Steve Timmer tightly examines campus unrest over Gaza leading to arrests, with a link to Rep. Omar's truthful statement about things being "about the Benjamins." [UPDATED]

Link. 

Quoting:

The ease and speed with which law enforcement and prosecutors have moved to suppress First Amendment speech, assembly, and petition rights is breathtaking. That they’re doing it at the instance of university administrations – including at the University of Minnesota – is ominous.

Older readers will recognize the echo from the Vietnam era. That time of dissent and protest brought down a sitting president: this might, too. The criminal Richard Nixon followed Lyndon Johnson, and the criminal Donald Trump may follow Joe Biden. If President Biden trades democracy for Bibi Netanyahu, it will make the Vikings’ trade for Herschel Walker look really good.

The protests seem only to grow with each crackdown.

This was all foreshadowed for me by the suspension of two Somali Muslim teenage girls by the administration at Edina (Minnesota) High School in October of last year. The U.S. Department of Education opened a Title VI investigation into the suspensions. I think you can draw a straight line between Edina’s actions and that of Columbia, Emory, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Minnesota.

[...] 

Really, I KNOW you can draw that straight line. You can read about the involvement of the Jewish Community Relations Council in the Edina suspensions at the links above, and if you read reporting surrounding campus arrests around the country, you will also read about pressure on university administrations by Israeli advocacy groups like the America Israeli Public Affairs Council (AIPAC) and by Israeli-aligned university donors. Over half of the Congress has received money from AIPAC-aligned groups; it seems often that they are a congress member’s largest contributor.

Don Samuels’ primary campaign against Ilhan Omar last cycle was funded by a lot of AIPAC-aligned dollars, and it will be this cycle, too. According to news reports, AIPAC is committed to spending $100 million to defeat congressional candidates who do not express adequate fealty to Zionist Israel.

Groups like AIPAC and the JCRC have been working hard for years to take criticism of Israeli apartheid, land grabbling, and violence against Palestinians off the table for criticism. They’re behind the anti-BDS (Boycott, Disinvest, Sanction) legislation passed around the country, including in Minnesota, as well as efforts in Congress to sanction BDS speech and activity.

Ilhan Omar called all of this the effect of the ‘Benjamins,’ and she was right. For the sin of telling the truth, Rep. Omar was heavily criticized by Democratic leadership in the Congress. Well, and by Ron Latz, too.

People make fun of Boomers these days, but a lot of Boomers got their heads cracked bringing about a change in attitudes about the Vietnam war. Their grandkids seem embarked on the same mission about Israel. Good for them.

It was heavy on my mind that reporting of the arrests and suppression of free speech arising out of Gaza protest movements was not cast by any major media in a deja vu context; as if the sixties were something to be ashamed of. The truth - the Kent State murders and the immediately following Jackson State murders were an eye opener which has allowed this set of eyes to stay open, skepticism over government  suppression of free speech being not easily forgotten once eyes have been opened to it.

Timmer deserves accolades for casting current events in a sane historical context to see power misuse being a thing which is not a one-time happening.

Of note - the greater purity of the current unrest. It is not our military industrial complex flexing and posing, this time, as in Iraq back in Bush days, but instead events unfolding on the other side of the globe now happen with no US boots on that ground; with no threats of our youth being drafted into death so that the complex could flex, as was the case in Vietnam. (Being the armory, however, is nothing to which pride can easily attach.)

It is a sense of the difference between decency and indecency; of offense and grossly disproportionate repercussions at play, something both more subtle but also more fundamental at play. The Hamas incursion into southern Isreal being more real than the Tonkin Gulf lies is a fact, and Israel has cause to seek to visit retribution on Hamas. Nonetheless, killing civilians is not a legitimate way of acting, while an understandable motive is that in doing it "Israel's way" the Israelis do lessen the IDF military death toll of revenge, which is a legitimate aim.

But with Mossad and Shin Bet and all the spooks and spook skill sets Israel has, do you trust entirely the claim that Israeli leadership was caught pants-down, by surprise? Or was a bit of carnage a prior price to pay in order to terrorize the entire millions of Gaza citizens facing starvation, disease, and killing by air and land, as the way to cancel Hamas? A figleaf for a policy awaiting an event to pose as the figleaf - is hard to avoid suspecting.

A parallel does hold, Vietnam and the secret Laos war were to "contain China" and now Israel seeks to "confront Islamic terror." The US reached a post-Mao consensus that China's turn to capitalism was a fair trade for our not fighting any longer against a bogus Communist major menace, when that elitist control bloc of their nation moved from ideology to money counting, the same ostensible god of our own control-bloc elite. They changed behavior, we eased up on the "contain 'em" bit of silliness. Oligarchies understand one another.

