WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Trump economic adviser, Larry Kudlow on damaging effects of Trump tariffs: "Don’t blame President Trump" 

Robert Reich

America doesn’t have a jobs crisis. It has a good jobs crisis. -- Guardian

Noam Chomsky

Taking children away from their parents, sending them off somewhere, losing track of them, you know, it’s hard to think of a more brutal and sadistic policy. -- Democracy Now

Rebecca Solnit

"This is an extraordinary time full of vital, transformative movements that could not be foreseen. It’s also a nightmarish time. Full engagement requires the ability to perceive both.” -- Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities 

 Arthur Jones -- IL GOP nominee for Congress

"There’s more to me than being a denier of the Holocaust." -- Tribune

Lori Lightfoot, Chicago mayoral candidate

 Asked about Emanuel’s contention that the gun-pointing issue was not mentioned in either the Justice or task force report, she responded: “So what? If there’s a need, there’s a need." -- Tribune

The moral courage meter in Springfield just got a big, powerful boost. Congrats to Celina Villanueva. She embodies the courage and sense of community that’s so urgently needed in our politics. Wishing her all the best as she takes on her next, new adventure. pic.twitter.com/S34sQXTZiu

— Ra Joy (@Ra_Joy) July 29, 2018

Eli Broad's L.A. school board puppet Rodriguez resigns. Pleas guilty to felony charge. Avoids prison.

Ref Rodriguez has finally resigned from the L.A. school board, but only after pleading guilty to a felony count of conspiracy and several misdemeanor charges involving election fraud. In doing so, he admitted that he was part of a scheme to conceal that he was the true source of early donations to his campaign.

He had already stepped down from his position as board president, but had refused to give up his seat on the board for the past year.

Rodriguez was seen by many school and community school activists as a puppet of billionaire school power player Eli Broad, whose goal has been nothing less than turning LAUSD into a total charter school district, like post-Katrina New Orleans. Broad along with a PAC of billionaire charter patrons spent millions and virtually bought the school board election. They bankrolled Rodriguez' election campaign as well as the rest of the pro-charter majority that took over the board 3 years ago after the nation’s most expensive school board elections ever.

Contributors to PACs that took part in the campaigns on behalf of charter operators included Netflix founder Reed Hastings, $1.5million (to the charter group only); former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, $550,000; Walmart heir Jim Walton, $375,000; and philanthropist Eli Broad, $205,000.

Even after Rodriguez had been indicted on three felony counts and 25 misdemeanors, charter advocates like Peter Cunningham still tried to cover for him, calling his long list of crimes, "a rookie mistake".  In a sense, they succeeded.

Under the deal with prosecutors, Rodriguez will get a slap on the wrist and avoid jail time. This work, he said, will continue: “I will just pursue that work from a different position.”

Unfortunately, with Broad's money propping him up, he's probably right.

The wheels of justice turn slowly.

There's a real progressive in the MI gov's race

Chuy Garcia and Abdul El-Sayed

Democrats in Michigan have a chance to back a genuine progressive over a couple of corporate dems in the upcoming governor's race. But the official state party officials are holding back support because they say, he's too young, too brown and too Muslim.

I got to meet Dr. Abdul El-Sayed at an event in Chicago this morning where he was introduced with lavish praise by soon-to-be Congressman Chuy Garcia. And quite frankly, cynical me was blown away by his eloquence, his qualifications and his history of progressivism. This in a state that is currently under all-out assault by the worse dregs of Trumpian Republicanism who are committed to nothing less than the total privatization of everything public, including schools, healthcare and public decision-making.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed

Republicans won the state in 2016 even though Barack Obama won MI twice and Bernie Sanders won the primary in 2016. Part of the reason, says El-Sayed, is because "people of color stayed home", uninspired by traditional Democratic candidates.

According to El-Sayed, there are currently four Michigan cities that rank in the top 20 in national poverty stats: Flint is #1. Detroit is #4. Kalamazoo is #18 and Dearborn is #20.

El-Sayed, the former Detroit Health Department director, has a Medicare-for-all plan. He also wants to abolish ICE. He's also taken a strong stand against school privatization, expressed a strong distaste for Ed. Sec. Betsy DeVos (Michigan's own) and wants to reverse the current governor's takeover of dozens of local municipal governments.

His opponents in the Aug. 7 primary are two corporate-types, one of them a Republican, running as a Democrat, the other running with lots of PAC money from the giant health care corporations.

Dr. El-Sayed will campaign later this month with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who he connects with in terms of generation and political outlook.

If you're interested to working for his election, doing some campaign work in Michigan or contributing some dough, you can do it here. 

What I’m running for:

🏥 #MedicareforAll
💰 Paying people a living wage.
📚 A good education for all.
🏡 Affordable housing.
🚰 Clean water.
🌎 Taking care of our planet.
✊🏽 People over profits.

These are not political issues. They’re moral ones.

— Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) July 20, 2018

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

The official police explanation, offered by spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, is that Augustus was "exhibiting characteristics of an armed person."

