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El Chapo Guzmán found guilty after 3-month trial for drug trafficking

The jury deliberated for six days but reached a unanimous decision in the end

by Mexico News Daily

After six days of deliberations, the jury has found Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, former leader of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel, guilty of drug trafficking.

The unanimous verdict was announced today, bringing to an end a three-month trial in which Guzmán’s defense team unsuccessfully attempted to persuade jurors that their client’s role in the cartel was exaggerated by witnesses for the prosecution who were seeking leniency in their own cases.

Held in New York, the trial heard tales of grisly killings, political payoffs, high living and a massive drug-smuggling operation that moved at least 180 tones of cocaine into the United States, along with heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana.

Fifty-six witnesses and hundreds of pieces of evidence — including a diamond-encrusted hand gun belonging to Guzmán — were presented by the prosecution to demonstrate that the former drug lord was indeed directly responsible for smuggling drugs, bribing officials, laundering money and murdering those who stood in his way.

The prosecution described the Sinaloa Cartel as “the world’s largest and most prolific drug trafficking organization.”

The defense, whose case lasted only half an hour, argued that Guzmán was made a scapegoat. The jury was asked to dismiss the testimony of the government’s witnesses, describing them as liars out to save themselves by making deals with authorities.

That reliance on cooperating witnesses “laid bare the corruption of the criminal justice system where freedom is traded by the government in exchange for testimony,” charged A. Eduardo Balarezo, one of Guzmán’s lawyers.

A former U.S. attorney found the case demonstrated a remarkable degree of penetration into the cartel’s activities. John Horn also said the conviction carries a deep meaning.

“There does need to be a conviction of somebody like Chapo Guzmán, both for the symbolism and the pure factor of justice being served,” Horn, who is now in private practice, said in an interview before the verdict.

“It does show that . . . for somebody at his level, justice will be done, it will be served. It’s an incredibly powerful victory . . . for law enforcement.”

As the verdict was delivered at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Guzmán appeared horrified, reported the newspaper Reforma.

His wife’s eyes filled with tears on hearing the decision but Emma Coronel, who has been in the courtroom during most of the trial, gave her husband an optimistic thumbs up as he turned to look at her.
Guzmán, 61, was extradited to the U.S. in January 2017 after his capture in Sinaloa nearly a year earlier. His arrest came six months after a spectacular escape through a 1.5-kilometer tunnel under the Altiplano federal prison in México state.

Sentencing is scheduled for June 25.

Source: Reforma (sp), The Washington Post (en), CBS News (en).

AMLO announces plans for Badiraguato, El Chapo’s hometown

President will open new highway, announce new university and launch tree-planting program

President López Obrador will visit the hometown of convicted drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán tomorrow to inaugurate one government project and formally announce two more.

The president told reporters at his daily press conference that he will travel to the former Sinaloa Cartel chief’s native Badiraguato, a mountainous municipality 80 kilometers north of the Sinaloa capital Culiacán, to open a new stretch of highway that runs to Guadalupe y Calvo, a municipality in Chihuahua.

López Obrador said he will also announce the establishment of a new public university in Badiraguato that will specialize in forestry, explaining that the region has a lot of potential in the sector.
“Thirdly, the Sembrando Vida [Sowing Life] program is going to go ahead,” he added, referring to the government’s ambitious tree-planting project.

“We’re going to plant [trees] in the region, 50,000 hectares just next to Badiraguato…”

López Obrador said the program will create 20,000 permanent jobs in the sierra region of Sinaloa and Chihuahua.

Asked about Guzmán’s conviction on drug trafficking charges Tuesday in a New York federal court, López Obrador said yesterday that it was a lesson that a life of crime and easy money doesn’t bring happiness.
Today, he said, Badiraguato shouldn’t be stigmatized just because El Chapo grew up there.

“Towns mustn’t be stigmatized, you can’t stigmatize Atlacomulco because the so-called Atlacomulco group is from there,” López Obrador said, referring to Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) politicians, including former president Enrique Peña Nieto, who hail from the México state municipality.

“Badiraguato is a town with history, a lot of people who deserve respect live there,” he added.

The leftist political veteran, who last month said that the drug war is over and arresting drug lords is no longer a priority, explained that the aim of the new government projects and programs in Badiraguato and the country as a whole is to provide options for citizens – especially young people – to earn an honest living and not be tempted into a life of crime.

“We’re seeking to regenerate public life,” López Obrador said.

Source: Reforma (sp)

‘No more migrants:’ Coahuila at maximum capacity, governor says

They should go to other states because Coahuila’s border is overwhelmed, said Riquelme governador of Coahuila

by Mexico News Daily

The governor of Coahuila has declared that no more migrants will be allowed into the state as thousands of Central Americans continue their journey through Mexico to the United States.

“We’re at maximum capacity,” Miguel Ángel Riquelme Solís said yesterday, referring to migrant shelters in the northern border city of Piedras Negras.

“We will not allow more migrants to travel through Coahuila because the border is overwhelmed, but neither will we invite chaos and therefore they should go to other states,” he said
The governor said that providing accommodation, food and services to more than 1,600 migrants who arrived in Piedras Negras yesterday had stretched the capacity of authorities, explaining that as a consequence, “we’ll block the entry to Coahuila.”

The Central Americans, mainly from Honduras but also Guatemala and El Salvador, entered Mexico in the middle of last month as part of a larger caravan of around 2,200. Authorities in Piedras Negras converted several old factories into shelters to house them.

State news agency Notimex said that 51 other migrants had gone to Monterrey, Nuevo León, where authorities provided them with shelter in a gymnasium and humanitarian aid.

Manuel González Flores, general secretary for the state government, said that 35 of the migrants have family members in Nuevo León and intend to remain there, while the others are expected to continue their journey to the United States’ southern border.

At the other end of the country, around 3,800 migrants are currently traveling through Chiapas and yesterday reached Mapastepec, a municipality about 140 kilometers north of the Mexico-Guatemala border.
Hondurans also make up the bulk of that group but are joined by 500 Guatemalans, 300 Salvadorans and 50 Nicaraguans, caravan organizers told the news agency AFP.

The migrants plan to travel to Mexico City, where local authorities are preparing to receive them at the same sports stadium-cum-shelter that has housed previous groups.

From there, they will decide which section of the northern border they will travel to in the hope of claiming asylum in the United States, although U.S. President Donald Trump continues to maintain a hard line on immigration.

In his State of the Union address last night, Trump described the approach of migrants to the border as a “tremendous onslaught” of “large, organized caravans” and continued to press for funding for his long-promised wall.

“The lawless state of our southern border is a threat to the safety, security, and financial well-being of all Americans,” he said.

“We have a moral duty to create an immigration system that protects the lives and jobs of our citizens… In the past, most of us, the people in this room, voted for a wall. But the proper wall never got built. I will get it built.”