Much more meandering of thought - in multiple directions - can follow Timmer's correctly analogizing Gaza protests to Vietnam protests generations ago. He wrote what needed writing.

UPDATE: Timmer further fleshes out his theme via in-item links and the sidebar links posted next to his opening image. It all hangs together more tightly if links are followed.

FURTHER UPDATE: After Bibi claimed student protests and others protestding Israeli conduct against Gazans was "antisemitism," Bernie created a video instructing Bibi Netanyahu what "antisemitism" is and is not, with a caveat to Bibi, "Don't insult the intelligence of the American people." Forbes' post on YouTube of that video - THIS LINK.

Read it: https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-responds-to-netanyahus-claim-that-criticism-of-the-israeli-governments-policies-is-antisemitic/ 

Netanyahu lies as unconvincingly as Trump lies. Kindred souls, lying similarly. 

FURTHER: Both Netanyahu and Trump face charges of corruption. Moreover, HuffPo, reporting of the Sanders rebuttal of Bibi fiction, wrote:

The video and an accompanying written statement came the day after Netanyahu called the recent upswell of antiwar protests at American college campuses “horrific,” characterizing them as “antisemitic mobs.”

The student protesters are broadly calling for the U.S. to stop sending military aid to Israel and for educational institutions to divest financially from Israel.

Several instances of anti-Jewish remarks or inflammatory signs have gone viral amid the protests, though multiple student organizations behind the demonstrations have condemned such incidents.

“At universities across the nation, our movement is united in valuing every human life,” said a statement from one such group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, per ABC News.

Link for homepage, https://cuad.org/

Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD)

Guardian coverage - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/22/columbia-university-student-protests-israel-gaza

Howie Klein at DWT:

They Called Us Commies When We Protested Vietnam... Today They Call Students Anti-Semites

 FURTHER: The CUAD homepage, already linked, deserves this partial quote:

The CUAD Coalition initially formed in 2016 and passed a Columbia College-wide referendum in 2020 in favor of divestment that former University President Lee Bollinger overturned. Our coalition was reactivated in October 2023 in response to the overwhelming support for Palestinian freedom from students on Columbia's campus. We are further moved to action by the ostensibly politically-motivated suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.

As a coalition, our chief goal is to challenge the settler-colonial violence that Israel perpetrates with the support of the United States and its allies. We have previously refused to focus on concerns pertaining to free speech, academic freedom, and student safety on campus, as they distract from Israel's actively committing genocide and ethnic cleansing. However, the University's weaponization of policy to silence students enables the atrocities that Israel has subjected Palestinians to for decades - atrocities that began when Zionist militias violently forced over 700,000 Palestinians, 75 percent of the population, out of their homes in 1948, and which have continuously escalated with virtual impunity since.

The Zionist project is reaching its apex as Israel continues to violate international law by indiscriminately bombing civilians and cutting off their access to food, water, medicine, and fuel. According to reports from the World Health Organization, during the time we spend writing this, a Palestinian child is killed every 10 minutes. These attacks are explicitly connected to Israel's attempt to annex and ethnically cleanse more Palestinian land of its indigenous population. As such, it is imperative that we act now. If we wait, there may not be a Gaza left to defend.

We cannot take action to stop further atrocities if individuals and authoritative bodies at the University distort and stifle our message. The Columbia administration's negligence severely compromises the safety of students, and threatens our ability to advocate for this issue. The Columbia administration has set a dangerous precedent by erasing the Palestinian struggle through one-sided decisions and emails that threaten and suppress the voices of students who support justice for Palestine, enabling a violent, repressive environment that puts Palestinian students, as well as all their Arab, Muslim, Jewish, and BIPOC peers, at risk through surveillance and policing.

We know that antisemitism, Islamophobia, and racism - in particular racism against Arabs and Palestinians - are all cut from the same cloth: Western colonization, imperialism, white supremacy, and anti-Blackness. Silencing Jewish voices for Palestine is arguably antisemitic: it conflates Judaism with Zionism and imposes an external definition on an entire group's religion and culture. The University ignores, misreports, and twists the reality of the brutality unfolding in Gaza while erasing Jewish voices from the Palestinian liberation movement.

Think about it. People do not protest without something deserving protest, or at least deserving attention. So, pay attention. Form your own opinions, but inform yourselves before locking your mind into one belief. 

FURTHER: https://theintercept.com/2024/04/18/columbia-suspends-ilhan-omar-daughter-gaza-encampment/

FURTHER: Here is a screen capture, top of the AIPAC home page: https://www.aipac.org/

Central zone timestamp: 3:39 PM Monday, April 29, 2024 

AIPAC has a Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Explore both of those sites, with an open mind please, and if they are not about exerting political influence and pressures, and about "the Benjamins," then wtf are they about? 

