Trashed in New York: Ex-Sanitation Salvage Workers Protest... 'All We Want Is for Them to Pay Us What They Owe Us'

 
by Kiera Feldman

The temperature was barely above zero in the Bronx on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but more than a dozen former garbage workers showed up outside the offices of Sanitation Salvage, once one of the major private trash haulers in the city. They carried signs and demanded wages they say they are owed by the company, which surrendered its license in November after a series of revelations about its troubled operations.

Andres Hernandez said he’d worked as a Sanitation Salvage driver for seven years. Manuel Matias said he’d started working at Sanitation Salvage at age 17 and was paid off the books for years. Alex Amante said the cold was all too familiar — he’d regularly worked the city’s streets at night in such temperatures, doing shifts that he and other workers said could be 18 or even 21 hours long.

The former Sanitation Salvage workers picked the day to protest intentionally. When King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968, he’d come to the city in support of its sanitation workers, who were on strike over low pay and dangerous conditions following the deaths of two workers.

“All we want is for them to pay us what they owe us,” Hernandez said. 

Click here for the full article. 

Source: ProPublica

Trump’s CFPB Fines a Man $1 For Swindling Veterans, Orders Him Not to Do It Again

 
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau penalized a man $1 this week, for illegally exchanging veterans’ pensions for high-interest “cash advances.” Mark Corbett claimed in sworn statements to the bureau that he had an inability to pay any fine of greater value, and the bureau accepted $1 as payment for making illegal, high-cost loans to former members of the armed forces.

Somehow, two other state regulatory agencies, in Arkansas and South Carolina, assisted in the extraction of a single dollar bill from Corbett.

This is not the first time during the Trump administration that CFPB has taken an inability to pay into account to reduce a fine for violations of consumer protection law. Under the previous acting director, current acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, this type of reduction was so widespread that it came to be known as the “Mulvaney discount.” The American justice system rarely treats impoverished defendants with such mercy.

Mulvaney has since been replaced by a confirmed director, his former aide Kathy Kraninger. The discount, however, has remained.

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The Intercept_ 

Pompeo, Arreaza to Address UN Security Council on Political Crisis in Venezuela



Global News: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza address a UN Security Council meeting on Venezuela. The session focusing on Venezuela's crisis comes a day after Guaido vowed to remain on the streets until his country has a transitional government, while Maduro dug in and accused his opponents of orchestrating a coup. 

The UN Security Council is due to discuss the political crisis in Venezuela after the United States requested an emergency session in New York, pushing the council to back Venezuela's Guiado.

Ebola Virus Has Spread to High-Risk Area of Congo: WHO


This report was published on YouTube on January 25. 

Global News: The Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola outbreak has spread southwards into an area with high security risks, World Health Organization spokesperson Fadela Chaib said on Friday.

Thursday, January 24, 2019

Doomsday Clock Remains at 2 Minutes to Midnight Due to Fake News, Climate Change


Global News: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists hosted a live international news conference in Washington DC, to announce the 2019 time of the Doomsday Clock. The bulletin focused on nuclear risk, climate change and cyber-enabled warfare technology. The Clock was designed to warn the public about how close we are to destroying our world with the technologies of our own making, and exists as a reminder of the perils of mankind that we must address in order to survive on Earth.

The conference starts at the 6:45 mark. 

Senator Graham Briefs Colleagues on Conversation with President to End Shutdown


Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) tells colleagues on the Senate floor that he's just spoken with the president about a proposal to have a three-week continuing resolution to re-open the government to allow time to reach a deal on border security and Democratic priorities on immigration. He says the president was "imminently reasonable" in his requests and that Senate leaders Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer were meeting to discuss them. He also says that "money for a barrier is required to get this deal done. It will not be for a concrete wall."

Click here for video.

Source: C-SPAN 

Florida Secretary of State Mike Ertel Resigns After Halloween Blackface Photos Emerge

 

Michael Ertel, the newly appointed Secretary of State of Gov. Ron DeSantis, has resigned after photos emerged of him posing as a Hurricane Katrina victim in blackface at a private Halloween party 14 years ago.