In a Twitter post earlier in the day, Trump wrote: “Tremendous numbers of people are coming up through Mexico in the hopes of flooding our southern border. We have sent additional military. We will build a human wall if necessary. If we had a real wall, this would be a non-event!”

As has become his trademark in assessing the U.S. president’s comments about Mexico and border security, President López Obrador said Trump’s address last night was respectful.

“…There were some remarks [I didn’t agree with] but that’s his right, that’s his vision … He was very respectful of our government and we thank him,” he said.

Asked specifically about Trump’s claim that Mexico allows migrant caravans to freely travel through the country, López Obrador simply responded: “We very much respect the point of view of the president, Donald Trump.”

(Source: El Universal (sp), Animal Político (sp), Excelsiór (sp), Noticieros Televisa (sp).

In other news in Mexico:

AMLO enjoys 86 percent approval rating, strong support for fuel theft strategy

In baseball terminology, 34 percent said AMLO hit a home run. Just one in 10 said he struck out

Two months into his six-year term, President López Obrador enjoys an 86% approval rating, according to a new poll that also shows strong support for the government’s crackdown on fuel theft.

The survey, conducted by the newspaper El Financiero over two days last week, shows that just 13 percent of 410 people polled disapprove of the president’s performance while 1 percent of respondents were undecided.

In contrast, the highest rating ever earned by López Obrador’s predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto, was just 57 percent, in May 2013, according to pollster Consulta Mitofsky. His lowest rating was 17 percent in February 2017 and he finished his term last November at 24 percent.

But AMLO, as Peña Nieto’s successor is commonly known, can do no wrong in the eyes of citizens.

Even though it caused widespread and prolonged gasoline shortages, the government’s anti-fuel theft strategy was very popular among poll respondents, with 80% saying they considered the move to be very good or good. Just 12% said that the strategy was very bad or bad.

López Obrador’s appearance at daily early-morning press conferences was considered very good or good by 72 percent of those polled, making them the second most popular measure implemented by the new government.

The response to the deadly petroleum pipeline explosion in Hidalgo, which 65 percent of respondents said was very good or good, was the next most popular government action followed by the decision to sell off government-owned armored vehicles, which garnered 64 percent support.

López Obrador says no to ‘offensive’ contrast of grand hotels and poverty

8-billion-peso infrastructure program announced for leading tourism destinations

by Mexico News Daily

Putting an end to the “offensive” contrast between luxurious hotels and poor neighborhoods in Mexico’s most popular resort cities is the aim of a new government program launched yesterday by President López Obrador.

The central objective of the Mi México Late (My Mexico Beats) program is to build much-needed infrastructure in the working-class neighborhoods of Mexico’s leading tourism destinations.

“We no longer want there to be the offensive contrast between large hotels and marginalized, impoverished neighborhoods without water services, without drainage, without anything,” López Obrador said yesterday in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur.

Among the cities that will benefit from the 8-billion-peso (US $413.7-million) urban improvement program are Los Cabos, Cancún, Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta.

Urban Development Secretary Román Meyer Falcón said that 10 northern border cities will also receive funding for infrastructure projects through the same program.

López Obrador said the government chose to launch the program in Los Cabos because of its importance to tourism in the country.

Almost 600 million pesos (US $31 million) will be allocated to infrastructure projects in the city’s neighborhoods, he said, explaining that residents will also be able to access financial support in order to obtain deeds for their properties.

The president also said that a 1-billion-peso (US $51.7-million) water desalination plant has been authorized for the area.

López Obrador pledged to return to Los Cabos in a few months to assess the progress of the Mi México Late program and other government initiatives.

“Mexico has a lot of natural resources, a lot of wealth, good people, hard-working people. What was needed, we now have: a good government,” he said.

Meanwhile, López Obrador announced today that his government is planning to launch a tidy towns contest to encourage people to take more pride in the places where they live.

“We have to take care of the cleanliness of our towns … no to garbage, no to dirtiness . . . [societal] transformation also implies cleanliness,” he said.

After waxing lyrical about the beauty of the bougainvillea plant, the president explained that the cleanest, best-decorated towns in Mexico will be officially recognized at an awards ceremony at the National Palace.

A public infrastructure project that each winning town needs will also probably be part of the prize package, López Obrador said.

“There are very poor towns with humble people but they’re very clean. For example, I know all the municipalities of Oaxaca and they’re very clean, they’re careful not to contaminate the water, there are signs … so that people don’t throw detergent and fertilizer into the streams, there are trash cans, that is also very important.”

In other tourism news in Mexico:

Hospitality-travel firm says tourists with money are going elsewhere

Head of Apple Leisure Group says insecurity, sargassum and insufficient marketing are the causes

Mexico’s high-end tourism market has taken a hit so far in 2019, according to the CEO of a hospitality-travel firm who predicts that visitor numbers will decline further in coming months.

Alejandro Zozaya, CEO of Apple Leisure Group, estimates that the economic spillover from tourism is down 20 percent to date this year compared to the same period of 2018.

The problem: not as many wealthy Americans are coming to Mexico to vacation, get married at lavish ceremonies and honeymoon.

“The most important market we have lost is that which leaves the largest economic spillover, the high-end North American,” Zozaya told the news outlet Aristegui Noticias.

“We still have a lot of Americans but the highest segment [of the market] has stopped coming and we’ve replaced them with tourists from other countries and regions who leave a smaller spillover – they spend less at the destination, hotel rates go down,” he said.

The businessman claimed that the main reason well-off tourists are not coming to Mexico is insecurity but added that sargassum on Caribbean coast beaches and a lack of marketing following the government’s decision to disband the Tourism Promotion Council (CPTM) are also factors.

More United States citizens are traveling outside their country than ever before and there is not a decline in the international tourism market, but tourists are deciding to “go to other destinations that are not Mexico,” Zozaya said.

“[Americans] are going to the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Mexico loses market share.”

He said that tourism is declining in Mexico’s most popular destinations at the same as the number of hotel rooms is going up.

“We have 30,000 additional rooms projected for Quintana Roo on top of those in Puerto Vallarta, in Los Cabos and other destinations in Mexico,” Zozaya said.

He stressed that advertising is the best way to attract greater visitor numbers to Mexico and that demand for accommodation and other tourism services must grow at a rate at least equal to supply growth in order to maintain profitability and employment in the sector.

Zozaya’s estimate of a 20 percent reduction in tourism spending this year is well above the 0.3 percent decline in air arrivals recorded in January but the businessman warned that “the most complicated” period for the tourism industry “is still to come.”

Contributing to the decline in international air arrivals in January was a reduction in the number of passengers flying into Cancún International Airport, the first year-over-year decrease for any month in almost seven years.