Ben Joravsky, in the aftermath of the police shooting of Harith Augustus

But you know how it goes. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court's anti-union Janus decision, it's obvious that Republicans think the First Amendment is only supposed to protect the speech of conservatives—certainly not football players, like Colin Kaepernick, who kneel during the National Anthem.

And apparently, the NRA thinks the Second Amendment only applies to white people. -- The Reader

Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd Ward)

"Yes, there will be a Latinx candidate for mayor." -- Hitting Left

Laura Washington

 As far as I know, [Trump] hasn’t set foot in Chicago since he ran away from his own “Make America Great Again” tour back in March 2016. -- Sun-Times

Millionaire Chicago mayoral candidate Willie Wilson 

He handed out $300,000 in cash to attendees at a South Side church Sunday. And it gets better: According to Wilson, $100,000 of it came from Gov. Bruce Rauner. -- POLITICO

The French ambassador to the U.S. @GerardAraud criticized Trevor for congratulating Africa on France’s World Cup victory. Trevor responds #BetweenTheScenes: pic.twitter.com/5nJklXRyY8

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) July 19, 2018

The 'Summer Slide' myth

Testing companies continue to perpetuate the myth of the so-called "summer learning gap", where children supposedly forget most of what they learned in the classroom in a matter of a few weeks of vacation. If this were true, it would speak more to an irrelevant school curriculum than anything else. But it's not true.

According to an article by Sarah Shupe in today's Edweek, 

...what students forget over the summer becomes more damaging over time as students make less progress during the school year, according to an ongoing study by NWEA, the Northwest Evaluation Association.

"As kids grow less and less during the school years, they are still seeing the same summer drop—so they are losing proportionately more," said Megan Kuhfeld, a research scientist at NWEA and the author of the study.

According to this theory, kids grow dummer and dummer as they progress through school and therefore can ill-afford to spend more time playing and with their friends and families.

NWEA tracked the reading and math test scores of students grades 3 to 6, and nearly 40,000 students from grades 5 to 8 in an "unnamed southern state" and concluded that the more time they spent with family, fishing, working, at summer camp, hanging out with friends -- or whatever students do on vacation in this southern state -- the less bright they got.

Not only that, but things got worse as the kids grew older.

On average, students lost about 2 points out of a possible 250 each summer in reading, and a little more than 4 points each summer in math. But as the charts below show, students gain less during each school year as they grow. 

In other words, hardly anything measurable that was being taught in their schools lasted in children's consciousness for more than a few weeks. This generates an obvious call for perpetual schooling and even more standardized testing.

But it should be even more obvious to the evaluators that students continue learning during the summer, the same way that they learned before they were in school, experientially and largely through play. How well they learn depends on what kind of learning and play experiences are available to them in their family and community life. But that's true within school as well.

Authentic learning is deep and enduring. It goes on all the time, all year round, including summer. Perhaps especially in summer. If children lose academic skills over the few weeks of summer, then did they really ever learn those skills?

Then there's the question what's tested, what's not tested, and how real learning is measured. Reading and math scores are but one small indicator.

All this leaves open the question of what happens when these kids graduate, become adults and spend the rest of their lives forgetting how to solve a quadratic equation, the shape of states on the map, or the color of Laura Ingalls dress. Do we call that the life slide? Hopefully, what stays with them are critical thinking and life skills, habits of the mind and body.

I think it was Albert Einstein who first said it: "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school?"

'Who do you serve? Who do you protect?': The Killing of Snoop the Barber

TWITTER/BYP100

Officers assigned to a foot assignment observe "a man exhibiting characteristics of an armed person".  -- Anthony Guglielmi, the Chicago Police Department’s chief communications officer

It's hard to say what it is that will finally push a community to the breaking point. I lived in L.A. in 1965 when the Watts riots (rebellion) began as a reaction to a police assault on a black motorist pulled over for a traffic violation. LAPD needed help from 4,000 members of the National Guard to quell the uprising. By the time the smoke cleared they counted 34 deaths and over $40 million in property damage.

In '68 it was the assassination of Dr. King in Memphis.

1992 brought the Rodney King riots.

But all these singular events were only sparks that lit the prairie fire of anger and rage. The real tinder box was years of oppression and suffering within a system of enforced racist violence, segregation, joblessness, broken schools and mass incarceration -- a political system leaving those oppressed communities voiceless and without hope for the next generation.

I was considering all this when I heard the news about yesterday's deadly shooting by police of Harith Augustus ("Snoop the Barber") on Chicago's south side. Harith was the father of a 5-year-old daughter and was a well-known barber in his South Shore neighborhood. One of his customers told local media the barber usually “brings his daughter with him wherever he goes, but she wasn’t with him today.”

Police said they encountered a man “exhibiting characteristics” of being armed. Wait, what?

There was a confrontation and Augustus was shot in the back five times and killed. An angry crowd gathered shouting,  "Who do you serve? Who do you protect?", and a confrontation ensued, a few water bottles against cop batons. Witnesses said the cop who did the shooting was quickly whisked away from the area in a police cruiser. As of this writing, she has not been named.