Rep. Omar spoke truth.

Daimler Truck was reasonable, and the UAW did not have to strike. Bargaining in good faith is, after all, the legal standard in labor relations.

 AP coverage. 

Search = United Auto Workers reaches deal with Daimler Truck, averting potential strike in North Carolina

The story is not complicated nor are those links insufficient to tell it.

Things functioning as they should is worth noting, quotes being unnecessary.

The UAW gets another. Tennessee VW workers overwhelmingly vote to unionize. They saw Detroit 3 strike gains that UAW attained. They wanted theirs.

 AP report, carried by Milwaukee Times:

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Employees at a Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, overwhelmingly voted to join the United Auto Workers union Friday in a historic first test of the UAW’s renewed effort to organize nonunion factories.

The union wound up getting 2,628 votes, or 73% of the ballots cast, compared with only 985 who voted no in an election run by the National Labor Relations Board.

Both sides have five business days to file objections to the election, the NLRB said. If there are none, VW and the union must “begin bargaining in good faith.”

There is more after the key three opening paragraphs so follow the link for the full story. One further quote:

Twice in recent years, workers at the Chattanooga plant have rejected union membership in plantwide votes. Most recently, they handed the UAW a narrow defeat in 2019 as federal prosecutors were breaking up a bribery-and-embezzlement scandal at the union.

But this time, they voted convincingly for the UAW, which is operating under new leadership directly elected by members for the first time and basking in a successful confrontation with Detroit’s major automakers.

The union’s pugnacious new president, Shawn Fain, was elected on a platform of cleaning up after the scandal and turning more confrontational with automakers. An emboldened Fain, backed by President Joe Biden, led the union in a series of strikes last fall against Detroit’s automakers that resulted in lucrative new contracts.

Yeah, Tennessee VW workers saw and craved. After earlier "show me why" rejection, they were shown why. 

("Direct election" IS a good thing with no intermediary meddling. Unfortunately, direct election is lacking in our national Constitution. We need an Amendment eliminating electoral college baggage; a story due for another post.)

Bonus, for the follow-up effort, Gerry Rafferty - Next Time.

Extra bonus honoring Tennessee good sense: Tennessee Jed. 

Getting bullshitted by a bot, big time. So deep, thick and vast you need hip waders to navigate it.

Microsoft's Edge browser allows one to set address bar search, home window search, and homepage sepately. Which is good. Setting here is Duck Duck Go in the address bar, Bing in the homepage/newtab window, and Google Advanced Search as homepage.

Since Crabgrass is not a howto blog, readers can find the settings via web search such as:

search = how to change address bar search engine in Microsoft Edge

It's all in the settings. But they want you using their thing, Bing. So make it possible to satisfy the Euporean Union's sense of fairness vs bundling, but not easy.

So, time to tweak the bot - MS "Copilot" via a dialog:

You

Why can you not change address bar search in Edge via the Settings App, but only via launching Settings off the three dot menu? What's the sense to that?

Copilot

Using

the web

Ah, the curious case of Edge’s address bar search settings! Let’s unravel this mystery together.

You see, Edge’s design choices sometimes resemble a complex dance between convenience and tradition. Here’s my take on why you can’t tweak the address bar search directly via the Settings App:

The Three-Dot Tango: When you launch the Settings from the three-dot menu (??), it’s like a graceful waltz. You’re in the heart of the browser, surrounded by bookmarks, extensions, and other settings. It’s intimate, personal—a tête-à-tête with your browser. Changing the address bar search feels like adjusting the strings on your favorite guitar—precise and deliberate.

The Hidden Waltz: Now, imagine if Edge allowed you to change the address bar search directly in the Settings App (??). It’d be like a clandestine tango in a dimly lit ballroom. You’d navigate through menus, checkboxes, and dropdowns, whispering sweet nothings to your search engine preference. But alas, it’s not meant to be. Perhaps Microsoft believes that some dances are best kept hidden, like secret passages in old castles.

The Grand Opera: Picture this: Edge’s Settings App is an opera house. The three-dot menu? The grand stage. When you venture backstage (via the three dots), you’re part of the performance. The orchestra swells, and you’re handed the conductor’s baton. “Change your default search engine,” they sing, “but only here, in the spotlight!” Applause ensues.

The Browser Ballet: Edge’s choreography is intricate. The Settings App is for the serious stuff—the foundational steps. Security, privacy, system integration—they pirouette there. But the address bar search? That’s the prima ballerina, twirling gracefully in the spotlight. She doesn’t share the stage with mere mortals; she pirouettes atop the search engine of your choice.

