Monday, October 19, 2026
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Trump taps lawyer known for his crackdown of key civil rights

Kenneth Marcus’ recent career has been largely focused on litigation targeting Palestine solidarity activists on U.S. college campuses, as well as on attempts to eradicate criticism of the Israeli state in educational institutions nationwide

by Whitney Webb

Laws preventing American citizens from choosing to boycott the nation of Israel have been cropping up across the country, most recently in Wisconsin and Maryland.

Apparently eager to take advantage of the legal push to criminalize dissent targeting the Israeli government, the Trump administration has decided to appoint Kenneth Marcus to a key post in the Department of Education.

Marcus, if confirmed by the Senate, will become the department’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, serving under Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Marcus previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Education at the Office for Civil Rights and then as Staff Director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights under former President George W. Bush.

Marcus’ nomination has raised concerns given that, as president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, he has consistently lobbied the sub-department he may soon lead to essentially ban the Boycott-Divest-Sanctions (BDS) movement – a movement that seeks to advocate for Palestinian rights by refusing to economically support Israel until it complies with international law.

Though he has been hailed as a “Jewish advocate” by several media outlets, Marcus’ career since leaving his last government post has been largely focused on litigation targeting Palestine solidarity activists on U.S. college campuses, as well as on attempts to eradicate criticism of the Israeli state in educational institutions nationwide. Indeed, Marcus once boasted in a letter to supporters of the Brandeis center that his efforts had succeeded in instilling “fear” into BDS activists.

Marcus has consistently argued that allowing criticisms of Israel to be voiced on U.S. college campuses and at other educational institutions is a “violation of the civil rights of Jewish students.” He noted, in a 2013 piece for the Jerusalem Post, that pursuing claims before the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) – the office to which he has now been nominated — is the means by which BDS could be shut down nationwide.

He himself has attempted to do so on numerous occasions, drawing accusations that he has sought to “weaponize” Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Though Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in federal fund-assisted organizations, Marcus has attempted to equate activism against criticism of the Israeli government with anti-Semitism in the numerous Title VI complaints he has brought against Palestinian solidarity activists on college campuses nationwide. Marcus’ firm has brought complaints against college students for a variety of reasons, including the formation of a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter as well as the hosting of guest speakers who support BDS.

“[Marcus] has approached the civil rights division of the DOE as a vehicle to suppress free speech based on nothing more than political disagreement,” Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute, told Mondoweiss.

However, as Marcus himself noted, the results of his efforts have thus far been “disappointing,” as every complaint he and his firm filed were dismissed outright by the OCR, which failed to find evidence of actual anti-Semitism — suggesting that Marcus’ concerns were instead related to political disagreement. Indeed, Marcus’ legal complaints have nearly universally claimed that alleged anti-Semitism is the driving force behind Palestinian solidarity activism, thus equating criticism of the Israeli government with discrimination against Jewish students. This argument, of course, fails to account for the many Jews who criticize Zionism and Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

Also of concern is what Marcus’ appointment could potentially mean for free speech on U.S. college campuses and at other educational institutions. Several of his numerous Title VI complaints brought in front of the OCR were dismissed due to constitutional concerns, specifically First Amendment rights. However, if installed in a key position at the OCR, Marcus would be a safe bet to override such concerns and use the office’s enforcement capabilities to sue or withhold funding from schools that fail to comply with Marcus’ singular view of what constitutes anti-Semitism.

“Marcus has no business enforcing civil rights laws when he has explicitly used such laws to chill the speech activities and violate the civil rights of Arab, Muslim, Jewish, and other students who advocate for Palestinian rights,” said Dima Khalidi, director of Palestine Legal, in a statement. “His appointment will only further the white supremacist and anti-Muslim agenda of the Trump administration.”

(Stories published in our commentary section are chosen based on the interest of our readers. They are republished from a number of sources, and are not produced by El Reportero. The views expressed in these articles are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect El Reportero’s editorial policy).

