teams to kill terrorists overseas; the destruction of videotapes of interrogations at the C.I.A.’s secret prisons; the agency’s involvement in the shooting down of a missionary flight in Peru; the National Security Agency’s compliance with laws and rules governing its eavesdropping; and the F.B.I.’s surveillance of a Russian spy ring that was exposed last summer. The committee did not disclose the other cases in which the classified report found shortcomings.
America has been accused of illegally spying on hundreds of people in Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Iceland.
Officials in the five countries expressed their unhappiness at surveillance tactics that were conducted without the knowledge of the individual nations’ governments.
America claims officials informed the Norwegian government about the operation which was aimed at terror suspects.
There is nothing surprising here,’ Intelligence expert and author Alexander Kolpakidi told Pravda.ru.
‘U.S. intelligence services have always behaved that way around the globe.
‘Virtually all countries of the world, including the members of European Union and NATO, have secret CIA tracking stations.’
Worst Thing in the History of the World:
The Capitalist Fave (other than war), Nicotine Addiction, Demands Bourgeoisie “Right to Poison and Profit”: As sales to developing nations become ever more important to giant tobacco companies, they are stepping up efforts around the world to fight tough restrictions on the marketing of cigarettes…Companies like Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco are contesting limits on ads in Britain, bigger health warnings in South America and higher cigarette taxes in the Philippines and Mexico. They are also spending billions on lobbying and marketing campaigns in Africa and Asia, and in one case provided undisclosed financing for TV commercials in Australia. www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/business/global/14smoke.html?hp
Cuba’s Fake Socialism Unravels & the Castros insist Capitalism will Work: Another proposal that “caused a broad debate” would change university admission to favor careers in science, technology, agriculture and teaching over the humanities. www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/16/1927851/castro-urges-embrace-of-economic.html
Michael Vick NFL Football Hero:
India Goes as Nuts as the USA:
Warning! Parasites May Procreate!
Best Thing in the History of the World
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrZvn1qckIs
The Back Door Deal In San Diego (Chargers Publicly Financed Stadium) That looks like Enron:Uncategorized:
Part of the Story behind the Chargers’ Midnight dirty Deal so they Could Spend Billions of a Bankrupt City’s Money in Order to Enrich their millionaire owners, put a group of drug addled dog killing repeatedly convicted NFL player on a field in front of adults dressed-up-as-tough in Team Uniforms howling through their beers, all offered up by a Smarmy Official Spokesman who Lies on Behalf of the Chargers in Collusion with the City Council, the Mayor, the Mayor’s Office, the vile AFL-CIO and a Cast of Morons who Approve: www.blogofsandiego.com/Elections.htm
Thanks to Marisol, Perry, Kathy, Sandy, Matt, Sherry, Erin, Donna S, Mary S, Don S, the Susans, Candace, Della, Joel and John, Elvira and Tony, Bob A, Wayne, Alan S, Gerry, Arturo, Mike B, Michael, Mr J, MrZ, the entire Detroit Gang (good luck next week), Bill G, Marshall, Frank R, and Amber (happy vacation).
Good luck to us, every one.
r