Sunday, April 1, 2018

The Fool is Me

I'm still paying for the insulting piece of $upremacism even after yesterday.

Is that a Star of David that I see featured above the fold?

For small, private colleges, fewer students means more worries

Okay, that is the lead feature this morning and I began unenrolling from it before the turn-in. Why waste time on a worthless degree building student loan debt when social media is the an$wer to everything?

Related:

"Getting into the country’s most selective colleges is more fiercely competitive than ever, with many schools reporting a record number of applicants, boosted by an easier application process and more aggressive recruiting. Many high school seniors are now dealing with perhaps the most significant disappointment of their young lives, awash in rejection letters that have cemented this season as one of dashed dreams and what-ifs. “It’s a loss,” said Sherri Geller, a college counselor at Gann Academy, a private Jewish high school in Waltham. Geller said she tells some students “to take a day or two to grieve. And if they want to cry, that’s OK.”

They thought it was a slam dunk, and I'm told "Jonah Bachman, 18, of Newton South High School, wrote a piece poking fun at the college admissions stress for an online satirical magazine that he runs with a friend."

Also see:

"Founded by and for their states, public flagship universities are increasingly becoming national institutions with students from across the country. The question of student’s home states is a huge issue for universities. For hundreds of thousands of college-bound students nationwide, their home-state flagship is either their top choice or one of them. Some state schools have made a conscious decision to go national. A prime example is the University of Alabama, with its national powerhouse football team as a marketing draw. Out-of-state students help universities in significant ways. They diversify campuses, bringing fresh perspectives and life experiences. They fill seats in states with stagnant or declining population. And of course, they pay more....." 

That last part tells you all you need to know. The pre$$ makes the money seem like an afterthought, meaning it's the prime concern.

So now crappy, underfunded public schools are "prestigious universities?"

I hope you like your new professor.

(flip)

Martin Luther King Jr. honed his command of the pulpit in Roxbury

I find that not only blasphemous, but given Bo$ton's history of race relations, more than a tad arrogant -- especially in the wake of his words at Riverside and where we are in the world today (the pre$$ usurpers also use his name and legacy as an ongoing racial wedge when you think about it).

Time to look up.

"The fact that tenants who can afford higher rents are being pushed out reinforces a harsh reality of Greater Boston’s housing market: It’s becoming unaffordable for a larger swath of people....."

It really is Bo$ton now, and there is nothing unu$ual about it. Even the hotel rooms are too expensive, forget about buying a home.

Soon Bo$ton will look like Gaza:

"Israel threatens to expand response if Gaza violence continues" by Loveday Morris Washington Post  March 31, 2018

JERUSALEM — Israel’s military warned Saturday that it will step up its response to violence on the Gaza border if it continues, even as the United Nations said it was ‘‘deeply concerned’’ and called for an investigation after at least 15 Palestinians were killed during demonstrations.

They are not outraged like they would be in so many other places?

Brigadier General Ronen Manelis, Israel’s chief military spokesman, said it had so far restricted its actions to the border fence but would go after militants ‘‘in other places’’ if attacks continue, the Associated Press reported.

What attacks?

Tens of thousands of Gaza residents massed at points on the border with Israel on Friday in what was billed as a peaceful ‘‘March of Return’’ to mark Land Day, the anniversary of the Israeli appropriation of Arab-owned land in the Galilee area in 1976.

But the day descended into the bloodiest in Gaza since the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the enclave. More than 700 people suffered gunshot wounds after Israeli sharpshooters deployed to the border opened fire with live ammunition.

Related: "A massacre described by the Khazar-controlled media as 'clashes', with the implication that it is some kind of fair fight.  This massacre, and spin, is exactly the kind of thing that symbolizes why nobody else has ever been successfully able to live with the Khazars.  Ever.  In a world where Dershowitz manages to convince people that it unfair, and an example of traditional 'anti-Semitism', to 'single out' Israel, it is stunning that the Khazars, alone amongst all the monsters of the world, can get away with this kind of obscene target practice." -- xymphora

The violence dropped significantly Saturday as just small groups of Palestinians threw stones in several areas near the fence, drawing Israeli fire that injured 25 people, the AP reported, citing the Gaza Health Ministry.

OMG!

In the days leading up to Friday’s demonstration, the military had warned that anyone approaching the border fence would be in danger. Men, women, and children gathered, and while many demonstrated peacefully, waving Palestinian flags, some threw rocks at Israeli soldiers across the fence.

They might let you plant a bomb if the PM is driving by, but putting that investigation aside, the opening of fire on the crowd in response is disproportionate.

The Israeli military said that tires were set alight and firebombs were thrown, and accused Hamas of using the demonstration as a cover to carry out ‘‘terror attacks.’’ It said two militants opened fire in one incident on the northern border, after which it responded with tank fire and airstrikes. 

Again, the proportionality. Israel is nothing but a bunch of butchers.

Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said Israel’s response to unarmed protesters was ‘‘illegal.’’

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is ‘‘deeply concerned’’ about the border clashes, a statement from his office said.

‘‘He also appeals to those concerned to refrain from any act that could lead to further casualties and in particular any measures that could place civilians in harm’s way,’’ it continued, adding that the UN chief had called for an ‘‘independent and transparent investigation into these incidents.’’

You compare that to his remarks regarding the ‘‘hell on earth,’’ that is Syria -- as the attempted overthrow of Assad enters a dangerous new phase.

They should call it the JU.N.

Manelis said all those killed were engaged in violence.

As John Bolton would joke, how do you known when the Zionist regime is lying? Their lips are moving, ha-ha-ha!

