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Puerto Rico: Cruelest Storm; Trump Political Disaster; AFL-CIO Labor Solidarity

Puerto Rico has been hit by a triple disaster - Hurricane Maria; outrageous debt owed to vulture hedge funds; racist, colonial indifference by the Trump Administration. Puerto Ricans - on the island, and in the U.S. have called for the lifting of the Jones Act, as it applies to Puerto Rico; canceling the debt; and abolishing PROMESA. Yesterday a solidarity flight of medical and emergency organized by AFL-CIO unions brought needed supplies and aid workers to the island.

U.S. Travel Association Opposes Trump Administration’s Cuba Travel Warning and Pullout of Embassy Staff; Cuba Blames The U. S. for Deterioration Of Bilateral Relations

Responsible Ethical Cuba Travel; Cuban Ministry of Foreign
The largest association of U.S. organizers of travel to Cuba, unanimously rejected the Trump administration’s Cuba travel warning and its decision to withdraw diplomatic staff from its Havana embassy. Cuba has never perpetrated, nor will it ever perpetrate attacks of any sort against diplomatic officials or their relatives, without any exception - official Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement.

Oakland Catcher Bruce Maxwell Breaks Baseball’s Politics Line

Dave Zirin The Nation
There is a wall in baseball between sports and politics. One player just put a crack in it. Fall - Baseball - League Championships - World Series - what makes baseball different from other sports, like football, basketball and soccer?

Tidbits - October 5, 2017 - Reader Comments: Las Vegas, NRA - How Much Did Congress Get?; Puerto Rico; Vietnam: more on Burns and Novick film; Fake Olive Oil - Bertolli Responds; and more .....

Portside
Reader Comments: For the Victims in Las Vegas, Puerto Rico and Yemen; Puerto Rico; Vietnam - More than Burns and Novick film; Attack on Organized Labor - What it Means for African Americans; Tom Petty; Socialist Writing; The Russians Are Coming - Are They?; Fake Olive Oil - Bertolli Responds; Dag Hammarskjold; Star Wars; How Much Did Your Congressional Representatives Get from the NRA; Prosecuting ISIS Crimes against Women and LGBTIQ Persons; and more .....

Low Unemployment Doesn't Increase Wages Like It Used To

Harold Meyerson The American Prospect
Once upon a time, more jobs meant higher wages. Not so today. The combination of globalization, automation, increased corporate strength, decreased union power has broken that connection.

If He Hollers, Let Him Be; He's Chester B. Himes

Charles R. Larson CounterPunch
A hard look at African-American author Chester Himes, whose literary fame and financial success later in life hardly made up for the oppressive racial travails that preceded it and forced him to live much of that life abroad.

New Attack Launched on California Public Employee Pensions

Bill Raden Capital and Main
A new front in the battle over retirement security for California’s public employees opened June 4 with the release of the language for a proposed ballot initiative that would virtually outlaw traditional defined-benefit pension plans for future state and municipal workers. The so-called “Voter Empowerment Act of 2016,” would effectively shift all new public employees from the various defined-benefit plans currently in place to 401(k) plans, beginning in 2019.

UN Details Crimes Against Palestinian Children; Shields Israel

Natasha Roth +972 Magazine
According to the United Nations Report on Children and Armed Conflict, the number of Palestinian children killed in the occupied territories in 2014 was the third highest of all situations monitored by the UN, following only Afghanistan and Iraq. But in response to diplomatic pressure from the U.S., UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made the last-minute decision to leave Israel off the UN’s annual list of states and groups that gravely violate children’s rights.