Wasn't no "scuffle." CPD beat organizers with batons for throwing water bottles. This is an violent occupation. #FTP #StopTheCops https://t.co/E8Audl3cz0

— BYP100 (@BYP_100) July 15, 2018

Shortly after, the streets erupted in the neighborhood with residents turned demonstrators demanding answers from police. Police claimed a weapon was recovered at the scene. People who knew him said, Harith had a permit for the gun, that it was holstered and that he never reached for it. So much for all that Second Amendment bull crap.

By midnight, demonstrators were still in the streets, police and residents clashed and a number of people were arrested. Sun-Times reporter, Nader Issa was caught up in the chaos and was assaulted by police.

I don't know if Harith's killing will turn out to be one of those moments in time. If nothing else, this is one more brick in the wall for a mayor running for reelection and still being dogged by his role in the cover up of the Laquan McDonald killing. His only saving grace is that none of the other candidates seem to have a meaningful response to the ongoing and systematic police abuse in this city's black communities beyond calling for a new $95M police training academy.

But at the risk of being repetitive, the pumping of five bullets into the back of a man accused of no crime except running for his life, is not a training problem.

Here's some of Issa's tweets from the scene.

A very large crowd is gathering at 71st/Chappel, where Chicago Police say they shot and killed a person this evening. It's hard to put in words how tense the scene is. Witnesses say a female officer shot the man in the back while he was running away. He was a local barber. pic.twitter.com/aaV6smY07V

— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) July 15, 2018

Witnesses say the incident started when the officer told him not to sell loose cigarettes. He supposedly told the officer he wasn't selling them, just handing a couple to his aunt. An argument started, and he began to run. That's when the officer fired, per police and witnesses.

— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) July 15, 2018

I had my press badge held up in one hand and my phone in the other while I was saying "I'm a reporter." Two Chicago Police officers repeatedly pushed me, then smacked my phone out of my hand and threw me back. I lost my balance but can't remember if I hit the ground or not. pic.twitter.com/vhi4gjlNla

— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) July 15, 2018

 The situation has gotten as bad as its been a night. Police charged into the parking lot and started hitting people. Two officers smacked my phone out of my hand and shoved me to the ground. Don't know how many arrests, but at least a dozen from what I could see. pic.twitter.com/L7Q5xQyWSe

— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) July 15, 2018

Searching for my inner civil self in these difficult times

Protests rocked Chicago following the Laquan McDonald shooting and the cover-up that followed. 

Responding to liberal critics of incivility, I'm trying to get back in touch with my inner civil self. Not like all those "McCarthyites" on the Vineyard who are shunning poor Alan Dershowitz or that mean old bartender in D.C. who flipped off Trump's racist-in-chief, Stephen Miller. Miller got so upset, he tossed his sushi. What a waste.

I'm now looking for common ground with political foes like Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Rauner. I'm even offering to mediate the rift that broke out between the two over Saturday's anti-violence protest on the Dan Ryan which ended with each telling the other to "shut down" their Twitter accounts.

It was a peaceful protest. Delete your account. https://t.co/QoKyIHmuQj

— Mayor Rahm Emanuel (@ChicagosMayor) July 7, 2018

C'mon fellas. remember, you're long-time business partners. Rahm, Bruce even donated thousands to your campaign warchest. You both gonna let a little expressway disruption get in the way of millions in profits?

Remember, you two will always have Montana. 

My message to both of you: Remember, there will always be Montana and that thousand-dollar bottle of Napa Valley wine you two shared.

Believe it or not, I've also found some common ground with Rahm's former police superintendent, Garry McCarthy, who is now his number-one, great-white-hope opponent in the mayor's race.

McCarthy, who was Rahm's top cop during the Laquan McDonald killing and cover-up by Chicago cops, now says, he opposes spending $95M on a new police & fire academy.

So do I, but for different reasons.

Here's the part I agree with:

“This police academy is a shiny object that Rahm Emanuel can point to and say, `I’m all about police reform.’ It’s for political purposes — not functional purposes,“ McCarthy said.

 “I could find much better ways to spend that money that would have a much greater impact on what’s happening in Chicago. … I’d use that $95 million to put social services and mental health centers back in communities that need them the most.”

Here's where I don't:

McCarthy contends that there is no new training needed and that CPD is doing a fine job. He was at odds with the Justice Department's report which came out in 2015, when Emanuel was forced by a judge’s order to release video of white Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting Laquan McDonald, a black teen, 16 times. The report found CPD’s training to be sorely lacking.

That dispute forced Rahm to throw his top cop under the bus. Hunger for revenge appears to be what drove McCarthy to enter the race. He will likely draw votes from largely-white wards on the northwest and southwest sides where lots of cops and firefighters live.

I of course, don't agree that CPD is doing a fine job. I don't even buy the "few bad apples" theory which would also, by the way, make a new training academy unnecessary.