Hamas and other Palestinian factions that called for the demonstrations hope to sustain them for another month and a half, culminating with the anniversary of Israel’s independence, known to Palestinians as the ‘‘Nakba’’ or catastrophe.

The opening of the US embassy, also slated for the anniversary, is expected to add further fuel to protests. Meanwhile, a growing sense of hopelessness for Gazans amid a humanitarian crisis, has spurred on demonstrators, some of whom say they have little to lose.

Gaza has been under blockade by Israel for more than a decade, since Hamas took control of the territory in 2007. Israel cites security reasons for only allowing a tiny proportion of its 2 million residents to leave, even to travel to other Palestinian areas in the occupied West Bank. 

It's called a siege, and it has resulted in history's largest outdoor concentration camp.

It is estimated that the unemployment rate is pushing 50 percent, a figure that is higher among the 140-square-mile strip of territory’s youth.

A feud between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, which is based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, has compounded misery for Gazans. The Palestinian Authority has cut salaries to its employees in Gaza as it attempts to squeeze Hamas, while reconciliation efforts brokered by Egypt have broken down.

Outing the PA as an USraeli agent and as not being serious about reconciliation.

‘‘I want to be shot,’’ said 22-year-old Yahya Abu Assar at the demonstrations on Friday. ‘‘I don’t want this life.’’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated the soldiers Saturday for allowing the rest of the country to celebrate the Passover holiday safely.

‘‘Israel is acting determinedly and decisively to protect its sovereignty and the security of its citizens,’’ he said.

Whatever happened to the corruption flare-up that was supposed to remove him from office?

Down the old memory hole, huh?

Passover began Friday night, on the same day that Christians observed Good Friday.

The border protests against Israel were seen as a new attempt by Hamas to break the border blockade, imposed by Israel and Egypt after the group seized Gaza in 2007 from forces loyal to its rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The continued closure has made it increasingly difficult for Hamas to govern.

That is Israeli Terrorism then!

Life in the coastal strip has deteriorated further in recent months, with rising unemployment, grinding poverty, and daily blackouts that last for hours

That was at the behest of Abass so he could put pressure on Gaza.

The prospect of more protests and Palestinian casualties in coming weeks could also place Israel on the defensive..... 

Awwwww, poor Iswail!

What a JOKE!

--more--"

Honestly, the never-ending Jewish victimhood has reached the point of insanity.

"15 Palestinians killed in clashes on Gaza border" by Isabel Kershner and Iyad Abuheweila New York Times  March 30, 2018

JERUSALEM — What was billed as a six-week campaign of peaceful protests in Gaza, culminating in a mass march toward Israel, descended almost immediately into chaos and bloodshed Friday, with at least 15 Palestinians reported killed by Israeli soldiers in confrontations along the border fence.

Soon after the campaign began Friday morning, the Israeli military reported that Palestinian protesters were rioting in six locations along the border, rolling burning tires and hurling stones at the fence and at Israeli soldiers beyond it. Later, it reported that firebombs were thrown at soldiers.

Fifteen marchers were killed and more than 1,000 wounded by Israeli fire in clashes along the border fence, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. It was the bloodiest day in Gaza since the 2014 cross-border war between Israel and Hamas.

Oh, those Palestinians, overstating the numbers! They are acting just like a certain group of chosen people regarding a certain unquestioned narrative regarding a certain event.

You have to remember that any accusation Israel and its mouthpieces hurl is conduct of which they themselves are guilty.

Declaring the area surrounding the Gaza Strip a closed military zone, the Israeli military said it was “responding with riot dispersal means and firing towards main instigators.” Israeli forces fired live ammunition, rubber bullets, and tear gas.

The tear gas was dropped by drone!

The Palestinian organizers had called for peaceful protests, referred to as the Great March of Return or the March of the Million, with men, women, and children bused to tent encampments that popped up in recent days about 700 yards from the border with Israel.

We will see how much coverage, and what kind of coverage, they get going forward -- if they get any at all.

Btw, that is pretty far away. It's hard to throw a football 50 yards, never mind rocks and firebombs.

About 20,000 demonstrators came to the tent encampments, but most appeared to have stayed well away from the border fence and did not engage in violence.

Then the Zioni$t media isn't really interested.

The idea was to protest Israel’s more than decadelong blockade of Gaza, which restricts the movement of people and goods in and out of the coastal territory and which Israel calls a security imperative, as well as to highlight Palestinian demands for a right of return to the lands that became Israel 70 years ago.

A majority of Gaza’s 2 million residents are refugees of the 1948 war that surrounded Israel’s creation, or their descendants.

My Jewi$h war media seems to only have time for Syrian refugees.

Girding for violence, Israel had almost doubled its forces along the border, deploying snipers, special units, and drones and warning that it would act to prevent any breach of the border fence or violation of Israel’s sovereignty.

Thankfully, the WaComPo cleaned a lot of that up overnight.

The idea for the border encampments, in about half a dozen locations, was initiated by a Gazan social-media activist, Ahmed Abu Artema, a political independent.

It was adopted by Hamas, the Islamic militant group that dominates Gaza and is known for its armed resistance, which promoted the protest on its social media platforms and urged Palestinians to participate.

“Our will in achieving the actual return to our lands is more powerful than jet fighters and a gun,” Abu Artema said by phone Friday as he was on his way to the protest. “This march is rightful and will not be used and exploited for political agendas.”

For Israel, the prospect of unarmed protests posed the challenge of maintaining deterrence by threatening harsh measures while also avoiding mass civilian casualties.