Earlier this year, the Secretariat of Tourism predicted that international visitor numbers could hit 43.6 million in 2019, which would represent a 5.2 percent increase on last year’s record figures.
Total tourism expenditure is forecast to reach just under US $23.7 billion, which would also be 5.2 percent higher than in 2018.

Last month, Tourism Secretary Miguel Torruco Marqués said the government is aiming to increase expenditure by tourists in Mexico by focusing more on attracting big spenders.

Among the nationalities that spend the most while visiting Mexico, the Japanese are in first place, spending an average of $2,008, not including airfare.

Source: Aristegui Noticias (sp.

Green New Deal Reveals the Naked Truth of Agenda 21

by Tom DeWeese

Sometimes if you fight hard enough and refuse to back down, no matter the odds, your truth is vindicated and prevails!

For twenty years I have been labeled a conspiracy theorist, scaremonger, extremist, dangerous, nut case. I’ve been denied access to stages, major news programs, and awarded tin foil hats. All because I have worked to expose Agenda 21 and its policy of sustainable development as a danger to our property rights, economic system, and culture of freedom.

From its inception in 1992 at the United Nation’s Earth Summit, 50,000 delegates, heads of state, diplomats and Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) hailed Agenda 21 as the “comprehensive blueprint for the reorganization of human society.” The 350-page, 40 chapter, Agenda 21 document was quite detailed and explicit in its purpose and goals. They warned us that the reorganization would be dictated through all-encompassing policies affecting every aspect of our lives, using environmental protection simply as the excuse to pull at our emotions and get us to voluntarily surrender our liberties.

Section I details “Social and Economic Dimensions” of the plan, including redistribution of wealth to eradicate poverty, maintain health through vaccinations and modern medicine, and population control.
To introduce the plan, the Earth Summit Chairman, Maurice Strong boldly proclaimed, “Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class — involving meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing — are not sustainable.” Of course, according to the plan, if it’s not “sustainable” it must be stopped.

In support of the plan, David Brower of the Sierra Club (one of the NGO authors of the agenda) said, “Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license.” Leading environmental groups advocated that the Earth could only support a maximum of one billion people, leading famed Dr. Jacques Cousteau to declare, “In order to stabilize world populations, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day.”

Section II provides the “Conservation and Management of Resources for Development” by outlining how environmental protection was to be the main weapon, including global protection of the atmosphere, land, mountains, oceans, and fresh waters — all under the control of the United Nations.

To achieve such global control to save the planet, it is necessary to eliminate national sovereignty and independent nations. Eliminating national borders quickly led to the excuse for openly allowing the “natural migration” of peoples. The UN Commission on Global Governance clearly outlined the goal for global control stating, “The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation.” That pretty much explains why the supporters of such a goal go a little off the rails when a presidential candidate makes his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”

The main weapon for the Agenda was the threat of Environmental Armageddon, particularly manifested through the charge of man-made global warming, later to conveniently become “climate change.” It didn’t matter if true science refused to cooperate in this scheme as actual global temperatures really are not rising and there continues to be no evidence of any man-made affect on the climate. Truth hasn’t been important to the scare mongers. Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation said, “We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.” To further drive home their complete lack of concern for truth, Paul Watson of Greenpeace declared, “It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”
So in their zealotry to enforce the grand agenda, social justice became the “moral force” over the rule of law as free enterprise, private property, rural communities and individual consumption habits became the targets, labeled as racist and a social injustice. Such established institutions and free market economics were seen as obstructions to the plan, as were traditional family units, religion, and those who were able to live independently in rural areas.

Finally, Agenda 21 was summed up in supporting documents this way: “Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced. It requires a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals, and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.”
Of course, such harsh terms had to be hidden from the American people if the plan was to be successfully imposed. They called it a “suggestion” for “voluntary” action — just in case a nation or community wanted to do something positive for mankind! However, while using such innocent-sounding language, the Agenda 21 shock troops lost no time pushing it into government policy. In 1992, just after its introduction at the Earth Summit, Nancy Pelosi introduced a resolution of support for the plan into Congress. It’s interesting to note that she boldly called it a “comprehensive blueprint for the reorganization of human society.” In 1993, new President, Bill Clinton ordered the establishment of the President’s Council for Sustainable Development, with the express purpose of enforcing the Agenda 21 blueprint into nearly every agency of the federal government to assure it became the law of the land. Then the American Planning Association issued a newsletter in 1994, supporting Agenda 21’s ideas as a “comprehensive blueprint” for local planning. So much for a voluntary idea!

CONTINUE HERE FOR 3.15.19

However, as we, the opponents started to gain some ground in exposing its true purpose and citizens began to storm city halls protesting local implementation, suddenly the once proud proponents lost their collective memories about Agenda 21. Never heard of it! “There are no blue-helmeted troops at city hall,” said one proponent, meaning policies being used to impose it were not UN driven, but just “local, local, local”. “Oh, you mean that innocuous 20 year-old document that has no enforcement capability? This isn’t that!” These were the excuses that rained down on us from the planners, NGOs and government agents as they scrambled to hide their true intentions.

I was attacked on the front page of the New York Times Sunday paper under the headline, “Activists Fight Green Projects, Seeing U.N. Plot.” The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) produced four separate reports on my efforts to stop it, calling our efforts an “Antigovernment Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory.” The Atlantic magazine ran a story entitled, “Is the UN Using Bike Paths to Achieve World Domination?” Attack articles appeared in the Washington Post, Esquire magazine, Wingnut Watch, Mother Jones, and Tree Hugger.com to name a few. All focused on labeling their opposition as tin-foil-hat-wearing nut jobs. Meanwhile, an alarmed American Planning Association (APA) created an “Agenda 21: Myths and Facts” page on its web site to supposedly counter our claims. APA then organized a “Boot Camp” to retrain its planners to deal with us, using a “Glossary for the Public,” teaching them new ways to talk about planning. Said the opening line of the Glossary, “Given the heightened scrutiny of planners by some members of the public, what is said — or not said — is especially important in building support for planning.” The Glossary went on to list words not to use like “Public Visioning,” “Stakeholders,” “Density,” and “Smart Growth,” because such words make the “Critics see red.”

Local elected officials, backed by NGO groups and planners, began to deride local activists — sometimes denying them access to speak at public meetings, telling them that Agenda 21 conspiracy theory has “been debunked.” Most recently an irate city councilman answered a citizen who claimed local planning was part of Agenda 21 by saying “this is what’s trending.” So, of course, if everyone is doing it is must be right!
Such has been our fight to stop this assault on our culture and Constitutional rights.

Over the years, since the introduction of Agenda 21 in 1992, the United Nations has created several companion updates to the original documents. This practice serves two purposes. One is to provide more detail on how the plan is to be implemented. The second is to excite its global activists with a new rallying cry. In 2000, the UN held the Millennium Summit, launching the Millennium Project featuring eight goals for global sustainability to be reached by 2015. Then, when those goals were not achieved, the UN held another summit in New York City in September of 2015, this time outlining 17 goals to be reached by 2030. This document became known as the 2030 Agenda, containing the exact same goals as were first outlined in Agenda 21 in 1992, and then again in 2000, only with each new incarnation offering more explicit direction for completion.