The ongoing shooting of unarmed black men, women a children by mainly white Chicago cops is part of an institutionalized culture of entrenched racism within the department which is, at worst cultivated and encouraged and at best, tolerated by the mayor, department heads like McCarthy, and the FOP.

In other words, this isn't really a "training problem", but one calling for more radical solutions which need come directly from the communities most impacted by police misconduct.

It's not that I'm against a sparkling new police training academy in principle. It's just not high on my priority list, given the current state of public school buildings and other city infrastructure needs.

I don't think any of the mayoral candidates have real handle on the problem. But I am intrigued by the idea of a gay, progressive African-American woman like Lori Lightfoot, who Rahm appointed president of the Chicago Police Board, giving the mayor and McCarthy a run for their money in the most recent polls.  According to those polls, taken in April, 62% of those surveyed want someone, anyone besides Rahm as mayor.

I'm with the 62%. I would sooner vote for Pigasus ('68 reference there) than for either McCarthy or Rahm. Still searching for my civil side on those two.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Thousands of marchers took over Chicago's Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday, demanding an end to gun violence joblessness. 

Jonathan Capehart

Just when you thought the callous disregard for these children couldn’t get any worse, the New York Times reported last week that “records linking children to their parents have disappeared, and in some cases have been destroyed.” And don’t forget that the Trump administration is going after naturalized U.S. citizens now, too. -- Washington Post

Christine Geovanis, CTU spokesperson

“Our concern is equity. And where is the plan that is designed to lift up neighborhoods that are so clearly struggling? By not having a plan, by refusing to deploy a plan, they’ve been able to dovetail these one-off announcements that don’t strengthen all neighborhoods and all neighborhood needs equally, and end up privileging some at the expanse of thousands of others.” -- Sun-Times

Michael Sainato

The reality is that the decline of America’s traditional retail industry has left a void that corporate titans like Amazon will continue to exploit – unless employees, unions and Amazon customers work together to raise wages and improve working conditions. -- Guardian

Elizabeth Warren

 “He tries to bully me to shut me up, and he’s also trying to bully women all across this country. He talks about MeToo. He thinks we should sit down and shut up. It’s just not going to happen.” --Washington Post

David Callahan

The rest of us, ordinary citizens without big bank accounts, will certainly play a role in the outcome this November. We cast the votes, after all. But more and more, US politics – along with civic life broadly – often feels like a spectator sport, as a growing array of billionaire super citizens battle it out in the public square. -- Guardian

Latest from the "stable genius"

He's right. The brain is important...

And I, by the way, I don’t have a musical instrument. I don’t have a guitar or an organ. No organ. Elton has an organ. And lots of other people helping. No we’ve broken a lot of records. We’ve broken virtually every record. Because you know, look I only need this space. They need much more room. For basketball, for hockey and all of the sports, they need a lot of room. We don’t need it. We have people in that space. So we break all of these records. Really we do it without like, the musical instruments. This is the only musical: the mouth. And hopefully the brain attached to the mouth. Right? The brain, more important than the mouth, is the brain. The brain is much more important.”

Karen Lewis on Hitting Left (archives show) today

Karen Lewis with the Klonsky Bros. on Hitting Left, March 3, 2017. 

Brother Fred and I are taking the day off. Retirement has exhausted us both. Instead of our usual live show on Fridays, today we will be rebroadcasting a show from the Hitting Left archives, March 3, 2017, featuring in-studio guest, CTU Pres. Karen Lewis. As most readers know, Karen, suffering from failing health, resigned from her position last month.

Tune in at 11 a.m. today at WLPN, 105.5 FM or catch the livestream at www.lumpenradio.com to hear Karen at her most upbeat and feistiest self. Or, you can listen to the whole show on podcast.

The latest word from Karen is, she's still in the fight. 

“I want my members to know first that I’m not abandoning them, I just will be an emerita,” Lewis said. "I will be around to help do things, I’m not disappearing anywhere and I’m going to be here for whatever people want to do with me.”

Lewis said she also planned to be involved with the city’s upcoming mayoral election, and revived her past criticism of Mayor Rahm Emanuel as he faces a crowded field of challengers.

“My plan is to try to get somebody to unseat Rahm,” she said. “I think we can do better than that.”

My memo to Rahm: Killing Petunia not a good look

Fired Animal Care Director, Susan Russell, left, holds Petunia alongside state Comptroller Susana Mendoza 

Memo to Mayor Rahm Emanuel...Your poll numbers are in the dumper. 23 shot, including 5 children 15 and younger this past weekend. Your administration is ridden with scandal. For the next few months leading up to election time, that video of the Laquan McDonald shooting will be playing over and over again. Black families are leaving the city in droves. Your police Supt. Eddie Johnson claims he has never seen any police misconduct in all his years on the force. Yet he's pushing for a new, $95M cop training academy. This while many schools are in ruins, filthy and disgusting. The sexual abuse scandal at CPS goes all the way to the top. You, your hand-picked school board president, Frank Clark and schools CEO  Janice Jackson all appear culpable. While you still have tons of money to spend on reelection, your main opponents are raising lots of cash from your former patrons. Even some of your closest pals are dropping hints that you may drop out of the race. I could go on.