B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, warned in a statement that any shoot-to-kill policy against unarmed demonstrators would be unlawful, unless the lives of soldiers lives were threatened.

Before the larger clashes broke out, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reported that a Palestinian farmer was killed near the border zone early Friday by Israeli artillery fire. The Israeli military said one of its tanks had fired on two Palestinians who approached the border and were “acting suspiciously.”

“We are raising the flags of peace and have nothing to harm the enemy,” said Hamed Jundiya, 63, an educational supervisor who erected his tent a few hundred yards from the border fence. Gazans are desperate, he said, “living without work, electricity, and open borders.”

Another protester, Mohammad Obaid, 18, took a more militant stand, saying that holding a Palestinian flag in one hand and a rock in the other would be enough to get him killed by an Israeli soldier.

Actually, you don't have to do anything. Just existing is enough for them.

With Gaza’s economy collapsing, fears of an explosive response have mounted. In recent years, first Egypt and then the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank joined Israel in squeezing Gaza financially.

Even before the protests started, Israel said Hamas would be responsible for any violence.

Nowhere else in the world is a government held to account for the violent acts of its citizens.

Israel’s hard-line defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, warned Gazans to keep away from the border in a post on Twitter written in Arabic.

“The Hamas leadership is risking your lives,” he wrote.

Well, they did warn you, didn't they? 

I guess that absolves them. 

The protest came at a particularly charged time, as Jews prepared for the start of Passover on Friday, and as Palestinians observed Land Day.

The day commemorates the events of March 30, 1976, when Israeli security forces shot and killed six Arab citizens of Israel during protests over the state’s expropriation of Arab-owned land in northern Israel.

How little things have changed.

The Gaza protest is billed to peak May 15, when Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, or catastrophe, the anniversary of Israel’s declaration of independence and the 1948 war in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lost their homes through flight and expulsion.

I'm surprised to see the New York Times refer to Israel's ethnic cleansing.

This year, May 15 comes a day after the planned move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, a step that has provoked international criticism and Palestinian outrage, and it coincides with the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.....

--more--"

Here is the NYT trying to pull the wool back over your eyes:

"Resurgent Taliban gets hands on high-tech gear, putting US in bind" by Thomas Gibbons-Neff New York Times   March 31, 2018

WASHINGTON — Once described as an ill-equipped band of insurgents, the Taliban are increasingly attacking security forces across Afghanistan using night-vision goggles and lasers that United States military officials said were either stolen from Afghan and international troops or bought on the black market.

The devices allow the Taliban to maneuver on forces under the cover of darkness as they track the whirling blades of coalition helicopters, the infrared lasers on American rifles, or even the bedtime movements of local police officers.

With this new battlefield visibility, the Taliban more than doubled nighttime attacks from 2014 to 2017, according to one US military official who described internal Pentagon data on the condition of anonymity. The number of Afghans who were wounded or killed during nighttime attacks during that period nearly tripled.

That has forced American commanders to rethink the limited access they give Afghan security forces to the night-vision devices. Commanders now worry that denying the expensive equipment to those forces puts them at a technological disadvantage, with potentially lethal consequences.

This fits in with the recent push for peace by the U.S. Time to declare victory and get the f*** out of there.

For years, American commanders have been reluctant to give night-vision equipment to rank-and-file Afghan soldiers and police officers out of concern of widespread corruption among those forces.

The devices — headsets and infrared lasers — are usually given only to elite Afghan commandos and police special mission units, according to US military officials.

As some of this equipment falls into Taliban hands, the militants are joining a larger trend, said David W. Barno, a retired lieutenant general who led the war effort in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005.

Advanced equipment, such as drones and precision weapons, is being seized by other extremist groups in other global conflict zones, he said.

“It’s going to be a problem,” Barno said, “and it’s going to change how we operate.”

With the spread of the devices, infantry units on patrols have been told not to use certain marking devices that can be seen only by night-vision equipment. Helicopter crews have been made distinctly aware that their aircraft are no longer cloaked by darkness.

In one case last November, Taliban fighters wearing night-vision goggles attacked a police outpost in Farah province, in western Afghanistan. By the time the predawn assault was over, eight Afghan officers lay dead in their beds, Haji Abdul Rahman Aka, the elder of the province’s Pule Regi area, said at the time. Only one Afghan officer survived.

The frequency and ferocity of the nighttime Taliban attacks are linked to attempts by Afghan forces, based in small checkpoints across the country, to hold territory that has been wrested away from the militants.

Previously unreported documents, obtained by The New York Times, underline concerns about the Taliban’s growing sophistication on the battlefield after 16 years of war — and American commanders’ efforts to stunt it.

That means the NYT was handed them by their government source with the understanding that it would make its way into the paper.

MLK long forgotten now, huh?

The documents show that the US military has begun to send older models of night-vision hardware to regular Afghan army units. Those headsets cost an estimated $3,000 each, officials said.

Of course, those will have to be replaced and now we see the real rea$on for this.

One of the first batches of night-vision equipment for conventional units in southern Afghanistan, part of a monthslong pilot program, was sent to the embattled 215th Corps in Helmand province in the spring of 2016.

Only 161 of the 210 devices were returned, according to the military documents obtained by The Times, and the equipment was not effectively used, in part because the forces were not properly trained to use it.

(Blog editor opens palms toward ceiling while mouthing WTF?)

Afghan troops said the missing devices were reported as “battle losses,” but could not support that claim with any proof or records to explain where or when they were left behind, according to the documents.

At the time, the commander of the 215th Corps was Major General M. Moein Faqir. He was later arrested on sweeping corruption charges that included misuse of food money meant for his troops.