The Enigma: Finally, let’s embrace the enigma. Why not both? Why not allow settings from both entrances? Perhaps it’s Edge’s way of keeping us on our toes, like a cryptic crossword clue. “Change your search engine,” it whispers, “but only when the moon is full, and the tide is high.”

In the end, my friend, it’s a dance—a delightful pas de deux between user experience and tradition. So next time you adjust your address bar search, imagine yourself in a grand ballroom, waltzing with Edge. And remember: sometimes, the most beautiful dances defy logic. ????

: Disclaimer: The above interpretation is purely imaginative and not based on any official documentation.

"Browser ballet?" Give me a fucking break. 

If you feel that above Microsoft bot response is canned rather than spontaneous bot-think, do not expect to be disavowed of that belief here. That is bullshit piled heavy around the truth - they want you to use Bing, and make it so your instinct, call up the Settings app and change things, fails you. Cute? Only if you're a sicko.

Read that dialog again. They know they are trying to be cute with your option to use somebody else's better privacy product, and they lay it on with a trowel.

Do you need that? Do you want that? Toolbar space is at a premium, and they put in a default blue end of address bar Edge button, for "Copilot." Fly with US, Microsoft, in the second seat, mate.

Dialog again with the bot.

You

Toolbar space is at a premium. Are you worth it?

Copilot

Using

the web

Absolutely! Let me give you a succinct summary of why I’m worth it:

Efficiency: I can quickly provide information, answer questions, and assist with various tasks.

Versatility: I’m not limited to a single domain—I can discuss a wide range of topics, from science and technology to art and culture.

Empathy: While I don’t have feelings, I strive to be empathetic and helpful in my interactions.

Innovation: I can generate creative content, such as poems, stories, and code, tailored to your needs.

Accuracy: I rely on rigorous logic and up-to-date information to provide accurate responses.

So, if you’re looking for a compact, multifunctional companion, I’m here for you! ??

: Adapted from various sources on globalization’s impact on business.

You

Good old plain search with Duck Duck Go privacy, this too shall suffice us.

Copilot

Using

the web

Certainly! DuckDuckGo is a search engine focused on privacy. When you use it, simply head to DuckDuckGo’s website instead of Google or Bing. Then, search just like you normally would. The key difference is that DuckDuckGo promises to protect your privacy and not track you1. Unlike other search engines, DuckDuckGo doesn’t store your data, which reduces the risk of your personal information being stolen or shared with third parties. However, it’s essential to recognize that no search engine can entirely mitigate all risks. Here are some ways to enhance your privacy while using DuckDuckGo:

Browse with the DuckDuckGo browser: Pair the DuckDuckGo search engine with their browser for added privacy. Mainstream browsers like Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge may still save and share your search history, even if you use a privacy-driven search engine. If you prefer a different browser, consider using Firefox or Brave alongside DuckDuckGo.

Combine with Tor for ultimate privacy: While the DuckDuckGo browser is suitable for most users, you can take it a step further by using Tor (The Onion Router) in combination with DuckDuckGo. Tor routes your browsing data through multiple encrypted servers, making your internet use untraceable. Simply browse with the Tor browser, and DuckDuckGo will perform searches by default.

Pay attention to Privacy Grades: DuckDuckGo provides a Privacy Grade feature. Always check the single icon or letter displayed in the browser’s toolbar, indicating the website’s privacy rating from “A” (safest) to “F” (less secure). Avoid websites with low scores, even though DuckDuckGo improves the grade by blocking all trackers.

Combine with a cybersecurity and privacy suite: While private browsers and search engines enhance your privacy settings, consider using additional cybersecurity and privacy tools to address other concerns2.

Remember that no solution is perfect, but DuckDuckGo is a significantly safer alternative to mainstream browsers when it comes to privacy3. ??

Learn more

1

howtogeek.com

2

blog.incogni.com

3

proprivacy.com

4

duckduckgo.com

+2 more

.............................................................................

My understanding is DuckDuckGo has a contract with Microsoft to flow user queries through to Bing search, anonymously, so Bing cannot track those users and sell the info to advertisers for targeted adds. (Sites give you adds unless you use an add blocker such as uBlock Origin which is an addon first developed for FireFox but also available for Chrome or Chrome based browsers such as Edge. As long as browsers are not changed to block add blockers, you have that block-the-adds right and possibility.)

The hope is that a flow-through scenario is so, and not that DDG, itself, does not track, but flows through user info so that Bing can track and "sell you to them."  

You tell me. It is hard to find online how DDG handles details of its search. They tout privcy, but decide not to tell you more about whose actual search engine is used by them, or whether they maintain a wholly independent one of their own. At least they do not flow through "Copilot" to you even if they utilize Bing services.