So what do you do? You fire Animal Care Director Susan Russell, for "warehousing dangerous animals".

Not a good look, Rahm.

You sure you're really up for this campaign?

CPS response to sexual abuse scandal is just what you'd expect

CPS BUTT COVERERS:  Board Pres. Frank Clark, CEO Janice Jackson, and Board V.P. Jaime Guzman

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his hand-picked school board have responded to the ongoing CPS sex-abuse scandal in the same ass-covering way we've come to expect. It can be summed up as follows:

• Create another new department in the bloated bureaucracy without any input from community groups or even from their own team.
• Rationalize: "Not our fault. It's always been this way." 
• Throw a couple of principals under the bus with no due process.
• Impose new bureaucratic rules (annual fingerprinting??) that put the onus on teachers and makes them suspect (i.e., meeting one-on-one with their students) and makes it more difficult for them to do their jobs. The Tribune, whose reporters broke the story in the first place, wasted no time in placing equal blame for the scandal on the CTU.
• Do an end run around your own appointed IG.
• Above all, cover the behinds of the mayor, his schools CEO and Board President.

Jadine Chou, CPS’s chief of safety and security, now says all employees are required to report suspected "grooming" behavior on the part of colleagues. At first I thought she meant whether teachers smelled bad or were having a bad-hair day. But, it obviously means something else. Please give us a checklist of such behaviors, Jadine, so we can turn colleagues in and have them fired immediately.

Inspector General Nicholas Schuler, who is supposed to work with the new department, said Wednesday that he was largely in the dark about the new plan.

"Figuring out how we're going to interface with CPS and the new unit they've started today is what I would have liked to have seen some more details about before today," he said.

After an uproar in the press, Schuler was nominally put in charge of the investigation. But he will remain under the watchful eye of CEO Jackson.

Chamala Jordan, parent to a CPS student, said the announcement left her confused.

"As a parent, honestly, those things were told to us that they were in place. So to create or construct a whole new entity, that was supposed to be in place already, doesn't really make sense to me," she said. 

Jesse Sharkey, CTU Veep

"While tutoring a student alone in your room puts you under a cloud of suspicion, I think we have to be concerned about what that would mean for the work that we do as educators."

Sharkey also raised doubts about the new department's origins. The formation of the office was developed with Maggie Hickey, a former federal prosecutor who is overseeing the comprehensive review of CPS policies as state inspector general.

"The bottom line reaction is that I'm surprised by this and I don't trust its political independence," Sharkey said.

RYH calls for Pres. Clark to "step down".

Jennie Biggs, CPS parent and Raise Your Hand (RYH) Communications Director.

President Clark and his predecessors were briefed on rampant reports of sexual abuse in our schools over time and did NOT act to ensure this situation was better managed, and did NOT demand that procedures and policies were implemented beyond very basic and clearly insufficient mandated reporter trainings.

 We do not know how much Frank Clark or David Vitale or those before shared with respective board members, but we do know that they knew and did nothing.

Sure, some individual teachers, principals and staff are also complicit.

BUT YOU hold the keys to district policy making, and YOU did not act, YOU did not do your jobs, YOU did not ensure schools were being trained, and you should step down and admit that you are part of a flawed system of school governance that has no checks and balances.

Chicago Mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot on Hitting Left

If you look at what's been happening in the Chicago Public School system, especially this past six or seven years, you see epic failure after epic failure. You can't have a good, well-run public school system when you have five CEOs in the last seven years...Yes, I do support an elected school board. -- Hitting Left 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

@realamberheard

Karen Lewis

For those of you who may not know, I submitted my retirement papers in Friday. Not only did I retire from CPS after 30 years, I have retired from CTU. Please Google glioblastoma and note, I've already beaten the odds. I'm not done fighting. Good luck to the officers and staff, especially Jesse Sharkey, who's been doing 3 jobs...since my illness. -- Facebook 

Roseanne Barr 

 'I'm not a racist, I'm an idiot' -- CNN

Rahm's City Hall spokesman, Adam Collins

“When he was in the private sector, for a few months, the mayor explored a potential business agreement with Mr. Pecker, but it did not ultimately come to fruition.” -- Sun-Times

“Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron

At a ceremony for the “Hank Aaron Champion for Justice Awards” in Atlanta, Aaron said that he would not visit the White House if an invitation came from the mouth of Donald Trump. “There’s nobody there I want to see." -- Nation

Columnist Neil Steinberg

 I don’t know about you, but I want to look back and say I did all I could and spoke out, loud and clear, again and again. Donald Trump is a racist appealing to our country’s worst instincts. He will lead us over a cliff to disaster unless he’s stopped. -- Sun-Times

Cong. Luis Gutierrez moving to Puerto Rico

With the move, I will in a better position to “connect the experience of the people of Puerto Rico, the devastating effect of the hurricane and the lousy, inhumane response of Donald Trump to the tragedy.” -- Sun-Times

Today would have been #TamirRice’s 16th birthday. He should be alive and celebrating. #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/ZBLWIJ71dL

— Legal Defense Fund (@NAACP_LDF) June 25, 2018

As long as they're doing background checks for sexual predators at CPS...