The photos obtained by the Tallahassee Democrat were shown to the Governor's Office on Thursday morning. Hours later it issued a statement. 

Click here for the full article. 

Source: Tallahassee Democrat

Air Safety ‘Deteriorating By The Day’ Amid Shutdown, Union Leaders Warn


By David Barden

Union leaders representing air traffic controllers, pilots and flight attendants hold grave concerns for the nation’s air safety as the partial government shutdown enters Day 33.

A joint statement released Wednesday by the presidents of the National Air Traffic Controller’s Association (NATCA), Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) and the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA warned of the incalculable risk to the safety and security of airlines and travelers.

“This is already the longest government shutdown in the history of the United States and there is no end in sight,” the union leaders said. “In our risk averse industry, we cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break. It is unprecedented.”

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The Huffington Post 

Explore 'The Past and Future of Community Relations' at JCPA 2019

 Click on the flier to increase its size.

Click here for details about the event. 

Source: The Jewish Council for Public Affairs

What You Can’t Say About Israel (with Marc Lamont Hill)

Click here to listen to the podcast. 

Source: The Intercept_ 

Note: If any leaders within the Jewish community would like to submit a rebuttal to the comments made, send them to FromTheGMan@gmail.com. Be sure to include the name of the organization you belong, your title and contact information. 

How Gab Has Raised Millions Thanks to This Crowdfunding Company

 
by John Dougherty and Michael Edison Hayden

Three months after a man radicalized on Gab.com killed 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue, the social media website that has become a hub for white nationalists and neo-Nazis remains financially viable thanks to an Obama-era law and an online crowdfunding broker, a Hatewatch investigation reveals.

The JOBS Act of 2012 was designed to help startup companies use crowdfunding to raise up to $1.07 million a year. The law has allowed Gab’s parent company, Gab AI, Inc., to raise $2 million since 2017 from two crowdfunding rounds handled by StartEngine Crowdfunding, Inc., a Los Angeles securities brokerage firm that helps companies prepare regulatory filings and sell investment shares to the public.

A handful of investors – 1,000 in 2017 and 1,900 in 2018 – purchased $1 million of highly speculative securities in Gab through StartEngine, providing the company enough capital to allow it to continue to operate.

Revenue has otherwise been scarce. Payment processors like PayPal and Stripe dropped Gab in the aftermath of the Oct. 27, 2018, terror attack at the Tree of Life Synagogue, causing a 90 percent drop in subscription revenue from premium services, Gab stated in a Dec. 19 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.

The company was relying on snail mail and cryptocurrency to sell premium subscription services, but announced on Tuesday it formed a relationship with an obscure company called 2nd Amendment Processing to help with future credit card payments.

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The Southern Poverty Law Center 

US Diplomats Ordered to Leave Venezuela



Bonus Report - Former U.N. Expert: The U.S. Is Violating
International Law by Attempting a Coup in Venezuela

 

Governor Cuomo Signs Legislation Modernizing NY's Voting Laws


Governor Andrew Cuomo today signed legislation that begins the process of bringing New York State's voting laws into the 21st Century, a central goal of his 2019 Justice Agenda for the first 100 days of the new legislative session. These historic new laws will allow for eight days of early voting before an election, synchronize federal and state primary elections, allow voter preregistration for teenagers, provide voter registration portability within the state, and close the LLC loophole.

"At a time when the federal government is doing everything it can to disenfranchise voters, we are breaking down the barriers that have discouraged too many generations of New Yorkers from exercising their right to vote," Governor Cuomo said. "I'm proud to sign into law these important voting reforms that are part of our first 100-day Justice Agenda but this is only the beginning. We are going to finish the job and enact additional reforms in this year's budget including automatic registration and extending upstate voting hours to once and for all make it easier for New Yorkers to make their voices heard at the ballot box."