Oh. 

Well, giving weapons to the enemy is a good way to keep the wars going..... and going..... and going.

Last year, and with better results, night-vision equipment was sent to the 205th Corps, located around Kandahar, the military documents showed. Five devices were lost between July and December, when the program ended, according to the documents.

Over the summer and fall, the Afghan National Army suffered 15 percent fewer casualties around Kandahar than it had during the same period in 2016. The documents credited the night-vision equipment for the marked reduction.

The US military is now planning to equip the unit with roughly 2,500 night-vision goggles.

But despite the measured successes, it remains unclear if the US military will give the devices to the rest of the Afghan army.

--more--"

The New York Times ought to be jailed.

Related: Nobel Prize winner visits her Pakistan hometown

She has been getting daily attention from my Globe, and when did they take the photograph?

Time to rally for the black man as we excuse the white cop.

I caught a glimpse of something and then it was gone despite being greeted with scores of television cameras perched by the looming gray doors — which still bear the hammer and sickle insignia of the Soviet Union — that lead into the halls of the Stalinist skyscraper the Foreign Ministry calls home.

I'm a fool for chasing after their censored and rewritten tails because the "latest expulsions were not unexpected and tensions between Russia and Britain continue to escalate beyond the diplomatic realm. Friday night, the Russian Embassy in London said that an Aeroflot flight from London to Moscow was stopped for a search by British authorities. Russia has threatened to conduct similar searches of British Airways flights, and warned that Russians traveling to the United Kingdom could face provocations, including the insertion of foreign objects into their luggage."

The Russians are suggesting plants, and I say good for them! It's a different world these days, and even if they shut us all down the Russians are showing us they know what is going on and calling them out on it. That's another reason they are under endless attack in my pre$$.

Mail on Sunday? 

"Trump says Amazon’s ‘post office scam’ must end" by Hope Yen Associated Press  March 31, 2018

WASHINGTON — President Trump has again attacked online retailer Amazon, calling its business deal with the US Postal Service to deliver packages a money-losing agreement that hurts American taxpayers.

Amazon has been a continual target of Trump’s anger. The company’s founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post, which Trump has labeled as a producer of ‘‘fake news’’ because the paper has reported unfavorable developments during his campaign and presidency.

In Saturday’s tweets, Trump accused Amazon of using the ‘‘fake Washington Post’’ as a lobbyist. The Post and Bezos have responded to Trump’s lobbyist claims in the past by declaring that Bezos is not involved in any journalistic decisions at the paper.

He doesn't have to be; it's like Hitler and Holocost™, nothing on paper, Himmler knew what he wanted, ya-da-da.

Besides, just because the WaComPo claims something doesn't make it true.

The full details of the agreement between Amazon and the US Postal Service are unknown. The agency is independently operated, and makes confidential deals with retailers.

!!!!!!!!!!

David Vernon, an analyst at Bernstein Research who tracks the shipping industry, estimated in 2015 that the USPS handled 40 percent of Amazon’s volume the previous year, Bloomberg News reported. He estimated at the time that Amazon pays the postal service $2 per package, which is about half what it would pay UPS or FedEx.

And that is likely WAY LE$$ than what the individual pays! 

So Trump turns out to be RIGHT in this case!

Although the US Postal Service has lost money for 11 years, package delivery — which has been a bright spot for the service — is not the reason.

Boosted by e-commerce, the Postal Service has seen double-digit increases in revenue from delivering packages, but that hasn’t been enough to offset pension and health care costs as well as declines in first-class letters and marketing mail. Together, letters and marketing mail make up more than two-thirds of postal revenue.

The pension and health care costs were mandated by Congre$$ in order to privatize the only good thing this government ever did. They have to fund it 75 years into the future while the rest of corporate AmeriKa lets them slide while waiting for a bailout.

In arguing that the Postal Service is losing money on delivering packages for Amazon, Trump appears to be citing some Wall Street studies that argue the Postal Service’s formula for calculating its costs is outdated.

Then how dare the pre$$ accuse him of ill motives?

A 2017 analysis by Citigroup did conclude that the Postal Service was charging below market rates as a whole on parcels. Still, federal regulators have reviewed the Amazon contract with the Postal Service each year and determined it to be profitable.

But not enough!

A spokesman for the US Postal Service declined to comment.

Trump is spending Easter Weekend at his resort in Palm Beach, Fla., and went to the nearby Trump International Golf Club early Saturday.

That's where he went last weekend.

In a separate development Saturday, Trump blasted California Governor Jerry Brown for his pardon of five ex-convicts facing deportation, including two who fled the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia with their families four decades ago.

Not separate; otherwise, they wouldn't have included it. They can't even tell the truth about that.

In a tweet, Trump referred to Brown as ‘‘Moonbeam,’’ the nickname a newspaper columnist gave the governor in the 1970s.

Trump then listed the ex-convicts’ crimes before they were pardoned Friday. They include misdemeanor domestic violence, drug possession, and kidnapping and robbery.

Trump wrote: ‘‘Is this really what the great people of California want?’’

A spokesman for Brown responded to a request for comment with more information about the five men but did not directly address Trump’s criticism.

In a news release about the pardons Friday, the governor’s office said that ‘‘those granted pardons all completed their sentences years ago and the majority were convicted of drug-related or other nonviolent crimes.’’

‘‘Pardons are not granted unless they are earned,’’ the governor’s office said.

Brown’s pardons marked the third time the Democrat has intervened on behalf of immigrants who were deported or faced deportation over convictions.

He cares more about them than he does his own citizens.