A background check on Gary Solomon -- before throwing $20M no-bid contract his way -- might have averted
the biggest corruption scandal in CPS history. 

Speaking of background checks for possible sexual predators at CPS, Rahm Emanuel and his hand-picked school board, probably should have done one on Gary Solomon before throwing that $20M SUPES contract his way. A check might have kept Solomon's partner in crime Barbara Byrd-Bennett out of prison and prevented the biggest corruption scandal in CPS history.

Solomon, a former dean and teacher at suburban Niles West H.S., was accused by that district of sending sexually explicit e-mail messages to female students. Besides those messages, they said he attended a Cubs game with students during a school day when no field trip was planned. They accused him of keeping a journal on a school computer that described several unprofessional relationships with students.

Finally, Solomon was forced out of Niles Township School District 219 under a cloud after he was accused by his bosses of “immoral and unprofessional” conduct, including allegations he kissed a female student, covered up students’ drug and alcohol use,and sent “sexually suggestive, predatory” emails to students, court records show.

While no criminal charges were ever filed, Solomon was barred from ever teaching in the district again. Solomon resigned from his post as part of a settlement back in 2001 and began a consulting business with former Niles West student Thomas Vranas, one that also included a partnership with former Chicago schools CEO and current Chicago mayoral candidate Paul Vallas.

Vallas contracted with Solomon to work at schools in Philadelphia. When he was recruited to revive the schools in hurricane-battered New Orleans, Vallas sent a series of letters to Louisiana officials who oversaw the New Orleans district, vouching for Synesi Associates, the education consulting firm that had been started by Solomon in Chicago.

Synesi landed two no-bid contracts worth nearly $893,000 in New Orleans during Vallas’ time running the Recovery School District from 2007 to 2011. 

But Vallas points out: “I’m not the one who gave Gary Solomon a $20 million, no-bid contract.” He's got a point there. That would be Rahm. 

Last year, Solomon was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in the bribery scandal. His SUPES consulting group employed Byrd-Bennett before she took her position as chief executive officer of CPS in 2012. Solomon admitted his role in the scheme to bribe Rahm's hand-picked CEO by offering her a percentage of the contracts she helped secure for SUPES. He also pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.

This is a man who should have never been allowed anywhere near CPS schools, students or staff. So, as long as they're doing background checks on teachers, coaches, parents and CPS staff, they might want to do them on profit-hungry contractors as well. 

Did Chicago cop really say he's entitled to collect from his victim's family? Depends on which paper you read.

LaTarsha Jones, center, a daughter of Bettie Jones, is comforted by family and friends in front of Jones' apartment building in the West Garfield Park neighborhood Dec. 27, 2015. Jones was shot and killed by police the previous day along with 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier. Now killer-cop Rialmo is suing LeGrier family, saying the incident "changed him".

The Sun-Times and Tribune both had reporters at the second day of the trial over lawsuits stemming from Chicago cop Robert Rialmo's shooting of 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier and his neighbor, 55-year-old Bettie Jones following a report of a domestic dispute. But each paper reported a crucial part of the testimony differently.

The city’s lawyers this month avoided a trial with Jones’ family by reaching a proposed $16 million settlement, but the city made no such deal with LeGrier’s family.

The shootings were part of a long, recent string of CPD killings of unarmed African-Americans and took place just a month after a judge forced Mayor Rahm Emanuel to release footage of a white officer, Jason Van Dyke, shooting black teen Laquan McDonald 16 times. That trial could have great implications for the upcoming mayor's race.

COULD IMPACT MAYOR'S RACE...The trial of three Chicago Police officers charged with filing false reports on the McDonald shooting to cover for Van Dyke has been pushed back to late November, after the election.

Rialmo, who is on paid desk duty, also remains under investigation for a December 2017 bar fight in which he punched two men in the face in an altercation caught on video.

After killing LeGrier and Jones, Rialmo turned around and with support from the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) filed a counter-suit against the LeGrier estate and a cross-claim against the city, alleging he should collect because he was "poorly trained" and that he was psychologically damaged ("changed") by the event.

If you read each paper's coverage, you wonder if they were covering the same trial or if we're reading the same testimony. See if you can tell the difference.

Sun-Times reporter Sam Charles had it this way in this morning's edition:

“On Dec. 26, 2015, you shot Quintonio LeGrier?” Foutris [LeGrier family lawyer] asked.

Yes,” Rialmo responded.

“You shot him multiple times?”

“Yes.”

“You shot him intentionally?”

“Yes. 

Referencing Rialmo’s cross-claim against the city and countersuit filed against the LeGrier estate, Foutris asked:

“You want this jury to give you money for killing Antonio [LeGrier]’s kid?”Rialmo paused, shrugged and said, “Yes."