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Selling out the US to the megabanks

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

I am sharing this interesting article about banking, on how our nation is being sold out to the big banks. Written by Ellen Brown, it exposes what most of us never thought about, of why those small banks who used to give us more personalized services, are disappearing, and the consequences of to our lives and freedoms.

by Ellen Brown
Global Research

Crushing regulations are driving small banks to sell out to the megabanks, a consolidation process that appears to be intentional. Publicly-owned banks can help avoid that trend and keep credit flowing in local economies.

At his confirmation hearing in January 2017, Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin said,
“regulation is killing community banks.”

If the process is not reversed, he warned, we could “end up in a world where we have four big banks in this country.” That would be bad for both jobs and the economy.
“I think that we all appreciate the engine of growth is with small and medium-sized businesses,” said Mnuchin. “We’re losing the ability for small and medium-sized banks to make good loans to small and medium-sized businesses in the community, where they understand those credit risks better than anybody else.”

The number of US banks with assets under $100 million dropped from 13,000 in 1995 to under 1,900 in 2014. The regulatory burden imposed by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act exacerbated this trend, with community banks losing market share at double the rate during the four years after 2010 as in the four years before. But the number had already dropped to only 2,625 in 2010. What happened between 1995 and 2010?

Six weeks after September 11, 2001, the 1,100 page Patriot Act was dropped on congressional legislators, who were required to vote on it the next day. The Patriot Act added provisions to the 1970 Bank Secrecy Act that not only expanded the federal government’s wiretapping and surveillance powers but outlawed the funding of terrorism, imposing greater scrutiny on banks and stiff criminal penalties for non-compliance. Banks must now collect and verify customer-provided information, check names of customers against lists of known or suspected terrorists, determine risk levels posed by customers, and report suspicious persons, organizations and transactions. One small banker complained that banks have been turned into spies secretly reporting to the federal government. If they fail to comply, they can face stiff enforcement actions, whether or not actual money-laundering crimes are alleged.

In 2010, one small New Jersey bank pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Bank Secrecy Act and was fined $5 million for failure to file suspicious-activity and cash-transaction reports. The bank was acquired a few months later by another bank. Another small New Jersey bank was ordered to shut down a large international wire transfer business because of deficiencies in monitoring for suspicious transactions. It closed its doors after it was hit with $8 million in fines over its inadequate monitoring policies.

Complying with the new rules demands a level of technical expertise not available to ordinary mortals, requiring the hiring of yet more specialized staff and buying more anti-laundering software. Small banks cannot afford the risk of massive fines or the added staff needed to avoid them, and that burden is getting worse. In February 2017, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network proposed a new rule that would add a new category requiring the flagging of suspicious “cyberevents.” According to an April 2017 article in American Banker:

[T]he “cyberevent” category requires institutions to detect and report all varieties of digital mischief, whether directed at a customer’s account or at the bank itself.

. . .Under a worst-case scenario, a bank’s failure to detect a suspicious attachment or a phishing attack could theoretically result in criminal prosecution, massive fines and additional oversight.

One large bank estimated that the proposed change with the new cyberevent reporting requirement would cost it an additional $9.6 million every year.

Besides the cost of hiring an army of compliance officers to deal with a thousand pages of regulations, banks have been hit with increased capital requirements imposed by the Financial Stability Board under Basel III, eliminating the smaller banks’ profit margins. They have little recourse but to sell to the larger banks, which have large compliance departments and can skirt the capital requirements by parking assets in off-balance-sheet vehicles.