Enter the Green New Deal, representing the boldest tactic yet. The origins and the purpose of the Green New Deal couldn’t be more transparent. The forces behind Agenda 21 and its goal of reorganizing human society have become both impatient and scared. Impatient that 27 years after Agenda 21 was introduced, and after hundreds of meetings, planning sessions, massive propaganda, and billions of dollars spent, the plan still is not fully in place. Scared because people around the world are starting to learn its true purpose and opposition is beginning to grow.

So the forces behind the Agenda have boldly thrown off their cloaking devices and their innocent sounding arguments that they just want to protect the environment and make a better life for us all. Instead, they are now openly revealing that their goal is socialism and global control, just as I’ve been warning about for these past twenty years. Now they are determined to take congressional action to finally make it the law of the land.

Take a good look, those of you who have heard my warnings about Agenda 21 over the years. Do you see the plan I have warned about being fully in place in this Green New Deal?
• I warned that Agenda 21 would control every aspect of our lives, including how and were we live, the jobs we have, the mode of transportation available to us, and even what we eat. The Green New Deal is a tax on everything we do, make, wear, eat, drink, drive, import, export and even breathe.

• In opposing Smart Growth plans in your local community, I said the main goal was to eliminate cars, to be replaced with bikes, walking, and light rail trains. The Green New Deal calls for the elimination of the internal combustion engine. Stay alert. The next step will be to put a ban on the sale of new combustion engines by a specific date and then limiting the number of new vehicles to be sold. Bans on commercial truck shipping will follow. Then they will turn to airplanes, reducing their use. Always higher and higher taxes will be used to get the public to “voluntarily” reduce their use of such personal transportation choices. That’s how it works, slowly but steadily towards the goal.

• I warned that under Smart Growth programs now taking over every city in the nation that single-family homes are a target for elimination, to be replaced by high-rise stack and pack apartments in the name of reducing energy use. That will include curfews on carbon heating systems, mandating they be turned off during certain hours. Heating oil devices will become illegal. Gradually, energy use of any kind will be continually reduced. The Green New Deal calls for government control of every single home, office and factory to tear down or retrofit them to comply with massive environmental energy regulations.

• I warned that Agenda 21 Sustainable policy sought to drive those in rural areas off the farms and into the cities where they could be better controlled. Those in the cities will be ordered to convert their gardens into food producers. Most recently I warned that the beef industry is a direct target for elimination. It will start with mandatory decreases in meat consumption until it disappears from our daily diet. The consumption of dairy will follow. Since the revelation of the Green New Deal the national debate is now over cattle emissions of methane and the drive to eliminate them from the planet. Controlling what we eat is a major part of the Green New Deal.

• I warned that part of the plan for Agenda 2030 was “Zero Economic Growth.” The Green New Deal calls for a massive welfare plan where no one earns more than anyone else. Incentive to get ahead is dead. New inventions would disrupt their plan for a well-organized, controlled society. So, where will jobs come from after we have banned most manufacturing, shut down most stores, stopped single-family home construction, closed the airline industry, and severely regulated farms and the entire food industry? This is their answer to the hated free markets and individual choice.

The Green New Deal will destroy the very concept of our Constitutional Republic, eliminating private property, locally elected representative government, free markets and individual freedom. All decisions in our lives will be made for us by the government — just to protect the environment of course. They haven’t forgotten how well that scheme works to keep the masses under control.
Though the label “Green New Deal” has been passing around globalist circles for a while, it’s interesting that its leaders have now handed it to a naïve, inexperienced little girl from New York who suddenly found herself rise from bartending to a national media sensation, almost over night. That doesn’t just happen and there is no miracle here. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a created product. They probably needed her inexperienced enthusiasm to deliver the Green New Deal because no established politician would touch it. Now that it’s been introduced and she is set up to take the heat, the gates have swung open allowing forty-five members of Congress to co-sponsor it in the House of Representatives as established Senator Ed. Markey (D-MA) has sponsored it in the Senate. That doesn’t just happen either. Nothing has been left to chance.
Behind the sudden excitement and rush to support it are three radical groups each having direct ties to George Soros, including the Sunrise Movement — which markets itself as an “army of young people” seeking to make climate change a major priority. Justice Democrats — which finds and recruits progressive candidates, and New Consensus — organized to change how we think about issues. Leaders of these groups have connections with other Soros-backed movements including Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street. According to the New Yorker magazine, the plan was written over a single weekend in December, 2018. Ocasio-Cortez was included in the effort, chosen to introduce it. This may be the single reason why she was able to appear out of nowhere to become the new darling of the radical left.

So there you have it — Agenda 21, the Millennium Project, Agenda 2030, the Green New Deal. Progress in the world of Progressives! They warned us from the beginning that their plan was the “comprehensive blueprint for the reorganization of human society.” And so it is to be the total destruction of our way of life.
To all of those elected officials, local, state and federal, who have smirked at we who have tried to sound the alarm, look around you now, hot shots! You have denied, ignored, and yet, helped put these very plans into place. Are you prepared to accept what you have done? Will you allow your own homes and offices to be torn down — or will you be exempt as part of the elite or just useful idiots? Will you have to give up your car and ride your bike to work? Or is that just for we peasants?

Over these years you have listened to the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund, ICLEI, the American Planning Association, and many more, as they assured you their plans were just environmental protection, just good policy for future generations. They have been lying to you to fulfill their own agenda! Well, now the truth is right in front of you. There is no question of who and what is behind this. And no doubt as to what the final result will be.

Now, our elected leaders have to ask real questions. As the Green New Deal is implemented, and all energy except worthless, unworkable wind and solar are put into place, are you ready for the energy curfews that you will be forced to impose, perhaps each night as the sun fades, forcing factories, restaurants, hospitals, and stores to close at dusk? How about all those folks forced to live in the stack and pack high-rises when the elevators don’t operate? What if they have an emergency?

How much energy will it take to rebuild those buildings that must be destroyed or retrofitted to make them environmentally correct for your brave new world? Where will it come from after you have banned and destroyed all the workable sources of real energy? What are you counting on to provide you with food, shelter, and the ability to travel so you can continue to push this poison? Because — this is what’s trending — now! And how is it going to be financed when the entire economy crashes under its weight? Is it really the future you want for you, your family, and your constituents who elected you?