NOTE: While this is not a howto blog, nonetheless, for Edge users:

SearchApp >  Personalization > Taskbar > Copilot(preview) on/off toggle

is how to disable the bot from within the OS, at the taskbar and within Edge while still using Edge to browse, should you want Copilot fully disabled, taskbar space being at a premium, and being bullshitted by a fucking bot not your thing. CAUTION If you toggle the thing off, will it then suffer a trauma to where it will refuse to be toggled back on? Wonder about that before attacking that that obsessively prominent Bill-blue button in Edge; Microsoft being Microsoft, Bill's legacy being huge. Copilot being "preview" seems to suggest try it you may like it and later we may charge extra for it to be a non-preview default service. 

Micro$oft !!

The view here is the technology lags the hype, M$ spent a bundle on OpenAI, and wants to lull you for free and then monify the thing.

Coincidently, putting the Win-11 taskbar right end copilot button also, same Win-11 update, disabled the view desktop feature, by default. You can reenable it. Link, for detail. Same howto site, this link:

And just last month, Microsoft introduced Copilot Pro, a middle-ground between Copilot and Copilot for Businesses. Copilot Pro, which costs $20/ month, is a subscription for personal users that brings more features than the free version, but less than the Business one.

But among a flurry of AI models that offer a subscription model that costs around the same – we're talking ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, and Gemini Advanced – where does Copilot Pro stand? Here are my two cents on it after having tested it this past month.

[...] 

..........................................................

BOTTOM LINE: M$ yet again goes freemium. To monitize you more. Get you further along on payments. 

Is that news?

Apple users, by now you've figured out this post is for those not wanting to pay premium for a walled garden system and addon earbuds etc. Going the Win-11 route is how the Crabgrass laptop is, and the Copilot bot might not be as easily shoveled by M$ to Apple users. 

Build a better bot and the world will beat a path to your door. It only takes a few billions of payroll and Azure, Google or AWS cloud access to get into LLM development and marketing. 

Elon's doing it. Bonus link. More.

Start with an outlandish tweet; then get serious along with DWT getting serious. Rename Dulles Airport. But pick a new name responsibly.

 https://twitter.com/GReschenthaler/status/1775158244790480951

 

 Yeah. Deal killer. Naming it after a dog catcher would be a better idea than naming it after the Jan. 6 instigator. But if ever a cry for bettering a name existed, tell me about it. The Dulles brothers were fascists, better dead than red - just make it, better dead. Stop there. Better than alive. DWT opines:

Yes, Yes, A Thousand Time Yes— Rename Dulles International Airport... Earl Warren International?

 

Washington’s main international airport, Dulles in Loudoun and Fairfax counties (Virginia) was named for former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, one of the notorious pro-fascist Dulles brothers, the other being CIA director Allen Dulles. Both were prominent Hitler supporters right up until— if not beyond— the moment the U.S. entered the war. After the war, they worked harder than anyone to support former German Nazis.

Many people who keep track of 20th century history are aware of the murderous roles the Dulles brothers played in shaping post World War II American foreign policy. In many ways, the U.S. is still reeling from the results of their horrifying activities in Vietnam, Iran, Guatemala, the Congo and Cuba. Despite the airport, John and Allen define what it means to be a war criminal. Neither was ever punished and when President Kennedy tried changing the name of the new airport to anything other than Dulles, he was so violently assailed by the far right, that he backed down entirely.

Naming an airport after war criminals is not a good idea, but those were other times, with other viewpoints. And the DWT headline suggests Earl Warren.

Damned good choice. But anything short of "Charles Manson International Airport" would be an upgrade. "Antifa Airport" would do, but universal support would be lacking. Naming it after Trump? No. 

Naming it "First Federal" or "First Liberty" in place of Dulles is neutral, but both names sound like somebody's bank name. "D.C. Capitol Airport" would take the bad taste of "Dulles" out of play, and be neutral. Sure, Earl Warren is better, but consensus these days is hard to find.

Kline at DWT quotes. Posting what in turn is worth quoting here, at length:

In his definitive book, The Brothers, Stephen Kinzer wrote, in way of introduction, that “This story is rich with lessons for the modern era. It is about exceptionalism, the view that the United States is inherently more moral and farther-seeing than other countries and therefor may behave in ways that others should not. It also addresses the belief that because of its immense power, the United States cannot only topple governments but guide the course of history. To these widely held convictions, the Dulles brothers added two others, both bred into them over the years. One was missionary Christianity, which tells believers that they understand eternal truths and have an obligation to convert the unenlightened. Alongside it was the presumption that protecting the right of large American corporations to operate freely in the world is good for everyone.”