But here's the way that last exchange was reported in the Tribune by reporter, Dan Kinkel:

 “You think you’re entitled to money for killing Antonio’s kid?” Foutris asked. Rialmo did not answer as opposing lawyers quickly raised objections.

So, did Rialmo answer, "yes", he thought he was entitled to money for killing Antonio LeGrier's son? Or did he not answer the question?

Depends on which paper you read.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Daniel José Camacho

When the US government snatches children, it's biblical to resist the law. -- Guardian

Jacob Soboroff, reporting from McAllen, TX

 "People in here are locked up in cages, essentially what look like animal kennels. I don't know any other way to describe it." -- MSNBC

Antar Davidson

...who quit his job at a nonprofit migrant child detention center in Arizona, says he was instructed to tell siblings not to hug before they were separated: "The three siblings were clutching each other for dear life, tears streaming down their face". -- Democracy Now

Cassie Cresswell, Raise Your Hand

 "We are deeply concerned about yet another improper sharing incident of student data in Chicago Public Schools." -- DataBreaches.net

"Trump is trying to say… 'The Democrats made us do it.' One of his advisers, Stephen Miller, is saying, 'It is our policy to do it' … Kirstjen Nielsen is saying, 'We're not actually doing it,' and then… Jeff Sessions is saying, 'God wants us to do it.'" - @reneefeltz pic.twitter.com/ebNvY5xtGh

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) June 18, 2018

If anyone knows of a parent that has had their child taken from them at the border and not returned, please have them contact me as I am entering this fight. This outrageous conduct must be brought to an immediate end. #Basta

— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) June 17, 2018

Being as cruel & nasty as possible to immigrant children & families is an election year strategy by Sessions, Trump & GOP. This #FathersDayofAction we are standing up for children all over the US to say NO. #FamiliesBelongTogether #twill #chicago ⁦@HispanicCaucus⁩ pic.twitter.com/yrQry0c0Lu

— Luis V. Gutierrez (@RepGutierrez) June 17, 2018

Korean summit about much more than Kim/Trump wrestling match

It was just a few months ago that Trump was threatening "fire and fury" and boasting, "My button is bigger than yours". He had Pentagon on a nuclear war footing and the U.S. armada sailing into Korean waters.

Big media is looking at the Singapore meeting as if it was a pro-wrestling event. Who will win, Trump or Kim? The talking heads on CNN ponder the question. Should Trump be shaking hands with a dictator? Has he done his prep work? Is Kim just playing him? Many Democrats hope to God that the Summit is a PR flop for DT and that he returns home without a feather in his fascist cap. Trump's base will stay with him come what may.

But the way I see it, once you cut through all the bullshit, the summit offers positive prospects in a dangerous, rapidly changing world order. With an economically self-confident China, now tamping down the trade war threat and working along with South Korea to push diplomacy on the Korean peninsula, both Trump's and Kim's hands have been forced.

With the U.S. declining in global power and stature and the atomic clock edging closer to midnight, these are dangerous times. Trump is playing on American fears of lost privilege and economic ruin.

Cold War with Russia, trade war with Europe, Canada and China, and Bolton itching for pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Iran and North Korea, and all this playing on our growing sense of national insecurity. Building on that fear and insecurity was the cornerstone of Trump's election campaign in 2016. Now it's seen as the only way out (aside from purging the voting rolls) for Trump and the Republicans in the November elections. The Summit changes none of this.

But remember, it was just a few months ago that DT had the Pentagon on a nuclear war footing and sending its lost armada into Korean waters (shadowed by Russian and Chinese war ships). Remember him saber-rattling, threatening "fire and fury", and boasting: "My button is bigger than yours..."?

Kim defied repeated economic sanctions and international pressure over its nuclear regime and vowed a “merciless response” to any US provocation. Hopefully, popular world pressure and current negotiations will put a damper on all that empty, but provocative, chatter.

To the people of the Korean Peninsula, who have suffered from war -- hot and cold -- for the past 68 years and more, with distorted economies and families on both sides of the arbitrary 38th Parallel torn from each other, both captives to superpower rivalry, this is about so much more than a personal rivalry between autocrats. The people on both sides of the line want assurances of peace on a nuclear-free peninsula, trade and normalization of relations, and ultimately national reunification.

None of those things will likely come out of this first round of diplomacy. But I'm glad the Singapore meetings are taking place. If nothing else, they buy time and pull us from the brink. And right now, time is the enemy of Trump and his Republican hangers-on.

Deja vu all over again?

The missing piece is still a powerful anti-war movement here on the ground. It was such a movement 50 years ago that pressured both Democrats and Trump's reactionary, Republican and anti-communist forbearer, Richard Nixon to finally end the war in Vietnam and normalize relations with China.

Deja vu all over again? Could be.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Now iconic photo from the G-6 +1 says it all. 