Cuomo signed the following voting reforms — the first bills approved by the Legislature in the 2019 session — into law:

Closing the LLC Loophole: This bill will close the LLC loophole by limiting political spending by an LLC to a total of $5,000 annually, which is the same limit as corporations. The bill will also require the disclosure of direct and indirect membership interests in the LLC making a contribution, and for the contribution to be attributed to that individual.

Early voting: Enacting early voting will make voting more convenient for voters whose professional or family obligations make it difficult to physically get to the polls, as well as reduce waiting times and ease logistical burdens for poll workers.

Synchronizing federal and state elections: New York State currently holds separate primary elections for state and federal elections. With the addition of a presidential primary every four years and a general election, this means that in some cases New York is holding four different elections in a year. This can be confusing to voters and wastes administrative resources. This bill will unify the federal and state primaries once and for all and ensure that voters only go to the polls once to choose their nominees.

Pre-registration for minors: New Yorkers are not permitted to register to vote unless they will be 18 years of age by the end of the year, and by the date of the election in which they intend to vote. This bill will allow 16 and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote, meaning that a voter will automatically be registered on his or her 18th birthday.

Universal transfer of registration: When New Yorkers move to a different county, their voter registration does not move with them. This requires the voter to re-register with his or her new local board of elections as if he or she were registering for this first time. This bill will ensure that when a voter moves elsewhere in the state, his or her voter registration will seamlessly go with them.


Click here for the full announcement. 

Source: The Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo

Trump Agrees to Postpone State of the Union Amid Shutdown


(Bonus Report)
Pelosi and Schumer Speak After State of the Union is Postponed

Fame-Hungry YouTubers Are Taunting Cops and Filming It

 
Auditors say they’re exposing police brutality and protecting the right to film on public property. The cops don’t see it that way. 

By Will Sommer 

Last April, the San Antonio Police Department got a call about a man filming at a strip mall. The officer who arrived first on the scene was in for a couple of surprises—and unexpected internet stardom.

First, the man with the camera, Jesus Padilla, called him an asshole. Then Padilla said he was a pendejo—Spanish for “stupid.”

“I don’t cooperate for idiots,” said Padilla, whose more than 40,000 YouTube fans know him as “Mexican Padilla.”

“Say that again?” the police officer replied.

“I don’t repeat myself for idiots,” Padilla shot back.

Unbeknownst to the San Antonio cop, he had become the latest unwitting star in a growing YouTube genre called “First Amendment Auditing,” in which self-proclaimed “auditors” test how police will react by filming them in public places or around government buildings. Auditors show up with their cameras at places as mundane as post offices, or as imposing as the entrances to nuclear-weapons factories. Once there, they start filming, and wait to see how police react.

“Anything that is publicly funded is fair game,” said David Worden, a Texas “auditor” who operates under the handle News Now Houston. 

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The Daily Beast 

The Reichstag Fire, the 'Border Crisis' and the Establishment of Dictatorship



Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the then German President, Paul von Hindenburg, on January 30, 1933. The maximum percentage of the vote gained by the Nazi Party in previous free elections under the Weimar Republic was in the 37% range. Nevertheless, in part because the two major opposition parties to the Nazis, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Socialist Party of Germany (SPD) were at each other's throats, the capitalist ruling class of Germany was able to persuade Hindenburg to give Hitler "a turn," promising that they would "keep him under control." 

As it happened, Hitler, in part using his private army, the "Sturmabteliung" (SA), immediately began rounding up certain Communists and Socialists and imprisoning them, while others quickly left the country. However, at that point there were limits as to what Hitler could do to impose the Nazi will, under the law as it stood in Germany. Besides the parliament, the Reichstag, there were still the independent judiciary and the free press. (For years, Hitler and the Nazis had labelled the latter "Die Luegenpresse," "The Lying Press" [sound familiar?].) In order to impose the kind of dictatorial rule on Germany that the Nazis and their ruling class supporters --- led by such figures at Fritz Thyssen, the steel magnate, (who as early as 1923 was raising foreign money to support the Nazis, from such donors as a U.S. named George Herbert Walker) --- Hitler had to convince the Reichstag to give it to him. What better way to do that than to create a "national emergency?" To deal with it forcefully, of course, would require the granting of "emergency powers" to the Chancellor. And so, came the Reichstag Fire. 