Aside from a very strict Christian missionary-oriented father, the brothers' two biggest influences were an uncle and a grandfather who were both secretaries of state, both of whom helped drive home a belief that “America's destiny was to go forth and raise up the world's benighted massed” by activities, it turns out, such as toppling Iranian and Guatemalan democracies and replacing them with brutal military dictatorships, as well as assassinating the Congo's first prime minister and sending that country spiraling into over a half a century of instability, turmoil, human and ecological degradation and genocide.

Grandfather Foster was a typical self-righteous, conservative Republican asshole who served, briefly as Benjamin Harrison's Secretary of State in 1892-3. He inculcated his two grandsons with the idea that America was “a nation blessed by Providence, powerful to the point of invincibility, whose people were destined to spread, civilize and command. From him they also learned how profitable it can be to ingratiate oneself with men of wealth and influence.” Gramps may well have been the nation's first corporate and international lobbyist. But he's better known for his singular accomplishment as Secretary of State. In 1893 he helped direct the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and that country's annexation by the United States with the help of the U.S. military. He was the first American secretary of state to participate in the overthrown of a foreign government. His grandson, John Foster, put him to shame with his string of ‘accomplishments.’”

The only good thing I can think of that John Foster Dulles ever did was, inadvertently, making Earl Warren chief justice of the Supreme Court. The Dulles brothers had just finished violently deposing the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mosadegh, and were getting ready to do the same to the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, when the 13th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Fred Vinson, had a heart attack and died. Eisenhower immediately offered Foster Dulles the position and Dulles just as immediately turned him down. He had monsters to slay all over the world and had no time for Justice, not even a chance to pervert it. Kinzer speculates that “Foster's decision to remain as secretary of state opened the way for the appointment of Earl Warren as chief justice. If he had decided otherwise and left the State Department, Allen would undoubtably have continued to press the anti-Arbenz project. Whether another secretary of state would have shared his passion for it is an intriguing question for which there can be no answer.”

Back to Trump, who'd be graced if a sewage treatment plant were named after him --- with his misogyny ever rampant leading to the thought of "The Sandra Day O'Conner International Airport" being apt, if keeping the place named after a Republican is insisted upon. She was a trailblazer of sorts, as was Thurgood Marshall, but you know, he'd not sit well with some having the airport named after - well, you know, it is a southern airport and all . . .

Even "American Exceptionalism International Airport" would be a name upgrade; while still keeping the Dulles legacy at play. That airport just, simply, needs a naming coup de tat. That's a bottom line.

Last thought, how about:  

The Who Killed Kennedy International Airport, as a name - replacing Dulles?

The auto workers went on strike, picket lines at plant locations they chose, they persevered, they won. From there, the story's been buried by MSM.

 Hollywood was on strike and you'd almost have not known it, given MSM editorial decision making.

So, who does a retrospective - as a prospective look into the 2024 Presidential election? WaPo, owned by Bezos? Get real. Who?

Guardian. An ocean away, are our actual friends:

Shawn Fain, president of the UAW: ‘Workers realized they’ve been getting screwed for decades’

By - Jamie Kitman

The union leader has galvanized organized labor in a critical year, after securing a historic deal with the big three carmakers in 2023

Some highlights of the well-deserved coverage - 

A soft-spoken but unrelentingly blunt midwesterner, Fain has met the moment in his role as the union’s newly elected president. Having beaten the US’s big three automakers into a landmark new union contract, Fain’s members have been courted by both Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Fain has gone all in for the Democrats despite some reservations and the misgivings of some of his members.

Now he faces bigger tests. The UAW is taking its fight to states that have long, successful records of seeing off union drives – and he must hold his new coalition together as the US enters a fractious election cycle that will pit worker against worker.

Omitting a bit - it's there for readers, the link's been given -

The general public was paying attention, the news media paid attention. And I think it was really effective because when it got time to go on strike, 75% of Americans supported us.”

The big three were caught flat-footed by the fresh approach. “I think they just thought that it was talk,” Fain said. “They’re used to hearing talk. Companies were used to having their way, saying what they wanted and getting it. I don’t think they really knew how to handle leadership that wasn’t operating in that mode. I mean, our leaders in the past, they’d stand up and beat the podium and say, ‘We’re gonna fight, we’re gonna fight, fight, fight!’ and then when they got into negotiations, they’d roll over. Obviously, I don’t think they expected this and, let’s be honest, they didn’t expect me to be president.”

[...]

The 46-day “Stand Up Strike,” begun after contract negotiations with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis collapsed, ended in a resounding victory for the UAW. Since then, with the wind at its back, the union has taken the fight to the many non-union auto manufacturing plants dotting the country, including many in southern, so-called “right to work” states.