Every industry under attack by this lunacy should now join our efforts to stop it. Cattlemen, farmers, airlines, the auto industry, realtors, tourist industry, and many more, all will be put out of business — all should now take bold action to immediately kill this plan before it kills your industry. Stomp it so deeply into the ground that no politician will ever dare think about resurrecting it.
For years I’ve watched politicians smirk, roll their eyes, and sigh whenever the words Agenda 21 were uttered. As George Orwell said, “The further a society drifts from the truth the more it will hate those who speak it.” Today I stand vindicated in my warnings of where Agenda 21 was truly headed, because it’s not longer me having to reveal the threat. They are telling you themselves. Here’s the naked truth — Socialism is for the stupid. The Green New Deal is pure Socialism. How far its perpetrators get in enforcing it depends entirely on how hard you are willing to fight for freedom. Kill socialism now or watch freedom die.

(Tom DeWeese is one of the nation’s leading advocates of individual liberty, free enterprise, private property rights, personal privacy, back-to-basics education and American sovereignty and independence. He serves as Founder and President of the American Policy Center and editor of The DeWeese Report).

Oscar®-Nominated ROMA Star Yalitza Aparicio to Appear as Keynote Speaker During International Labour Organization (ILO) Centenary Celebration

Appearance to Commemorate International Women’s Day on March 8

by the El Reportero’s wire services

GENEVA – March 6, 2019 – Today, it was announced that Yalitza Aparicio, the Oscar®-nominated star of three-time Academy Award®-winning film ROMA, will make a special appearance during the International Labour Organization (ILO) centenary celebration at its headquarters in Geneva. The event kicks off March 7 with a free screening of Oscar® winner Alfonso Cuarón’s ROMA, followed by a panel discussion with Aparicio, Marcelina Bautista, Secretary-General of Mexico’s National Union of Workers and Domestic Workers, and Claire Hobden, ILO Technical Officer on Vulnerable Workers.

In addition to the screening, Aparicio will take part in the ILO’s International Women’s Day celebration held on March 8. Titled, “A Quantum Leap for Gender Equality: For a Better Future of Work for All,” the event will include Aparicio as the featured speaker offering insights into her personal experiences as an indigenous woman, as well as her work experiences as an educator and actress. Aparicio will be part of a high-level conversation, moderated by journalist Femi Oke, that also will include Guy Ryder, Director General of the ILO, and public and private sector leaders on gender and the world of work and entertainment.

Oakland teachers fight for public education

Article and photo by David Bacon

Students and parents have come out en masse to join the marches and picket lines of the ongoing teachers strike in Oakland, California. All say that they are trying to save the city’s public school system.

“This is a strike to save our district,” said Heath Madom, who’s taught 10th grade English for three years at Oakland Technical High School, which is referred to as “Tech” by educators and pupils. “Our Tech community is committed to saving public education. Twenty-four schools are on the chopping block. We could become like New Orleans, with no public schools and all charters, if this keeps going.”

Like other teacher strikes around the country, the Oakland conflict is fueled both by a determination to protect the public school system itself and by the crisis in funding that has led to huge classes and deteriorating conditions in the schools themselves. According to Madom and the Oakland Education Association, only 5 percent of the district’s 37,000 students have passed through their schools’ doors over the last three days – evidence of vehement parent and community support.

Parents, students and teachers all condemn the rise in class sizes. “My class is a catch-all, because all students have to take it, so class size is a huge issue,” said Rho Seidelman, who’s taught ethnic studies at Tech for three years. “There’s no tracking, which is great, because we have students from all backgrounds and previous schools. But it’s hard to build community among the students when there are so many. The contract says 32 is the limit, and I routinely have at least 33. Research shows that the best learning environment is in a class of 18, where students can really learn and build community. When students are absent and my class size goes down to 28 or 26, I’m really happy.”

Madom says most classes at Tech have 35-40 students, and the school, built for 1,800, has a student body of 2,000. “We only have two part-time nurses for 2,000 students, and they don’t have the time or resources to deal with all their medical problems. We have a beautiful library, but haven’t had a librarian for years. Our counselors have a caseload of 500 students apiece. If they saw every student, they would only be able to spend a few minutes with each,” Madom said. The hiring of more nurses, librarians and counselors is part of the strike demands of the union, the Oakland Education Association, which is affiliated with the National Education Association (NEA).

Teachers’ pay is also part of the strike demands. The union wants a 12 percent raise over 3 years, and the district is stuck at 7 percent with a bonus. “The only reason I can live in Oakland is because I live with a partner who has a good income,” Seidelman said. “What I make is not enough to live here. I’m still paying off my school loans, and rent takes up almost half my income. My job would clearly be improved if we won the demands of our strike, and I, and other teachers too, would be more likely to stay.”

“People here are struggling,” Madom added. “Some teachers are commuting long distances to get here. We had seven excellent teachers leave this year, including two English teachers with more than five years [of] experience.”

Prior to the strike, a state fact-finder’s report found that the teacher retention crisis in Oakland is worse than most other districts in the state, which the state attributes to substandard pay, the lowest among the Bay Area’s districts. The fact-finder also mandated reducing class sizes, especially for special education classes, and concluded that school privatization was hurting students.

Slating 24 schools for closure is part of the privatization regime, Madom argued, adding that the closures are hitting communities that have been historically underserved the hardest. “At the same time, the district has allowed charter schools to proliferate, which is a direct reason why enrollment has declined in public schools they now want to close,” Madom added. “Yet there’s no discussion of closing any of the charters.” Those charter schools already enroll 13,000 students in Oakland.

Seidelman said these priorities are part of a culture in Oakland that favors development to benefit the affluent. “If it was up to a popular vote, our community would support the strike’s demands overwhelmingly. But our community is not in control of the basic decisions in the city. The strike has exposed the political corruption in Oakland city politics. The terrible condition of our schools is a consequence of the policies imposed by business interests. The resources of the city go to gentrification, which benefits them, but not our communities. It’s true all over the country, which is why there are strikes now in so many places. It’s not just a problem of Oakland.”

But the national teachers’ strike wave is challenging those priorities. “It’s shifting the narrative on public education,” Madom said. “The charter industry has claimed that poor students don’t get the education they deserve because of poor teachers. Public school teachers haven’t been heard until now. We do need great teachers, but the problems of our schools aren’t due to individual teachers. The district for years hasn’t funded classrooms adequately, but the state also has grossly underfunded education. California has a massive amount of wealth. I can’t believe we’re living in one of the richest states in the country, and yet there’s no money for education. We’re tired of putting up with austerity. The strike wave is happening because teachers are standing up, and saying ‘enough is enough’.”

After talks broke down on February 24, sending the strike into its third day, Keith Brown, president of the Oakland Education Association, told reporters that the district had “returned to the table without a proposal that would begin to meet our core bargaining demands [which include an obligation to] fully fund our schools and provide a living wage to keep teachers in Oakland.”