In a September 2014 article titled “The FDIC’s New Capital Rules and Their Expected Impact on Community Banks,” Richard Morris and Monica Reyes Grajales noted that “a full discussion of the rules would resemble an advanced course in calculus,” and that the regulators have ignored protests that the rules would have a devastating impact on community banks. Why? The authors suggested that the rules reflect “the new vision of bank regulation – that there should be bigger and fewer banks in the industry.”
That means bank consolidation is an intended result of the punishing rules.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, sponsor of the Financial CHOICE Act downsizing Dodd-Frank, concurs. In a speech in July 2015, he said:

Since the passage of Dodd-Frank, the big banks are bigger and the small banks are fewer. But because Washington can control a handful of big established firms much easier than many small and zealous competitors, this is likely an intended consequence of the Act. Dodd-Frank concentrates greater assets in fewer institutions. It codifies into law ‘Too Big to Fail’ . . . .

Dodd-Frank institutionalizes “too big to fail” by authorizing the biggest banks to “bail in” or confiscate their creditors’ money in the event of insolvency. The legislation ostensibly reining in the too-big-to-fail banks has just made them bigger. Wall Street lobbyists were well known to have their fingerprints all over Dodd-Frank. IT WILL CONTINUE ON NEXT WEEK EDITION.

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7 home remedies to get rid of cysts

by Cooper

Women mostly face uterine fibroids and cysts, particularly during childbearing years. Generally these conditions don’t cause discomfort, although for some women, hormonal fluctuations can cause significant pain and bloating. Fibroids, which are also known as myomas, are benign non cancerous tumors that grow on the uterine wall. Ovarian cysts, including polycystic ovary syndrome, are fluid-filled cysts that appear in the ovaries and are fairly common.

7 Home Remedies to Get Rid of Cysts & Fibroids Naturally

Ginger

Ginger root is very effective to reduce the pain and increase blood circulation. You can prepare tea by adding some fresh ginger roots in a glass of boiling water. Strain the tea and drink it many a times in a day. Ginger root also helps reduce inflammation in ovaries and uterus.

Olive Oil

One of the natural cures for fibroids is olive oil. It is known for blocking estrogen. You are required to take one tablespoon of olive oil with some lemon juice on an empty stomach in the morning. You can also prepare olive tea by brewing olive leaves that help boost the immune system.

Epsom Salt Bath

An Epsom salt bath will also greatly help reduce pain and other symptoms associated with ovarian cysts. The high magnesium sulfate content in Epsom salt works as a muscle relaxant that in turn eases pain.

Lemon Juice

One of the other natural remedies for the treatment of fibroids is, lemon juice. Add two teaspoons of lemon juice and one teaspoon of baking soda in a glass of water. Stir the solution well and drink it. To reduce the symptoms of fibroids, drink this solution on a regular basis.

Beetroot

Beetroot contains a compound known as betacyanin that boosts the liver’s ability to clear toxins out of your system. Plus, the alkaline nature of beetroot helps balance the acidity in your body. This in turn reduces the severity of many symptoms of ovarian cysts.

Flaxseed

Flaxseed helps balance the proportion of estrogen to progesterone in your body. This will help reduce the cysts. Plus, flaxseeds are rich in fiber that helps the body eliminate harmful toxins, cholesterol and other waste products processed by the liver.

Folk Remedy against Cysts and Fibroids

Ingredients:

10.5 oz / 300 g leaves of houseleek
17.5 oz / 500 g honey

Method of preparation:
Chop the leaves of the houseleek and add the honey. Leave thus for 2-3 days, until they are well soaked.

Use:

You should consume this remedy first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach, and you should not eat anything in the next 2 hours as well.
This remedy is extremely beneficial for stimulating your metabolism and cleansing your body of toxins, which makes it really effective especially during the winter months. (Natural News).

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Border-wall wedding couple’s only option

Gates open for three-minute ceremony at Friendship Park

by El Reportero’s wire services

Three years after meeting at a Tijuana taco restaurant, a binational couple married Saturday at the only place they could: in the shadow of the border fence.

Brian Houston, a resident of San Diego, told the San Diego Union Tribune that he couldn’t go into Tijuana for the wedding although he declined to explain why.