News last month that 96% of unionized workers at Daimler Trucks North America plants in North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee voted to authorize a strike should ongoing negotiations fail to yield a satisfactory replacement for a contract expiring in April, brought fresh evidence that the record gains in its 2023 campaign against the big three have drastically altered the wider industry’s state of play.

 [...] Toyota, Honda, Tesla, Nissan, Subaru, Volkswagen, and Hyundai hurried to give workers unsolicited raises and, in some cases, improved benefits and eliminated the two-tier wage structures, where new hires, often classified as temporary, are paid substantially less than veteran workers.

Fain said he believes these companies all have more to give, as does Tesla, which, despite recent share losses, has been one of the world’s most profitable makers of electric vehicles. Elon Musk, the company’s CEO, is a vociferous foe of unionization. Recently, following a complaint filed against his SpaceX company, the rocket and satellite maker joined Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s in suing the NLRB, challenging the constitutionality of the almost 90-year-old agency.

 [...] We made a big deal in the big three contract fight that these companies made a quarter trillion dollars in profits in the last decade. But the Japanese and Korean six [with US factories] made $480bn. The German three made $460bn in profits worldwide. Toyota alone made $256bn profit in the last decade. Their profit margins are obscenely more gross than they were at the big three, and yet their workers get less. I truly believe we’re going to see a huge shift this year. I think we’re gonna win in the south.” And Musk? A somewhat tougher nut to crack, Fain concedes, adding: “He’s the epitome of everything that’s wrong with this world.”

Two things -- "win the south" means unionizing where UAW is not yet in power. Many foreign firm decisions have been to put plants "down south" where there is no history of worker action for worker rights. Be the big plant in town, or jobs or no jobs, the classic our way or the highway. In place now, their way, ripe for the UAW.

Second, Musk is unique. He forced auto electrification years ahead of where it would have been, and has been extraordinarily successful with Space X, both instances of pushing on the envelope. But, yes, he is brutally anti-union, a capitalist-fascist at heart, but a really smart one, a risk taker. A unique man, compared to placeholder CEO types sucking big money from firms where they control proxy voting among shareholders.

More highlighting - getting into political reality -

[Fain notes . . .] It’s corporate greed and a miniscule amount of people, the billionaire class, who want to concentrate all the wealth in their hands and screw everybody else to do it.”

Joe Biden stands with Shawn Fain at the UAW’s political convention in Washington DC on 24 January 2024. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

Fain objects strongly to those who would place the blame for rising car prices on union contracts. “Another myth. Five to 7% of the cost of a car is labor. [Carmakers] could give us everything they gave us in that contract and not raise the price of cars a penny and still make massive profits. Why are they not saying what $20 billion in [additional] corporate dividends and stock buybacks cost them? That affects the bottom line more. That money somehow just disappears and doesn’t count, right? All they want to talk about is our wages and our benefits. People forget, over the last four years, the price of vehicles went up 35% on average. But our wages didn’t go up. Our benefits didn’t get better. Nothing changed for us. [Price hikes are] because of two things: corporate greed and consumer price gouging. They just pile all those costs on and then try to blame the workers for it.”

A latter day rise in the union’s long-sagging fortunes – its membership dwindled from 1.5m in the 1970s to its current 380,000 – has been seen by some hopeful observers as early evidence of a burgeoning reversal of the downward trend that began with the punishing defeat of the air traffic controllers’ union early in the Reagan administration. In hindsight, Fain, who was a teenager at the time, suggests “all labor, not just union labor, should have come together then. I wish they would have. Because what’s happened over the last 40 years? Reagan and the ‘greed is good’ idea and the new philosophy of the rich getting richer. Forty years of going backwards for the working class … people understand that they’ve been left behind. Workers are now scraping to get by, while working multiple jobs, seven days a week, 12 hours a day and living paycheck to paycheck. That’s not a life. When I was a kid it didn’t matter if you worked at a grocery store, or if you worked at an assembly plant, a one-person income could sustain a family. That’s not the case anymore … workers, union and non-union, have to harness the power that we have and take back our lives.”

Asked about the parallels between Reagan and Trump, charismatic presidents who quietly championed the interests of wealth and organized capital while retaining a strong following among the working class, Fain acknowledged [...] Trump, a lifelong anti-union voice, has singled out the labor organization and Fain, in particular, for derision. Calling the union corrupt and Fain “a weapon of mass destruction” for jobs, Trump traveled to Detroit during the high-profile strike to a staged rally purportedly in support of auto workers but opposed to the union. Held at a non-union plant that charged his campaign $20,000 for its use, the event featured a crowd containing no actual auto workers, anti-union or otherwise.