On February 27, 1933 the grand, historic, German Parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, was hit by a fire that would make it unusable until it was eventually restored after the end of World War II. The story of "the cause" that was released almost immediately (within hours) by the Nazis was that the fire was set by a mentally-handicapped Dutch former Communist turned anarchist, acting entirely alone, one Marinus van der Lubbe. (The Reichstag conveniently happened to be decorated with highly flammable furniture, drapes, and wall-coverings. Apparently, a few matches did the trick.) Within hours, Chancellor Adolf Hitler, Interior Minister Hermann Goering, and Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels, et al, had proclaimed the fire to be the result of a KPD plot. (It happened that the KPD knew nothing of it and that the "incriminating documents" quickly produced by the Nazis were later proved to be forgeries. But that meant nothing at the time.) 

Click here for the full article. 

Source: OpEdNews.com

Organizing and Movement-Building Through 2020 and Beyond

 
'Future Hope' Column

By Ted Glick 

From my vantage point, one “positive” effect of the election of Mafioso Don is the marginalization of the position taken by some on the political Left that elections in the US are a sham, and the correct approach to them is to non-participate.

Elections do have consequences, potentially very big, very negative consequences, like a neo-fascist government. Young people in general are most likely to view elections as a sham, for understandable reasons. 

Young people tend to be more idealistic so that they are turned off by the often-cynical and dishonest political maneuvering from both Republicans and Democrats.

That’s why the 2015-16 Bernie Sanders campaign generated so much active support from young people. Here was someone who spoke truth to power, who didn’t accept Super PAC money or mega-donations from rich people, who articulated a strong, positive program consistent with positions he had been taking for literally decades, who had a history of winning elections and using his elected office positively, and who consciously reached out to young people and working-class people.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, a young person herself, was elected and has become a political star since for similar reasons. Articulating the truth about what is needed and taking strategic risks in support of that program, as she did in Nancy Pelosi’s office in November in support of a Green New Deal, is exactly what is needed to inspire and mobilize the tens of millions of potential voters who don’t vote because they correctly think the system is rigged.

However, it’s essential that progressive candidates and elected progressives are pushed, if necessary, by their supporters to take steps to ensure that they are continually in contact with the people they are representing and with organizations rooted among progressive-oriented constituencies. This is particularly essential in this time when corporate money is so much a factor in elections.

Click here for the full article. 

Source: tedglick.com

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Attention New Yorkers! Hotline Established to Help Victims of Guardianship Fraud, Predatory Lawyers

 
The following announcement was submitted by Rick Black, director of the Center for Estate Administration Reform (CEAR).

New York victims, survivors, and advocates,

We are making progress elevating our message statewide on probate and adult guardianship abuses. In 2018, an article by Alisa Partlan in New York’s CityLimits, and an article by John Leland of the New York Times, gave credence to your experiences and the issues plaguing all New Yorkers who are exposed to the dysfunction of these courts. These courts should not be a war zone targeting the vulnerable. Whether child custody, divorce, adult guardianship, or probate the predatory legal community long ago was allowed to declare open season on the vulnerable and their loving family members via their ability to pervert the law.

We must adopt unconventional approaches if we are to make any progress on reforms in New York.  Every legitimate authority who should be demanding system integrity and redress has abandoned this class of adults. We are hopeful that with the new administration in New York, and a new approach, we can find state leadership open to reviewing the evidence and our pleas..

We have established a hotline for collecting material evidence on predatory lawyers and the judges who support them. Jerry Yeh, a CEAR assistant, is manning the hotline and consolidating the information. Please email nylawyercomplaints@mail.com or call (518) 945-8332 to give names of attorneys, victims, counties, judges, addresses, perjuries, thefts, and losses from your experience with predatory attorneys. Please feel to pass this note on to any other victims or survivors you are in contact with. We need to get the word out; old, pending, and new cases qualify.