His bride, Evelia Reyes, originally from Guerrero but now a resident of Tijuana, cannot legally enter the United States.

So the couple decided to tie the knot on a narrow strip of land between the two countries known as Friendship Park.

Shortly after midday, three U.S. Border Patrol agents opened the heavy gates at Playas de Tijuana, a coastal area of the northern border city where the dividing barrier stretches into the Pacific Ocean.

It was just the sixth time since 2013 that the gates — known colloquially as the Door of Hope — had been opened but the first time ever that they had enabled a bride and groom to unite in marriage. However, there was no time for a long and elaborate ceremony.

In just three short but precious minutes, Houston, dressed in a light gray suit, and his bride wearing a long white wedding gown and veil, were able to come together to exchange rings, sign Mexican marriage documents, pose for photos, hug, kiss and become husband and wife.

Family members of the bride and groom were also able to meet briefly, embrace and share in the occasion before returning to their side of the fence. Members of the press from both countries attended to document the historic moment.

In stark contrast to the coming together of the two extended families, just over 20 kilometers away lie eight 30-meter-high border wall prototypes made by companies eager to make President Donald Trump’s controversial proposal a reality.

But both Houston and Reyes said that a border wall is no deterrent to their love.

Houston said the couple had deliberately chosen to get married at the border to highlight that a physical barrier cannot prevent the love that they, and others, feel for each other.

“It’s a statement that love has no borders. Even though we are divided by a giant fence here, we can still love each other on both sides of the fence,” he said.

Reyes reiterated her husband’s words saying that their marriage “is a message for everyone that there is no wall that can stop love.”

The couple worked with the director of the Border Angels group, which facilitates the infrequent openings at the border, to organize the wedding.

They have also hired an immigration lawyer so that Reyes can eventually join her husband in the U.S., although the process could take up to a year.

Border Angels head Enrique Morones, who has long advocated for immigration reform, said the organization hoped to facilitate more gate openings next year to enable more families separated by the border — in some cases for many years — to reunite, albeit briefly.

“While some people want to build walls, we want to open doors,” he said.

Source: Frontera (sp), The San Diego Union Tribune (en)

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Rethinking butter and cheese

by Ben Fuchs

If you love butter and cheese, you’re gonna love this! Recently a study was published in the respected British Medical Journal showing evidence that 60 years of government and medical convention that linked cardiovascular disease to fat consumption was based on bad science.
The article scientifically corroborated last years’ Time Magazine cover story on the failures of the so-called “Lipid Hypothesis” (lipid is the scientific designation for fat), which incorrectly blamed excessive consumption of dairy products, meat and other fatty foods for heart attacks. The article entitled Eat Butter admitted that after years of proclaiming fats as villains, it turns out, they may have been mistaken.
Now in fairness, Time Magazine and representatives of the medical model can be forgiven for their ignorance. Fats are confusing! There’s good fats, bad fats, shorts fat, long fats, saturated fats and unsaturated fats. Because of their tremendous diversity and functionality, no aspect of nutrition or diet is harder to understand than the chemistry of lipids.

Dietary and nutritional fats are called triglycerides. They’re composed of building blocks called “fatty acids” which come in three sizes: large, medium and small. While all three play an important role in keeping the body healthy, the effects of the short fats (or as they are more technically called, short chain fatty acids or SCFAs) are particularly significant, if unrecognized. These little molecular fatty structures play an especially huge role in the health of the intestine. Via this link, they have an effect on the whole body.

SCFAs are made in the large intestine by fiber munching bacteria which secrete the fatty molecules as a byproduct. SCFAs can also be ingested via the diet. From the intestine, these tiny lipids readily enter into blood circulation and travel throughout the body, eventually entering into the brain.