Gary Younge

The political situation in America is many things: it’s exhausting, exasperating, terrifying, volatile, vulgar, unsustainable and unhinged. The one thing it is not, is normal. -- Guardian

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau 

“Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we will also not be pushed around.” -- RCP

Brent Staples

 With black soldiers subjected to segregation even as they offered their lives for freedom, cultural icons of all kinds — including the national anthem — were subject to deconstruction and criticism. -- New York Times

FOX News host Abby Huntsman's Freudian slip

 “This is history. We are living — regardless of what happens in that meeting between the two dictators — what we are seeing right now, this is historic.” -- Fox and Friends

Robert De Niro got a standing O
He introduced Bruce Springsteen’s Tony performance this way.

“I just want to say one thing,” De Niro said. ” F— Trump. It’s no longer down with Trump. It’s f— Trump.” He got a standing ovation from the audience. -- Variety

Anthony Bourdain (1956-2018)

Witness what Henry [Kissinger] did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević.” -- Slate

Muhammad Ali’s lawyer, Ron Tweel

 “We appreciate President Trump’s sentiment, but a pardon is unnecessary. The US supreme court overturned the conviction of Muhammad Ali in a unanimous decision in 1971. There is no conviction from which a pardon is needed.” --  Guardian

If Rahm intended to run for re-election on CPS progress, his campaign may be over before it's begun

Rahm Emanuel is beginning to look like a politician whose re-election campaign may be on the brink of collapse before it's even officially begun. His political achilles heel surprisingly turns out to be his autocratic control over Chicago Public Schools. Most everyone thought his greatest vulnerability would be his cover-up of the Laquan McDonald police killing.

What should have been his strong suit, running as an "education mayor," is now buried in a volcanic lava flow of school privatization, corruption, inequality, and dysfunction.

His new schools CEO, Janice Jackson, the fifth CEO in six years, has gone from looking like a source of hope for change, to being little more than Rahm's political functionary, in just a few months, even fronting for the mayor in commercials touting the progress at CPS, bankrolled by a nonprofit with close ties to MRE.

Instead of talking about alleged increases in standardized test scores and graduation rates, the mayor could spend the next eight months leading up to the election dodging questions about the mountain of scandals piling up at CPS.

These include hundreds of recently revealed cases of sexual assault and abuse of students over the past decade, cases that were ignored or covered up by CPS' law department and the mayor.

My alderman, Scott Waguespack (32nd), put it bluntly:

“This is about more than politics, it’s a core issue of our humanity. We’re calling for a City Council hearing on what the Tribune found. Every alderman should be demanding to have CPS there and the mayor’s people, too. He’s the boss. Emanuel is the mayor.”

Then there's new reports of mountains of filth and vermin in the schools since custodial services were privatized by Rahm and former CEO Forrest Claypool, who resigned in December after being charged with "ethics violations."

The Sun-Times reports that SodexoMAGIC and Aramark Corporation have received nearly $800 million in contracts to privatize school engineers and custodians and bust their union. Coincidentally, SodexoMAGIC made an extraordinary campaign contribution of $250,000 to Emanuel. And Aramark has charged CPS with over $20 million in cost overruns.

U of C Lab School fired Aramark over mouse droppings

Chicago Public Schools officials have now agreed to give $259 million in additional work to Aramark. They will be handed control of all facilities work at most of Chicago’s schools on July 1, according to its contract, which CPS officials tried to keep under wraps.

The irony of all this is that the University of Chicago Lab School, the expensive private school where elites like the mayor and former Ed Sec. Arne Duncan send their kids, just gave Aramark the boot after finding mice droppings in school food. Looks like mouse poop is only OK for other people's children.

There's more, so much more, including pay-to-play scandals involving Rahm's hand-picked board members like Deborah Quazzo, who colluded with former CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett, now doing time in prison, to enrich herself at the expense of the schools.

If Rahm had any intentions of building his campaign on his running of CPS, it's looking more and more like his campaign is over before it's begun.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

CPS student, Tamara Reed

“I dreaded going to school. I cried every night." -- Chicago Tribune

Lori Lightfoot

 “This tragedy happened because of incompetency at the highest levels. Who are we as a city if we accept this as just another scandal du jour at CPS?” -- Politico

Study

This household-based survey suggests that the number of excess deaths related to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico is more than 70 times the official estimate. -- New England Journal of Medicine

John Boehner

“There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump party." -- Politico

Rudy Giuliani

Trump could have shot Comey and still couldn't be indicted. “If he shot James Comey, he’d be impeached the next day. "Impeach him, and then you can do whatever you want to do to him.” -- Huffington

Natasha Korecki on cost of IL gov's race

"How many Hulu ads can you buy?" -- Illinois Playbook

Chicago Public Schools has failed to protect students from sexual abuse and assault, a Tribune investigation has found. Reporters identified hundreds of cases in the last decade, attacks that left students feeling betrayed and wounded. https://t.co/396Q42bApm https://t.co/NDiwoWVtip

— Juan Perez Jr. (@PerezJr) June 1, 2018