Our plan is to consolidate the evidence for planned discussions in Albany and Washington, D.C. CEAR is also working with national media outlets to gain coverage. Thanks in advance for your support.

White Supremacist Pleads Guilty to Killing Black Man with a Sword


By Jim Mustian

NEW YORK — A white supremacist pleaded guilty Wednesday to killing a black man with a sword as part of an attack that authorities said was intended to incite a race war in the United States.

James Jackson admitted to fatally stabbing 66-year-old Timothy Caughman in March 2017 after stalking a number of black men in New York City.

Jackson, who is white, told police he traveled from Baltimore to carry out the attack because New York is the media capital of the world. He said the slaying was intended to be practice for further assaults on black people.

Jackson, 30, faces life in prison without parole when he is sentenced Feb. 13 after pleading guilty to six counts, including murder and a hate crime charge.

Click here for the full article. 

Sources: Associated Press and The Huffington Post

Trump Administration Being Sued for Detaining 10,000 Children Awaiting Sponsors

 
The following statement was submitted by Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center

We’ve just filed an incredibly important lawsuit.

Right now, we’re suing the Trump administration for detaining 10,000 children despite the fact that they have sponsors waiting for them in the U.S. We’re seeking their release, but the Trump administration is purposefully preventing that from happening. 

A whistleblower released internal documents last Thursday that prove the Office of Refugee Resettlement – the agency that’s supposed to help unaccompanied refugee minors seek safe haven in the United States – adopted a policy of sharing sponsors’ personal information with immigration enforcement officials. The intent is to force sponsors into the deportation system and deter future sponsors from coming to the U.S. at all.

The Trump administration is using these children as bait to get this information. It’s part of the same strategy as the administration’s infamous family separation policy. And they knew it would result in fewer sponsors coming forward and children remaining in custody for longer periods of time.

We cannot stand idle while this administration attacks civil rights and ignores basic human dignity.

House Republican Leaders News Conference


House Republican leaders Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise speak with reporters following their closed-door party conference meeting. Topics include efforts to end the government shutdown and next week’s State of the Union.

This video may not play on certain browsers. Click here if you experience problems. 

Sarah Sanders Comments to Reporters at the White House



White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders speaks with reporters about the president’s offer to end the month-old partial government shutdown and calls on Democrats to work with the administration to break the impasse over border security funding.

This video may not play on certain browsers. Click here if you experience problems. 

Kellyanne Conway Speaks to Reporters


The counselor to the President answered questions from reporters outside the White House on topics including the State of the Union address, the trade deficit and recent news articles.

This video may not play on certain browsers. Click here if you experience problems. 


Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Reproductive Health Act Signed Into Law in New York


Governor Andrew Cuomo today fulfilled his promise to sign into law the Reproductive Health Act, a key component of the 2019 Justice Agenda, within the first 30 days of the new legislative session. The Reproductive Health Act protects women's reproductive rights by ensuring New Yorkers can make personal healthcare decisions and medical professionals can provide crucial services without fear of criminal penalty. The legislation codifies Roe v. Wade into New York State law. More information is available here

Source: The Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo

Does Journalism Have a Future?

 
In an era of social media and fake news, journalists who have survived the print plunge have new foes to face. 

By Jill Lepore

he wood-panelled tailgate of the 1972 Oldsmobile station wagon dangled open like a broken jaw, making a wobbly bench on which four kids could sit, eight legs swinging. Every Sunday morning, long before dawn, we’d get yanked out of bed to stuff the car’s way-back with stacks of twine-tied newspapers, clamber onto the tailgate, cut the twine with my mother’s sewing scissors, and ride around town, bouncing along on that bench, while my father shouted out orders from the driver’s seat. “Watch out for the dog!” he’d holler between draws on his pipe. “Inside the screen door!” “Mailbox!” As the car crept along, never stopping, we’d each grab a paper and dash in the dark across icy driveways or dew-drunk grass, crashing, seasonally, into unexpected snowmen. “Back porch!” “Money under the mat!” He kept a list, scrawled on the back of an envelope, taped to the dashboard: the Accounts. “They owe three weeks!” He didn’t need to remind us. We knew each Doberman and every debt. We’d deliver our papers—Worcester Sunday Telegrams—and then run back to the car and scramble onto the tailgate, dropping the coins we’d collected into empty Briggs tobacco tins as we bumped along to the next turn, the newspaper route our Sabbath.