Novelist Alice Walker was among many celebrities and political figures to rally behind the teachers. “You should be given, really, anything you ask for,” she said in a letter. “It is criminal that you are not. Especially when we see it is the war effort, more often than not, that is supported lavishly. An effort that often cuts short the very lives you have lovingly prepared to live with understanding and intelligence in this world. Know that you have sisters and brothers who stand with you, heart to heart.”

The majority of the following photographs were taken on the strike’s first day, February 21, when teachers, parents and students rallied in front of the Oakland City Hall, and then marched through downtown streets to the offices of the Oakland Unified School District.

Not your average art fair: affordable art, inclusive vibes at Mexico City’s Material

Material Art Fair returns with its sixth edition and continues to grow on the world stage

by the El Reportero’s news services

Mexico City’s Material Art Fair has built itself over the past six years to become one of the world’s preeminent independent contemporary art fairs, this year featuring 73 galleries from 22 countries and 37 cities – the most geographically diverse to date.

In addition to the international showing, the fair features 18 Mexican galleries, with Mexico City favorites, LABOR, joségarcia and Lulu among them. Material has made a name for itself partly for its fellowship with the community it espouses, welcoming art fans of all levels with open arms.

This will mark Material’s second year at Frontón México, a breathtaking Art Deco-era jai alai stadium at the foot of the Monument to the Revolution in Colonia Tabacalera.

Rodrigo Feliz, partner and exhibitor liaison, says, “We’ve never seen this level of competition in the fair’s application process.

A first-time exhibitor, Jack Hanley Gallery will be showing Massachusetts-based painter Emma Kohlmann’s stylized hieroglyphic works on paper, representations of a sort of modern artifact. Lindner-Sutti explains, “The imagery of Emma’s works is heavily influenced by ancient figurines, statues and mythological narratives which relate perfectly to a city like Mexico City with such a rich history and culture. In a more practical sense, her works on paper are still very affordable which makes them accessible to a broad, young audience and collector base.”

The fair will certainly continue to grow within the establishment as the years progress, but its fresh outlook is a welcome comfort. Future Gallery, showing an international roster this year of Romanian artist Botond Keresztesi, Lithuanian duo Pakui Hardware and Mexican artist Julieta Gil, has been an exhibitor since the fair’s inception.

Mercedes Gómez, director of Future Mexico City, explains, “Mexico hasn’t fully defined itself in the international art community and neither has Material. It’s as if they’re both finding their identities together.”

Material opened to the public at on Thursday, Feb. 7 through Sunday 10. https://material-fair.com/en/. (by Andy Hume).

The Caribbean to Star Cinelatino Festival in France

Film production from the Caribbean will take center stage at the forthcoming Cinelatino festival, scheduled from March 22 to 31 in the city of Toulouse, in southern France, the organizing committee announced.

According to the statement, ‘if Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti are the driving forces, a large number of small islands also focus on the cinematographic landscape.’

Therefore, the 31st edition of Cinelatino will also emphasize the seventh art produced in Aruba, Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Curacao, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and the Bahamas.

Many of these films ‘reveal how countries radically transformed in the political and social level are living the uncertainty of their future,’ the text added.

Likewise, it continued, they are works that explore daily life and personal dramas with new energy, in genres such as fiction, urban dramas, multiple stories anchored in that kaleidoscope region.
Wealth also comes from the multiplicity of languages, since there are films in English, French, Creole, among other languages.

The statement highlighted the participation of specialists such as the Haitian actor James Noel and the young Cuban producer Claudia Calviño, who will make reference to the development of cinema in her country in recent years with a leading role of women filmmakers and producers.

86 years ago, Hitler carried out a “false flag”

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Dear readers:

Perhaps many of you have used – in political discussions – a political arguments that you picked up in the internet, and which contradicts a government statement, but it hasn’t been publicized in the mainstream media – which is the thermometer that people use to consider a story to be true. So then, you don’t believe it.

In other words, if it hasn’t been published in your everyday news outlet, then it can’t be true – you assume. Then your statement is considered a ‘conspiracy theory,” not believable. But as we will see in the following article, written by John Vibes, a lot of times we find out later, that the so called “conspiracy theory, was true. – Marvin Ramírez

86 years ago, Hitler carried out a “false flag” showing how gov’t can control with lies and fear

Today is the anniversary of one of the most pivotal false flags in history as Hitler burned down Reichstag and blamed it on his political enemies so he could seize total control of the country

by John Vibes
The Free Thought Project

“The whole truth about the Reichstag fire will probably never be known. Nearly all those who knew it are now dead, most of them slain by Hitler in the months that followed.” ~ Historian William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

On this date, 86 years ago, the headquarters for the German parliament, known as the Reichstag building, was burned down due to arson. Immediately after the fires, the Nazis passed a piece of tyrannical legislation called the “decree for the protection of state and people,” which gave them total police state control over the population.

The fires were blamed on Hitler’s political rivals, which allowed the regime to be extremely aggressive against anyone they deemed to be their enemies. However, many historians believe that it was actually the Nazi party who started the fire, in a plot to control the masses through fear.
This strategy is actually common in history, and has been used by many governments and has come to be known as a “false flag attack.” Unfortunately, over the years this legitimate military term has been grossly overused to the point where people think that it is some throw-away conspiracy theory. False flag attacks do happen though, and there is even verified proof that the US government has been involved in such operations.

For example, it was a false flag attack that caused the United States to enter the Vietnam war, but it wasn’t until 40 years later that we learned the truth about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
Initially, the American public was told that American ships were attacked by North Vietnamese boats, but the whole story was a twisted web of lies. In reality, the US warships initiated conflict with the North Vietnamese, and then later staged an attack against themselves to justify further action in the region.

Since the beginning of empire, the ruling class has created chaos in their societies so they could be given more power, under the pretense that they would clean up the mess that they actually created. The first ruler that we know of to perfect the art of creating chaos was the Roman emperor Diocletian who came to power in 284 AD.

This is the “leader” that was responsible for changing Rome from a developing civilization into a covert dictatorship. Since the Roman people had a history of freedom and financial prosperity, they were not going to give up their rights unless they were carefully manipulated into doing so. Diocletian needed to create an enemy that he could use as a scapegoat so he could raise taxes, expand his military, and take away the rights of the Roman citizens.

His policies were unpopular and he was having difficulty getting his people to fall in line, so he set his own palace on fire twice in two weeks and blamed it on his political and religious rivals. With his new powers, Diocletian completely reorganized the Roman political system to work like a dictatorship, but he continued to call it a democracy so the people would still think they were free. Diocletian’s approach has been used over and over by authoritarian rulers throughout history who manipulated their people into giving up their freedom.

Many people doubt that these types of plots are possible since they seem so elaborate and require so much cooperation and secrecy, but it is not far-fetched to think that the government is capable of pulling something like this off, and there is evidence of this in history to prove this as well.
The US government has even released documentation, proving they planned multiple false flags.
According to minutes from a meeting on March 22, 1962, held by the “Special Group (Augmented),” which according to an encyclopedia on the Central Intelligence Agency, included Attorney General Robert Kennedy, CIA Director John McCone, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Lemnitzer, detailing the creation of a false flag attack on the United States to be blamed on the Soviets.