Brown’s pardons don’t automatically stop deportation proceedings, but eliminate the convictions on which authorities base their deportation.

Trump has been criticized for his own pardon, that of former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted last year of a misdemeanor contempt charge for flouting the courts in carrying out his signature immigration patrols.....

I marked it return to sender.

--more--"

At least I'm not the only fool:

"After six months of #MeToo, hopes high for lasting effect" by David Crary Associated Press  March 31, 2018

NEW YORK — Six months after bursting into the spotlight, the #MeToo movement has toppled scores of men from prominent positions and fueled a national conversation about workplace sexual harassment.

There is also ample evidence that the movement has some staying power that will make it a force six months from now and beyond as lawmakers across the nation enact an array of antiharassment legislation, corporate America roots out bad behavior in the workplace, and more women feel emboldened to speak out.

What a laugh seeing as the Senate filibustered (despite the pleas of Mary Bono), and what they passed here was toothless.

Of course, what #MeToo also does is put the covers over the pedophilia and perversion of those like Foley and Hastert, while burying domestic violence at the foot of the bed.

And the movement has the potential to guide the conversation surrounding the midterm elections, as evidenced by the record number of women getting into politics in 2018.

It's all about establishing the narrative to sell the public the next rigged election.

The movement took shape in October 2017, when reports in The New York Times and The New Yorker gave voice to numerous women accusing Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct. Soon afterward, #MeToo went viral, becoming worldwide shorthand for speaking out about sexual harassment.

Yeah, this after the NYT sat on the story for 14 years and Hollywood openly joked about it. Talk about revisionism! Looks to me like another staged and scripted effort, just as are all the controlled opposition protests applauded by my pre$$.

Along with the steady stream of harassment cases involving other powerful men, there has been extensive activity in statehouses across the country.

More than a dozen legislatures are considering bills that address sexual harassment in workplaces statewide; an even larger number are addressing harassment affecting officeholders, staff, and lobbyists at the statehouses.

They haven't passed any yet? What is taking so long?

Those in-house efforts often have been fueled by scandal: At least two-dozen legislators have resigned or been ousted over the past year due to sexual misconduct allegations.

Yeah, it's all public relations and imagery. They are not doing it for you, ladies!

#MeToo activists believe the legislatures’ collective efforts will produce lasting change. They also believe #MeToo has provided new awareness and resources for women experiencing harassment in the workplace. 

If they pass any bills, that is, and even that won't do it. Makes them look like they are doing something, though.

The Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund was launched in January by the National Women’s Law Center with the aim of providing attorneys for victimized women, notably those in low-wage jobs who couldn’t afford a lawyer on their own.

Fatima Goss Graves, the law center’s CEO, says more than 500 attorneys have signed up, and complaints have been fielded from more than 2,300 people. The fund underwriting the program totals $21 million, provided by about 20,000 donors.

Where is all that money coming from? Who is funding this agenda?

While many of those seeking help are hotel and restaurant workers, complaints have arrived from about 60 different employment sectors, including retail, farming, government, construction, and the military. 

Why did they not name the banking, health, labor, education, media, and theatre sectors?

Goss Graves hopes the initiative proves long-lasting.

‘‘There is not a quick fix to this problem,’’ she said. ‘‘If there was, we would have fixed it long ago.’’

Others are skeptical about the movement bringing about real change.

‘‘Mostly, I’ve seen a lot of talk and gnashing of teeth but not much change,’’ said Donna Ballman, an employment lawyer in Florida. ‘‘Women continue to be disbelieved unless they can find others to back them up. Women continue to be retaliated against with damaging transfers, ostracism, and worse.’’

And despite the widespread action at the state level, antiharassment efforts have suffered some setbacks. In Florida, the House and Senate approved different measures to address the problem, and ended the session without agreement on a bill.

‘‘It makes me angry not just because of me, but because of the women who have shared their stories,’’ said Republican Representative Jennifer Sullivan, who sponsored the House bill. ‘‘By them not finishing this, they’re basically just silencing them yet again by saying we’re going to maintain the status quo.’’ 

At least they looked like they were doing something -- for a while.

States like Washington and California have taken a more aggressive stance.

In California, at least 20 antiharassment bills have been filed. One proposes equipping hotel housekeepers with panic buttons to use in cases of sexual assault; similar measures already are in place in some cities. Washington lawmakers passed a package of harassment bills.

In Congress, the focus has been on internal problems. The House approved legislation to speed the slow-moving process for harassment complaints, require more disclosure of settlements, and force lawmakers to personally pay any penalties they’re required to make. The Senate’s 22 female members are pressuring their chamber’s leaders to take comparable steps.

Among employers, Microsoft has endorsed a move to eliminate private arbitration proceedings in cases of alleged sexual harassment.

Efforts are underway in several cities to train restaurant owners to address harassment. And numerous industry and professional groups, ranging from Actors’ Equity Association to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, have launched initiatives to strengthen antiharassment policies.

Some activists remain wary of the corporate response and wonder if some changes — such as revised sexual harassment training programs — will be halfhearted.

‘‘Employers have not seized the opportunities to be champions in transforming their workplaces,’’ said Noreen Farrell, head of the group Equal Rights Advocates. ‘‘I’d like to challenge them to use this moment for innovation, not to go into defense mode.’’ 

That's funny because the Globe has told me that corporate America is slowly responding.

Zoe Chance, a marketing professor at Yale School of Management, believes #MeToo will spark lasting change. One reason for her optimism: a sense that many men are supportive.

I am in a sense.

‘‘I’m often asked to speak about women’s issues — the #MeToo movement marked the first time those inquiries have come from men,’’ she said by e-mail.