An increase in SCFA concentration in the blood is one of the main signals for appetite suppression. In essence, SCFAs biochemically curb the appetite and, in essence, represent a type of fat that helps you drop pounds. Eat butter, lose weight! While it may seem like fat is fat and it just sits around on our thighs or hips and does nothing, from a biological perspective, fats are quite active as messenger molecules, telling the body and brain what’s happening in the digestive system. They are signaling molecules. Once this is understood, it becomes clear why the outdated dietician and medical advice to avoid all fat is bad science and bad health advice.

Short fats can have brain health benefits too, especially when comes to calming things down. This fact explains the important link between the intestine and the brain, the so-called gut-brain axis, and its relationship to the development of schizophrenia, autism and mental health issues in general. Via this SCFA mechanism, the somewhat counter-intuitive notion (after all the intestine is located about as far away from the brain as you can get) that “what we eat affects how we think” can be explained.

All SCFAs have a calming effect, the most significant of which, as far as relaxation benefits are concerned, is called butyric acid: the chemical that gives butter its characteristic qualities and taste. The bacteria that produce butyric acid kick into high gear when food is scarce. Many researchers believe this is the mechanism behind the health benefits associate with fasting.

Butyric acid derivatives induced by caloric restriction may have a mitigating effect on pain and inflammation. That’s what scientists from Yale School of Medicine concluded in an article that was published in the journal Nature Medicine Even more significantly, the researchers found that these benefits may extend to health challenges like atherosclerosis, diabetes and dementia that are typically not associated with inflammatory pain.

All of this means that up-regulating butyric acid and increasing its levels in the blood can be one of the most important and effective of all dietary health strategies. Enjoying butter and cheese, nature’s richest sources of butyric acid is a good idea because butyric acid is produced by a reaction between fiber and microbes that live in the large intestine. You want to make sure you’ve got enough good bacteria and that you’re ingesting generous amounts of veggies, mushrooms and fruits. Get yourself on a good probiotic supplement, look for multiple strains of bacteria, use a daily dose of 10-50 billion units, and make sure you’re eating lots of fermented foods like sauerkraut, miso soup, fresh non-pasteurized kefir and yogurt.

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Extreme digital vetting of visitors to the U.S. moves forward under new name

ICE officials have invited tech companies, including Microsoft, to develop algorithms that will track visa holders’ social media activity

by George Joseph

The Department of Immigration & Customs Enforcement is taking new steps in its plans for monitoring the social media accounts of applicants and holders of U.S. visas. At a tech industry conference last Thursday in Arlington, Virginia, ICE officials explained to software providers what they are seeking: algorithms that would assess potential threats posed by visa holders in the United States and conduct ongoing social media surveillance of those deemed high risk.

The comments provide the first clear blueprint for ICE’s proposed augmentation of its visa-vetting program. The initial announcement of the plans this summer, viewed as part of President Donald Trump’s calls for the “extreme vetting” of visitors from Muslim countries, stoked a public outcry from immigrants and civil liberties advocates. They argued that such a plan would discriminate against Muslim visitors and potentially place a huge number of individuals under watch.

ICE officials subsequently changed the program’s name to “Visa Lifecycle Vetting.” But, according to the ICE presentation, the goal of the initiative — enhanced monitoring of visa holders using social media — remains the same.

Speaking to a room of information-technology contractors, hosted by the Government Technology & Services Coalition, Louis Rodi, deputy assistant director of ICE Homeland Security Investigations’ National Security Program, said the agency needs a tool equipped with “risk-based matrices” to predict dangers posed by visa holders, with the social media of those considered a threat under continuous surveillance throughout their stay in the U.S.

“We have millions and millions and millions of people coming every year, and subsequently departing, so we have to be smart about it,” said Rodi to a room of representatives from companies like Microsoft, Accenture, Deloitte and Motorola Solutions. “And I’m sure there are tools out there that can help.”