According to the documents, the US government wanted to manufacture or obtain Soviet aircraft so they could launch an attack on America or friendly bases and use those attacks as a pretext for war.
According to the previously Top Secret classified documents:

“There is a possibility that such aircraft could be used in a deception operation designed to confuse enemy planes in the air, to launch a surprise attack against enemy installations or in a provocation operation in which Soviet aircraft would appear to attack U.S. or friendly installations in order to provide an excuse for U.S. intervention.”

Many of the accusations that are brought up against the government that get labeled as conspiracy theories are eventually proven to be true way after the fact. The official stories of many world-changing events, including the USS Maine, USS Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, Vietnam, are all drastically different than the government and media have led us to believe.

Victor’s justice: The truth about the International Criminal Court

N O T E F R O M THE EDITOR

Dear readers:

Many of you have heard about how certain government officials in Nicaragua and Venezuela could face criminal charges in the International Criminal Court. But do most of you really know what the Court is about? Here I share an article by investigative journalist James Corbett that will provide you with some good light and learning about this world body of “justice”
by James Corbett

As a well-known adage holds: “To the victor go the spoils.” But it might well add: “Meanwhile, the losers go to the gallows.” This is the logic of vic- tor’s justice. It is the logic of the Treaty of Versailles, which demanded unpay- able reparations from the vanquished German nation.

It is the logic of the To- kyo War Crimes Tribunal, where perpetrators of war crimes pronounced judgement on the war crimes of the defeated. It is the logic of Abu Ghraib, where the US military tortured and killed its enemy captives.

Throughout human history, victorious nations have gone too far in exacting revenge from their defeated foes. The entire notion of “international law”—from the Geneva Conventions to the International Law Commission to the International Criminal Court—has been sold to the public as a check against this unfortunate tendency to impose victor’s justice on the fallen. But just as history is written by the winners, so, too, is justice decided by the victors, and the case of the International Criminal Court is the prime example of that. Think of international war crimes in the recent era and what comes to mind? America’s wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan based on premeditated lies about weapons of mass destruction and 9/11? The indefinite detention of captives at Camp X-ray, Guantanamo, or other military prisons that resulted from those illegal wars? Israel’s use of white phosphorous.

in its 2009 massacre of civilians in Gaza? Saudi Arabia’s campaign of genocide in Yemen (made possible by Uncle Sam’s unwavering support)? Well, let’s compare that list of violations of interna- tional law to the list of “situ- ations” that the International Criminal Court has inves- tigated since its formation in 2003. Notice anything? Like how not a single one of those glaring war crimes we just noted are anywhere on the list? Or how every single one of those inves- tigations (save one) tar- geted an African conflict? No justice for Afghanistan. No justice for Iraq. No justice for Palestine. No justice for Yemen. No justice for any victims of any Western-allied aggression. Make no mistake: These “omissions” are not by accident but by design. The most recent demonstration of this fact—as if another demonstration were needed—came late last month when senior ICC judge Christoph Flüg- ge resigned in disgust over American meddling with the court’s activities. Actually, “meddling” is the way many of the headline writers chose to frame America’s interference with the ICC,
but that word doesn’t quite do justice to the situation, if you’ll pardon the pun. Let’s put it as plainly as possible: Judge Flügge resigned because the US had directly threatened ICC judges and prosecutors for even threatening to look into the possibility that Americans had violated international law in Afghanistan. I k n o w, I k n o w : You need a minute to recover from this shock. The story starts in 2017, when the ICC’s chief prosecutor conducted a preliminary investigation into US war crimes in Afghanistan, finding “a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity” were committed in the country by US military personnel. Logically, the prosecutor followed up by announcing that she would formally request an investigation by the ICC into the charges. Apparently, this particular prosecutor hadn’t received the memo that the ICC is only to be used to prosecute African despots in kangaroo courts, and that Americans are off limits. To make sure that everyone did have the memo, Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, hand delivered it during his very first speech after joining the Trump administration. “The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court,” he warned, adding “we will fight back” against the ICC. And then, just in case the message wasn’t quite clear enough, he added: “We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will

Will growers’ demands for wage cuts get help from the U.S. government?

by David Bacon

California growers have complained of a tight labor market for years, as a militarized border and a decade of mass deportations restrict the flow of migrants into the fields. Some growers, like Salinas’ D’Arrigo Brothers Co., have signed union contracts and provided better wages and benefits in order to attract a stable workforce. Others, however, are actively seeking to hold wages down. This recipe for confrontation has produced an escalating legal battle in Washington DC, and a walkout by hundreds of tangerine pickers in the Central Valley.

Growers have increasingly turned to H-2A visas for guest workers, with the decade ending in 2018 seeing a more than 370 percent increase, with no decline in sight. In Washington DC, the National Council of Agricultural Employers, a national lobbying organization for U.S. growers, filed suit in January against the U.S. Department of Labor to freeze the wages of H-2A guest workers at a level barely above the minimum wage.

H-2A workers are recruited by growers every year in other countries, mainly Mexico. They’re given visas for less than a year, which require them to work for the employer that contracts them. They must leave the country when their work is done. Growers have to advertise for local workers first, and can only bring in guest workers if none are available.

Companies using the H-2A program must apply to the U.S. Department of Labor, specifying the work, and the living conditions and wages workers will receive. Each year the Federal government sets state-by-state an Adverse Effect Wage Rate – the wage growers must pay H-2A workers. It is set at a level that supposedly won’t undermine the wages of local workers, but it’s usually just slightly above the minimum wage. In 2019 the AEWR wage in California is set to increase from $13.18/hour to $13.92. California’s minimum wage, for employers with more than 25 workers, will go to $12.00.

On Jan. 8, the day before the new H-2A wages were to go into effect, the NCAE was denied a temporary injunction to halt the increases. The organization then filed suit to roll back AEWR wages to 2018 levels. Michael Marsh, NCAE president and CEO, said the increases were “unsustainable,” and would cost growers “hundreds of millions of dollars.” Agribusiness is being “hammered by unfair retaliatory tariffs,” he charged, in a dig directed against Trump’s trade war with China.

The increases directly affect a sizeable chunk of the farm labor workforce. According to the Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers Survey, the best analysis of farm worker demographics for over two decades, there are about 2.5 million farm workers in the U.S., about three quarters of whom were born outside the U.S., and half of whom are undocumented. Last year growers were certified to bring in 242,762 H-2A workers – a tenth of the total workforce and a number that is rising rapidly. Holding down their wages would save growers a lot of money.