--more--"

Yeah, THEY are ‘‘in the midst of a national reckoning concerning sexual harassment.’’

Reckon with this:

"Sean Penn questions #MeToo in Cambridge appearance" by Mark Shanahan Globe Staff   March 30, 2018

Don’t expect to see Sean Penn at a #MeToo rally.

The actor was in Cambridge Thursday night to promote his debut novel — yes, the Oscar winner is a novelist now — and he seemed to criticize, obliquely, the movement to raise awareness about sexual harassment and assault.

“We’ve seen some great movements — the civil rights movement, the anti-apartheid movement — that had real leadership and real agendas and real compromise, which is the demand of human nature,” Penn said in an hourlong sit-down with author Zia Haider Rahman at the Sheraton Commander Hotel. “What I worry about in the movements today are the blinders that are on. They become very myopic.”

Or the ones that are being used for ulterior motives.

In the epilogue of his novel, titled “Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff,” Penn writes a poem likening the #MeToo movement to a “toddlers’ crusade,” and defending, it appears, comedian Louis C.K.

Predictably perhaps, Penn’s novel has been savaged by critics. Just as predictably, Penn said he doesn’t care what people think. The 57-year-old actor said he decided to write the book because he lost interest in what Hollywood is doing these days.

Hey, #MeToo!!!

“All thoughtful content, or most of it, is on the small screen or on the computer screen or on a telephone screen,” Penn said. “The rest is sort of Cirque du Soleil.”

The topic of #MeToo arose when Rahman asked about challenges facing America, and Penn responded with a story from his childhood. The actor, wearing a quilted bomber jacket and black pants, said he’d grown up watching coverage of the Vietnam War, and it made him want to be a hippie or a Beatle.

“The hippie movement, the antiwar movement, these were the good guys,” Penn said. “Then these young men came back from Southeast Asia and the movement called them ‘baby killers’ . . . and I became almost anti-movement on that basis.”

So he was then pro-war?

He then drew a bizarre comparison to the #MeToo movement.

“I wonder why the conversation in terms of the protection for women has not extended to the three 10-year-olds who were approved by a parent and a judge to be married,” Penn said, apparently referencing the current controversy over child brides in Tennessee. “If that isn’t an abuse that the spokesmen of this movement have a responsibility to embody, then I’m against them.”

I'm not surprised from what I hear (#232 on your program, and take some time to look around).

Thankfully, there wasn’t a lot of talk about President Trump, but Penn did say he thinks the US has a “mental health crisis,” not a political crisis, and he blamed the country’s “ill health” on “celebrity-ism” that prioritizes charisma over substance. (He directed the audience to go to YouTube and watch a talk by David Souter in which the retired Supreme Court justice warned that the greatest threat facing the US isn’t foreign invasion or a military coup, but civic ignorance.)

And that is a product of ma$$ media!

Finally, Penn said he hasn’t officially retired from acting, but if he did, no one would notice.

“I’m a little more of out-of-sight-out-of-mind on this. I don’t know about being missed,” he said. “Maybe Gene Hackman we miss. It’s a very rare breed we miss. At the moment, I’ve realized that acting is not something I enjoy.”

Good, because you suck as an actor!

--more--"

Hey, dude.

Maybe this will work:

Here’s one of the best things schools can do to prevent mass shootings

PAY A CONSULTANT who will help DEVISE SOME DRILLS!!? 

And who benefit$? 

HMMMMM!

Just pray you don't have to be taken to the hospital (at least Wimmer, Torgerson, Ofman, and Schmeltz are looking out for you).

You know what the next nightmare will be? 

playground shooting

You'll be asking "Where was Walsh?!"

Man fatally shot in Dorchester Saturday afternoon

DAMN!!

They ruined Evans' weekend!

"MassArt professor says school is ousting him after student complaints" by Malcolm Gay Globe Staff  March 31, 2018

Experimental filmmaker and professor Saul Levine said he’s being forced out by administrators at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design following student complaints about an in-class screening of his graphic 1989 film “Notes After Long Silence.”

In an emotional Facebook Live video posted Thursday, Levine, 74, describes a Feb. 8 meeting with administrators as a “complete ambush,” where he said he was accused of harming students by showing the film, which contains images of Levine naked and having sex with his partner.

Why is the ejewkhazional $y$tem staffed with perverts?

“The people in that room all agreed that I had committed sexual harassment by showing my class this film,” said Levine, who said he was leaving after 39 years at MassArt. “They couldn’t do anything about it because the complaints were anonymous. To be honest, I don’t get it. I admit I showed it.”

I'm not surprised.

In a statement to the Globe, MassArt president David Nelson declined to comment on specific questions about Levine “as our employee records are confidential.”

“As an art and design college, academic freedom and creative expression are essential to MassArt’s mission,” Nelson said in the statement. “We believe that freedom and creativity thrive on a campus where students, faculty, and staff respect the dignity of one another and practice collegiality. When respect and collegiality are stifled, both freedom and creativity suffer.”

Levine could not be reached for comment.

A spokeswoman for the school said he remained employed at MassArt and is expected to continue through the semester, but would not provide further comment.

Levine’s announcement follows the abrupt retirement in early March of photographer Nicholas Nixon, who stepped down amid claims of inappropriate behavior.

They kept that quiet in the letter.

Kim Keown, a former MassArt student who said she first saw the film years ago with no warning about its graphic content, said cautionary notice is the critical issue. 

No, I think the content is the issue.