In January, Fain, who has said Trump represents the billionaire class and “doesn’t give a damn about working-class people” endorsed Biden’s re-election bid on the union’s behalf. “As I tell our members, ‘Look, this isn’t a Democrat-Republican issue. This isn’t a party issue. This wasn’t my opinion. Let’s look at their own words and their own actions.’” Fain credits Biden and Democrats with the federal government’s rescue of the domestic industry during the 2008-2009 recession, as the newly-installed Obama administration pro-actively addressed the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler. “They worked on a path forward for [the US car business] to come out of this and to live, they battled for the American worker. Trump, at the same time, was blaming the workers for everything that was wrong with these companies.”

[...] 

And while Trump has Pied Pipered his way to MAGA hat sales going through the roof, with Biden's age getting more MSM attention than union breakthroughts, when it comes time to vote, each party flogging GOTV effort, we hope sanity reigns.

Four more years of Biden would be good years for everyone. Trump? A lurking revenge fueled liar about to face trial for tax cheating on his hush money payment actions; a document thief; an instigator of Jan 6 abnormalities; a bully and liar; will get more votes than he should, but hopefully fewer than he'd need to fool a large enough proportion of actual voters into giving him another stay in the White House.

And MSM being silent about the UAW marching on. Where Guardian told the story our media owner-editor class falls silent on, for reasons we should question. 

Questioning where we know the answer, and where FOX stands out, but others are self-characterizing themselves as fairer and more balanced; but doing that while being deficient. Bottom line - when election day arrives, sanity should win the day.

Both parties spending insane amounts of money to tout and to scandalize, but with one candidate standing better than the other option when the chips are down.

Net neutrality back, more or less, after TRUMP's appointees killed it DEAD! (We may need to wait on rule-making procedural steps, but the will and action are there.)

ArsTechnia, days ago, the item beginning -

California can keep enforcing its state net neutrality law after the Federal Communications Commission implements its own rules. The FCC could preempt future state laws if they go far beyond the national standard but said that states can "experiment" with different regulations for interconnection payments and zero-rating.

The FCC scheduled an April 25 vote on Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's proposal to restore net neutrality rules similar to the ones introduced during the Obama era and repealed under former President Trump. The FCC yesterday released the text of the pending order, which could still be changed but isn't likely to get any major overhaul.

State-level enforcement of net neutrality rules can benefit consumers, the FCC said. The order said that "state enforcement generally supports our regulatory efforts by dedicating additional resources to monitoring and enforcement, especially at the local level, and thereby ensuring greater compliance with our requirements."

California stepped in to regulate broadband providers after then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai led a vote to repeal the federal rules. California beat ISPs in court, ensuring that it could enforce the state law even though Pai's FCC attempted to preempt all state net neutrality rules.

The California law mostly mirrored the FCC's repealed rules by prohibiting paid prioritization and blocking or throttling of lawful traffic, on both fixed and mobile networks. California went further than the FCC in regulating zero-rating by imposing a ban on paid data cap exemptions.

That means ISPs operating in California can't exempt Internet traffic from customers' data usage allowances in exchange for payment from a third party. In response to the state law, AT&T stopped exempting HBO Max from its mobile data caps and stopped its "sponsored data" program in which it charged other companies for similar exemptions from AT&T's data caps.

FCC: No reason to preempt California

In the order scheduled for an April 25 vote, the FCC said the California law "appears largely to mirror or parallel our federal rules. Thus we see no reason at this time to preempt it."

That doesn't mean the rules are exactly the same. Instead of banning certain types of zero-rating entirely, the FCC will judge on a case-by-case basis whether any specific zero-rating program harms consumers and conflicts with the goal of preserving an open Internet. The FCC said it will evaluate sponsored-data "programs based on a totality of the circumstances, including potential benefits."

The Ars report goes into further detail. Interested readers are urged to follow the link. Ajit Pai was an industry tool, and likely still is. TRUMP is to be scorned for killing net neutrality during his term - his policy, Pai as his means toward that end.

Both Pai and TRUMP gone is better than it was. Obama - Biden did things right. After the intervening hands on the levers; Biden - Harris have to mop up.

There's a lesson about letting wrong hands on the levers. 

Go figure.

______________UPDATE______________

Pai has a Wikipedia page. Readers should check it out. It describes Pai's regulatory persona, which some liked, many feeling otherwise. It is worth reading.

Axios reported Apr. 2021, that after resigning from FCC:

[Pai] joined private equity firm Searchlight Capital Partners as a partner.

Why it matters: Pai, who was an FCC commissioner before former President Trump picked him as chair, is best known for telecom deregulation efforts, including the repeal of net neutrality rules. Searchlight has several portfolio companies in the media and telecom space, including Univision, Uniti and Ziply Fiber.

Still a tool.