For this targeted group of visa holders, ICE’s online monitoring of public social media posts would be large-scale and non-stop. “Everything we’re dealing with is in bulk, so we need batch-vetting capabilities for any of the processes that we have,” said Rodi. Alysa Erichs, ICE Homeland Security Investigations’ acting deputy association director for information management, told attendees that ICE hopes to get automated notifications about any visa holders’ social media activity that could “ping us as a potential alert.”

ICE spokeswoman Carissa Cutrell stressed to ProPublica that the Department of Homeland Security has not actually begun building any such program. “The request for information on this initiative was simply that — an opportunity to gather information from industry professionals and other government agencies on current technological capabilities to determine the best way forward,” Cutrell wrote in an email. The program would require clearance from numerous DHS units, including the Privacy Office and the Principal Legal Advisor, before it could be implemented, according to a federal official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

In his speech, Rodi referred to meetings ICE has had with companies but did not mention any frontrunners. The major tech companies present at the conference, including Microsoft, Accenture and Deloitte, either declined to comment or didn’t respond to ProPublica’s request to comment about their level of interest in providing technology for the vetting program. Microsoft has opposed Trump’s immigration policies, and several Microsoft researchers have publicly called for ICE to stop spying on visitors’ social media.

ICE is already monitoring some social media at eight Homeland Security Investigation posts internationally, Rodi said, and the plan is to expand to more sites. In response to a question posed by ProPublica from the audience, he stated that the department was open to other social media monitoring techniques, such as link analysis (which helps authorities map out applicants’ online connections), so long as they solely rely on public posts.

The ICE officials emphasized the Trump administration’s strict stance. “This administration is big on immigration enforcement, so we’re not going to look the other way like we have in the past when we have overstays,” said Rodi. “Maybe it’s an administrative violation — it’s still a crime. These people need to pay. They can’t get away with it.”

Some analysts argue that gathering social media data is necessary. ICE already has a tool that searches for connections to terrorists, according to Claude Arnold, a former ICE Homeland Security Investigations special agent, now with the security firm Frontier Solutions. But, he said, potential terrorist threats often come from countries, such as Iraq or Syria, that provide little intelligence to U.S. authorities. As a result, in Arnold’s view, social media information is all the more important.

Privacy advocates take a darker view. “ICE is building a dangerously broad tool that could be used to justify excluding, or deporting, almost anyone,” said Alvaro Bedoya, executive director of Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy & Technology. “They are talking about this as a targeted tool, but the numbers tell a different story.”

Bedoya noted that the program outline originally anticipated that the monitoring would identify 10,000 high-risk visa holders a year. That suggests the pool of people under social media surveillance would be many orders of magnitude larger. (ICE officials did not address this point at the conference.)

Last week, a coalition of academics and technologists warned in a public letter that ICE’s interest in using big data algorithms to assess risk is misguided, given how rare it is for foreign visitors to be involved in terrorist attacks in the U.S. That means there’s little historical data to mine in hopes of using it to design a new algorithm. The letter cited a Cato Institute analysis that found that the likelihood of an American dying in a terrorist attack on U.S. soil in any given year was 1 in 3.6 million in the period between 1975 and 2015.

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U2 receive MTV EMAs’ 2017 Global Icon Prize

by the El Reportero’s news services

U2 will receive this year’’s Global Icon prize at the MTV European Music Awards (EMAs) on Sunday.

Bono and others will celebrate the prestigious accolade with a performance at London’s landmark Trafalgar Square on Saturday evening (11.11.17) for MTV Presents Trafalgar Square, ahead of the ceremony.

Bruce Gillmer, Head of Music and Music Talent, Global Entertainment Group, Viacom, said: ‘U2’s impact on music, pop culture and social issues around the world has been tremendous.

For over four decades and counting, they’ve entertained, influenced, and inspired fans around the globe and we’re thrilled and honored to announce that they are this year’s Global Icon.

‘Their EMAs performance for Londoners in historic Trafalgar Square is just the beginning of the electrifying celebration of music where artists from every corner of the world will unite in this extraordinary city!’