The Worcester Sunday Telegram was founded in 1884, when a telegram meant something fast. Two years later, it became a daily. It was never a great paper but it was always a pretty good paper: useful, gossipy, and resolute. It cultivated talent. The poet Stanley Kunitz was a staff writer for the Telegram in the nineteen-twenties. The New York Times reporter Douglas Kneeland, who covered Kent State and Charles Manson, began his career there in the nineteen-fifties. Joe McGinniss reported for the Telegram in the nineteen-sixties before writing “The Selling of the President.” From bushy-bearded nineteenth-century politicians to baby-faced George W. Bush, the paper was steadfastly Republican, if mainly concerned with scandals and mustachioed villains close to home: overdue repairs to the main branch of the public library, police raids on illegal betting establishments—“Worcester Dog Chases Worcester Cat Over Worcester Fence,” as the old Washington press-corps joke about a typical headline in a local paper goes. Its pages rolled off giant, thrumming presses in a four-story building that overlooked City Hall the way every city paper used to look out over every city hall, the Bat-Signal over Gotham.

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The New Yorker

Trump’s Shutdown Offer Creates a De Facto Asylum Ban for Central American Minors

 

President Donald Trump’s new offer to open the federal government in exchange for funding for his wall on the southern U.S. border includes a major change to immigration policy that was not included as part of his public announcement.

The Trump administration had claimed that it would support legislation known as the BRIDGE Act — which includes protections for Dreamers — in exchange for concessions by Democrats. Upon closer investigation, that turned out to be a lie.

Trump’s offer to Democrats, revealed Monday night, actually gives him even more of what he has wanted in immigration policy, which is an end to the legal process that allows people to present themselves at a U.S. port of entry and apply for asylum. Trump’s new policy would ban such asylum-seeking for Central American minors and require those fleeing violence or persecution to apply in their own country instead.

The Trump administration, however, has also made that process effectively impossible. The appropriations bill that’s currently on the negotiating table creates the “Central American Minors Protection Act,” which would allow minors from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras with a “qualified parent or guardian” in the United States to apply for asylum in their home countries. (The bill does not define “qualified” parent, and it’s unclear whether the program would be limited to the children of U.S. citizens and permanent residents.) But far from treating would-be asylum-seekers’ claims with urgency, the bill gives 240 days (about eight months) for the establishment of eight processing centers that would deal with these claims — even though the ban on requesting asylum at the border would go into effect immediately.

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The Intercept_ 

Larry Kudlow Speaks to Reporters at the White House


National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow speaks with reporters in the White House briefing room about the economic impact of the government shutdown, which is now in its thirty-second day. He also talks about the slowing Chinese economy.

Click here for video.

Senator Schumer on Government Shutdown

 
Earlier today on the Senate floor, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke about the government shutdown and President Trump’s recent proposal to negotiate.

Click here for video.

Source: C-SPAN

Senator Harris' Record as California AG Comes Under Scrutiny


This report originally aired on January 21. 

Senator Kamala Harris responds to a question about her record on transgender rights as California attorney general and her role in defending the California Department of Corrections in a case that sought to deny two transgender inmates gender reassignment surgery. Senator Harris says that while the department took a position on the issue that was at odds with her beliefs, she says, "The bottom line is the buck stops with me and I take full responsibility for what my office did." She also goes on to say that she vehemently disagreed with the stance taken and that she "worked behind the scenes to ensure that the department would allow transitioning inmates to receive the medical attention that they required, they needed, and deserved." 

Click here for video.