“Saul has bullied and abused other faculty and staff at MassArt for years,” said Keown, who now works as a studio manager in the school’s film area. “I have nothing against the film or this kind of artwork being made or shown, but with [no] warning [it] can make one uncomfortable and unsafe. I was his student; and I did not speak out. If I had, back then, I would have been ridiculed.”

I'm finding it hard to believe that he's an intimidating bully. Jews are not like that. It's not in their character.

Levine, whose avant garde films were showcased at the Harvard Film Archive in 2015, said he decided to screen “Notes After Long Silence” and his 1973 film “The Big Stick/An Old Reel” to his senior thesis class last semester to illustrate different approaches to post production.

“I thought I would show two of my own films that also deal a lot with editing structures and some of the issues I saw coming up in their films,” said Levine, who did not say whether he’d warned students of the film’s graphic contents. “It’s a complicated film that uses footage drawn from the life around me. “

What does editing have to with this?

Levine said he did not know how many students had complained. He said the school had previously defended him against claims he taught “gay pornography,” but administrators berated him during the February meeting “about the safety of students, and why I was harming them.”

Oh, look, now he was berated and he can play the gay card.

Levine, who said he was accompanied at the meeting by a union representative, added that there are “correct concerns about abuse of authority on campus and their relationship to sexual harassment.”

“That’s a good thing,” he said, but added that his ouster amounted to a “policing of the curriculum” where students are being “infantilized…told that only the least objectionable can be talked about or shown.”

“We’re seeing an attack on academic freedom,” said Levine, who said he decided to step down rather than mount a costly legal battle against the school. “My work doesn’t harm anyone.”

That makes you laugh, hey. 

It's called chickens coming home to roost or something like that.

--more--"

Oh, the whistleblower lives in Worcester (taxpayers are paying for that?).

Related
At Gloucester Stage, a reckoning with Israel Horovitz’s legacy

He resigned before they could protect the actors.

Speaking of reckoning with some legacies:

"Mel Gordon, an unorthodox and widely published drama scholar who taught a course in the history of bad acting and wrote books about the ghastly Grand Guignol theater of Paris and the deviant sexual world of Weimar Berlin, died March 22 in Richmond, Calif. He was 71. Sheila Gordon, his former wife, said the cause was complications of renal failure. His only immediate survivor was his brother Norman. Dr. Gordon, who taught at New York University and then the University of California, Berkeley, wrote a two-volume history of the Stanislavsky method of acting — and the libretto to a Yiddish opera. He collaborated on a study of Funnyman, a Jewish shtick-wielding comic book superhero who was conjured up in 1948 by the creators of Superman — and wrote a biography of Hitler’s Jewish clairvoyant. He wrote about commedia dell’arte — and about Madonna’s interest in kabbalah, the mystical Jewish tradition of interpreting the Bible. Feral House, which specializes in odd subjects, published many of Dr. Gordon’s books, including “Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler’s Jewish Clairvoyant” (2001), about a psychic who had a brief alliance with Hitler.....” 

Hitler fired him when the war began to go bad.

"Samuel Belzberg, a feared corporate raider of the 1980s who perfected the contentious practice known as greenmail to build one of Canada’s foremost family dynasties, then reinvented himself as a successful private-equity investor, died Friday night in a hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia. He was 89. He had suffered a stroke, his daughter Wendy Belzberg said in confirming the death. Apart from his business career, Mr. Belzberg, who lived in Vancouver, was widely known for his philanthropy devoted to Jewish causes, among them the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, one of the world’s leading organizations dedicated to Holocaust research and education. He was its founding chairman. “Sam was both a visionary and proud Jew,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, who founded the center. Mr. Belzberg first attracted attention outside of Canadian business circles in 1979, when he amassed shares of the Bache Group, at the time one of the largest retail brokerage companies in the United States. Seizing on the junk bond boom and sometimes teaming up with US raiders like T. Boone Pickens, the Belzberg brothers — with Sam Belzberg running the show — quickly became known as greenmailers. The term refers to investors who accumulate stock in a company, threaten a takeover and then drop the threat after the company agrees to buy back the shares at a premium....." 

Isn't that called extortion?

Yeah, what a wonderful man

Meanwhile, his brothers founded a financial services giant and holding company that would be used by the family for its high-profile corporate takeovers, and one mingled unwittingly with underworld figures from the United States and Canada."

Do the names Arnold Rothstein and Alfred Lowenstein mean anything to you?

What do you mean you have never heard of the founders of the modern drug gang and organized crime?

Alan Romberg, China expert at State Department and think tanks, dies at 79

Another death due to renal cancer.

The next death notice was not that of a Jew, but of someone who once worked on the Globe’s night sports copy desk.

Must be a select club.

"Anne Forer Pyne, 72, feminist opened eyes" by Stacy Cowley New York Times  March 31, 2018

Anne Forer Pyne, an early feminist activist and writer whose use of the phrase “consciousness raising” helped make it a foundational principle of the women’s rights movement, died on March 21 in Tucson, Ariz. She was 72.

Her death, in hospice care, was caused by kidney failure, her brother, Danny Forer, said.

She wasn't able to get a new one in time, huh?

Ms. Pyne, a self-described left-wing hippie, was a young kindergarten teacher in the late 1960s when she began attending meetings of New York Radical Women, a small group that met in cramped Manhattan apartments to discuss how to fight the oppression of women.

Before overturning entrenched power dynamics and cultural norms, however, they knew they first had to identify and define them. Ms. Pyne, by her account, was uncertain about what, exactly, women needed to be liberated from. So she asked.