But halting the increase would also impact farm workers as a whole. Farmworker Justice, a Washington DC farm worker advocacy coalition, says the average family’s yearly income is $17,500-$19,999. A quarter of all farm worker families earned below the federal poverty line of $19,790.

Farmworker Justice and the United Farm Workers both requested to intervene in the NCAE suit on the side of the Department of Labor, upholding the wage increases. “The growers’ suit will affect farm workers across the country,” said UFW President Teresa Romero. “If H-2A wages are frozen, fewer farm workers already living here will want to work for them. Growers will have an excuse to bring in more H-2A workers. It’s becoming more like the bracero program.

Growers have challenged the formula used by DoL to calculate the yearly wage increase. Under President George W. Bush they knocked it out, but President Barack Obama reinstated it. Now the AEWR increase formula is being challenged again, under another grower-friendly administration. Last May 24 the secretaries of Agriculture, Homeland Security, State and Labor issued a “H-2A Agricultural Worker Visa Modernization Joint Cabinet Statement” promising to change the program rules “in a way that is responsive to stakeholder concerns and that deepens our confidence in the program as a source of legal and verified labor for agriculture.

While the suit would have a national impact, it is closely connected to California growers. President Tom Nassif of the California-based Western Growers Association belongs to President Trump’s agricultural advisory board, and prominent WGA member Dennis Nuxoll sits on the NCEA executive committee. NCEA President Michael Marsh was CEO of Western United Dairymen and an officer of the Almond Board of California, both headquartered in Modesto.

Farm worker advocates worry that the Trump administration’s Labor Department may not vigorously defend the wage increase against the growers’ legal challenge. “We would intervene in the NCEA suit no matter what,” said Bruce Goldstein, director of Farmworker Justice. “But we are clearly concerned about what position DoL will take in defending against it, in light of the President’s other anti-worker and anti-regulatory actions.”

The suit is one of a number of moves made by growers in the past two years to roll back H-2A wages and protections. At the instigation of the Washington [State] Farm Labor Association (WAFLA), one of the U.S.’s largest H-2A labor contractors, Washington State’s Employment Security Department and the U.S. Department of Labor effectively slashed the legal minimum for farm worker wages by up to $6 per hour. ESD and the Department of Labor agreed with WAFLA to remove an AEWR piece-rate minimum for picking apples, the state’s largest harvest, effectively lowering the harvest wage by as much as a third.

The assault on farm worker wages has also surfaced in Congress as Republicans in the House and Senate introduced bills in the last two years to also end protections for H-2A workers and expand their recruitment. Republicans representing California’s San Joaquin Valley in the House supported these bills, which failed, but two of those representatives were turned out of office in the midterm elections. What attitude their freshman Democratic replacements will take has yet to be seen. Some California Democrats, however, especially Senator Diane Feinstein, have a record of supporting growers’ use of the H-2A program
Senator Feinstein and Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren, however, have reintroduced a bill, the Agricultural Worker Program Act of 2019, which would allow undocumented farm workers to gain legal status by working a minimum number of days, pass security checks, and meet other requirements. “The bill would minimize the need for employers’ use of the H-2A guest worker program by providing a meaningful opportunity for immigration status for the hard-working undocumented farmworkers who put food on our table,” said a statement from Farmworker Justice.

Grower efforts to cut wages have affected workers who are not H-2A visa holders as well. Low wages for farm workers even provoked a strike after New Years, at one of California’s largest agribusiness corporations, the Wonderful Company. On January 11 hundreds of field hands refused to go to work harvesting tangerines in Kern County orchards, after the piece rate they were being paid was lowered from $53 to $48 per bin.

Striking pickers told the media that a fast worker could harvest two bins a day. Assuming an 8-hour day, they would earn about $12 per hour. Some told UFW organizers that they often made less than the $12/hour legal minimum, a violation of state law.

“They’re also told to report to work at a given time, but the work sometimes doesn’t start for a few hours, and they’re not paid for waiting,” said UFW President Teresa Romero. She estimated that there were about 1800 workers on strike on January 11. “They tried to talk with the company, but the company refused to talk with them. We don’t know yet if the management will come to the table. The workers want to work, but they also want to be respected.”

A statement by Mark T. Carmel, director of corporate communications, said Wonderful was “disappointed that some of our third-party labor contractors decided to protest at one of our fields.” A month ago, however, the company said it was raising its wages to a $15/hour minimum in all its subsidiaries, including Wonderful Citrus, Wonderful Pistachios & Almonds, Wonderful Orchards, Wonderful Nurseries, POM Wonderful, JUSTIN Wines and Landmark Wines.

Wonderful’s billionaire owner, Los Angeles investor Stewart Resnick, called his workers “dedicated and hard-working employees … our greatest asset, and the reason for our tremendous success as a company.” Co-owner Lynda Resnick added “this substantial investment in our workers will have an immediate and meaningful impact on their lives.”

The Wonderful Company was known as Paramount Farms until it changed its name in 2015. Its parent corporation, Los Angeles-based Roll Global, also operates the FIJI Water and Teleflora companies. In a 2016 Mother Jones article, writer Josh Harkinson said the Resnicks “are now thought to consume more of the state’s water than any other family, farm, or company. They control more of it in some years than what’s used by the residents of Los Angeles and the entire San Francisco Bay Area combined.”

Paramount Farms had a long history of labor conflict. In 1999 it broke an effort by a thousand workers to join the Laborers Union, in its huge packing plant near Lost Hills on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. At the time the company issued a press release saying that “employees are doing well and do not need a union,” and that its pay and benefits “are superior to most employers in the area.” In 2002, however, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that it had illegally threatened workers with firing, and had illegally fired Margarita Aviso and Leticia Ortiz for supporting the union.

Romero said that workers, meeting at the UFW’s historic “40 Acres” headquarters in Delano, on January 14 discussed the possibility of organizing a union, filing a petition for an election at Wonderful, and bargaining a contract. During the day the company offered to reinstate the $53/bin wage, and the pickers decided to go back into the orchards the following morning. A statement by Wonderful’s Mark Carmel said, “We’ve resolved the main concern raised by our third-party labor contractors and are currently paying the same bin rate for picking mandarins that we previously paid for clementines. Our workers are back on the job and operations have returned to normal.”

UFW Vice-President Armando Elenes felt they’d taken a big step. “They came out of the strike with real leaders and a good organization,” he said. The strikers are mostly indigenous Mixteco migrants from Oaxaca. Two years ago workers from the same indigenous farm worker community struck the Gourmet Trading Company’s grape vinyards, also over a cut in wages. They then voted for the UFW in a union election, and the company agreed to a union contract covering over 500 employees.

“Our main focus nowadays is trying to talk with the company to avoid conflict,” Romero explained. “But some growers take longer to understand than others that this is a better way. Stewart Resnick is a powerful man. But is he willing to get beyond this and recognize what workers want?”