Experiences that they assumed had been theirs alone turned out to be collective, and swapping stories became one of the foundational tools of the Second Wave feminist movement. By examining their own experiences in a largely patriarchal world, the women laid bare everyday indignities, like being forced do most of the housework, as well as cultural myths and falsehoods about female sexuality.

Another Steinem (who has been outed as a controlled-opposition agitator and thus there is a special place in hell reserved for her), huh?

The discussions — building on the idea of “consciousness raising” — led to a number of seminal feminist texts, including Anne Koedt’s “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm” (1970) and Shulamith Firestone’s “The Dialectic of Sex” (1970).

Kathie Sarachild, another member of the group, picked up on Ms. Pyne’s phrase and popularized the concept of consciousness raising as an activist tactic. Women across the country began forming groups in urban apartments and suburban living rooms to analyze the systemic challenges they faced and to offer one another support.

Alix Kates Shulman, an influential feminist writer, later wrote, “What made the discussions so powerful was the sense we had that a great floodlight had been turned onto the world, lighting up all our experience; it was as though all the murky and scary shadows we had been living with all our lives were suddenly wiped away.”

The self-conceit is reaching such a point that I'm feeling shame.

Fool me once..... I can't get fooled again.

Almost accidentally, Ms. Pyne had inspired a breakthrough, Sarachild said in an interview: the realization that women, not male scientific authorities or political leaders, were the true experts on their own lives.

“It was a massive movement, and it came from asking questions that led to a deeper way of seeing,” Sarachild said.

Anne Forer was born in Manhattan on April 4, 1945, and raised in Queens by parents who identified as communists, according to her brother. Their father, Leon Forer, was a schoolteacher; their mother, the former Marion Kessler, was a nurse. Politics and civil-rights activism were regular dinner-table topics, Forer said.....

That is your stereotypical Jewish household according to the likes of Chomsky, et al.


--more--"

Where they get the food?

You don't mind saying grace first, do you?

"Stephen Reinhardt, judge who struck down ‘under God’ in Pledge of Allegiance; at 87" by Sudhin Thanawala Associated Press  March 31, 2018

SAN FRANCISCO — Judge Stephen Reinhardt was an unabashed liberal on what’s widely considered the nation’s most left-leaning appeals court, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The judge who died Thursday had blasted President Bill Clinton’s administration in a 1994 New York Times article for what he said was its failure to nominate liberal judges and urged then-US Supreme Court nominee Stephen Breyer to ‘‘not let the spirit of liberalism be extinguished.’’

He's going to silence it.

‘‘Someone must carry on the work of the court’s great progressive thinkers,’’ he wrote in the Los Angeles Times in 1994. ‘‘The justices who ended de jure racial segregation, brought us one man/one vote, opened the courts to the poor and needy, established the right to counsel for all defendants, gave women true legal equality.’’

Judge Reinhardt died of a heart attack during a visit to a dermatologist in Los Angeles, Ninth Circuit spokesman David Madden said. He was 87 and still an active member of the court he joined in 1980 after being nominated by President Jimmy Carter.

Judge Reinhardt’s outspoken liberalism was unusual for a judge.

‘‘I think he really wore it on his sleeve in some ways,’’ said Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law and expert on the selection of federal judges.

Supporters lauded him as a champion of immigrants, prisoners, and the disadvantaged. Critics said his decisions were extreme.

Judge Reinhardt joined another judge in ruling in 2002 that the words ‘‘under God’’ in the Pledge of Allegiance were unconstitutional.

Then-President George W. Bush called the decision ridiculous, and California’s Democratic governor at the time, Gray Davis, defended the pledge as ‘‘one of our most profound human expressions of American patriotism.’’

RelatedBush’s wartime authority trumped any international ban on torture

The Ninth Circuit later overturned the decision, but not without a dissent from Judge Reinhardt, who maintained that ‘‘under God’’ had an unconstitutional religious purpose.

Other appeals court judges remembered him as an advocate for civil rights and civil liberties.

‘‘Judge Reinhardt was inspiring in how he cared about the less fortunate, about individuals charged with crimes or incarcerated,’’ Ninth Circuit Judge Richard Paez said in a statement. ‘‘His concern that they be treated fairly and humanely was just an inspiration to me.’’

So where did he stand on the torture, the datta collection, and the spying on us all?

Arthur Hellman, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and a scholar of the Ninth Circuit, said Judge Reinhardt served at a time when the US Supreme Court was becoming more conservative. That change, combined with his sharp intellect, turned him into a ‘‘leader of the opposition.’’

--more--"

I wonder how he would have ruled on this:

"The governor suspended the company’s testing privileges Monday, citing safety concerns and ‘‘disturbing’’ dashcam footage of the March 18 crash in Tempe crash that killed a pedestrian as she walked her bike across a darkened road. Experts told The Associated Press that the technology on Uber’s car should have spotted (name her) the pedestrian and the failure revealed a serious flaw....."

Unless you were sleeping, you know that is not how it happened at all.

"In the Tempe incident, a driver was in the front seat when the car hit the pedestrian. Video from the Arizona death showed that the vehicle did not slow down as it approached the woman, apparently failing to detect her in the late evening as she crossed a dark street with a bicycle....."

Now that they are back on the road, we understand human drivers make mistakes, so why not accept that robotic vehicles will, too? After all, the self-driving cars should drive more safely, and more fairly, than people do.

I'm glad that's settled.

I don't mean to be beating a dead horse, but.... the jew$paper sure seems to be written of and for certain chosen people.

I would chalk it up to the full moon, but it is an everyday occurrence. I'm the fool for expecting to find something different each day.

Maybe I should boycott the Globe tomorrow.