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, today (06.11.17) welcomed the special MTV Presents Trafalgar Square event.

He said: ‘London is one of the live music capitals of the world, with an unrivalled music heritage. It is fantastic to host the EMAs in our city for the first time in 21 years. I’m delighted that Trafalgar Square will host this special MTV Presents performance – an iconic venue for an iconic band.

‘I have been saying, loud and clear, that London is open to talent, creativity and business. What better way to showcase this than one of the world’s greatest rock bands performing to Londoners from all backgrounds, for free, in the heart of our great city?’

This year’s EMAs’ host Rita Ora will also take to the stage for a performance.

Other to got the prize before are Eminen, Queen, John Bon Jovi y Whitney Houston.

Leyo and J2 “The King of Re-Imaginations” set to release Sabor a Mi

LEYO and J2 aimed to reinvent the song with a contemporary twist, while maintaining the authentic feeling of romance the lyrics provide. The 1959 classic by composer and singer Alvaro Carrillo was popularized by the Latin trio, Los Panchos.

This new Sabor a Mi pays homage to Carrillo and iconic artist covers by Jose Jose, Javier Solis, and Luis Miguel. Even today the song remains as one of the most beloved Spanish songs of all time.

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Texas church shooter: what no one is saying about the insanity of his previous conviction

by Jon Rappoport

Devin Kelley, the Texas church shooter, was convicted of crimes by a military court in 2012.

Mainstream press outlets are reporting this fact to show he never should have been allowed to purchase a gun after his release from prison—except the Army failed to enter his criminal record in a national database that would have red-flagged him, when he tried to buy several weapons.

But there is another issue.

In 2012, while stationed at Holloman Air Force base, Kelley “pleaded guilty to two charges of assault and battery on his then-wife and aggravated assault on his infant stepson. Five other charges that included multiple incidents in which he allegedly aimed either a loaded or unloaded firearm at his wife were withdrawn as part of the plea deal.” (ABC News)

Kelley kicked and choked his wife a number of times. He fractured his infant stepson’s skull. The Air Force stated Kelley used enough force to kill his stepson or at least cause “grievous bodily harm.” In his plea deal, Kelley admitted he struck his stepson intentionally.

Here is the payoff, from ABC News: “A mixed jury of officers and enlisted personnel sentenced him [Kelley] to a year’s confinement and a reduction in two ranks from an airman first-class (A1C) to airman basic. He also received a bad conduct discharge.”

That sentence is a crime compounded on Kelley’s crimes.

A year’s confinement?

How about 50 years in prison?

What kind of plea deal did the Air Force allow, and why? Who is investigating THAT?

With any sort of reasonable sentence, Kelley would never have shown up at the Texas Church.

Over the years, I’ve looked into numerous crimes of repeat offenders. I’m sure you’ve read reports as well. So-and-so robbed a store and shot the manager. At the time, he was serving probation after a conviction of assault on two teenagers…

What?!

In Kelley’s case, there is obviously some degree of political correctness at work. “Well, he didn’t actually kill anybody, so let’s confine him for a year and demote him…”

As my readers know, I investigate and report on many high-level corporate and government crimes—and the failure to adequately prosecute the offenders. But the same lunacy applies to street-level felonies.

Instead of, “Well, Bob is one of our own, a pillar of the community, so what if he’s poisoning thousands of people with his company’s medical drugs, let’s fine him and let him off with a promise to mend his ways,” it’s: “Well, this fellow had a very tough childhood, his father was a drunk and beat him and his mother, and the neighborhood was dangerous and everyone was in a gang, so let’s give him two years in jail for putting a girl into a coma…”

On the other hand, “Let’s see, this man committed two petty unarmed robberies and then he stole a candy bar from a traveling circus, so that’s three strikes and he goes away for life without parole…”

Devin Kelley should never have been near that Texas Church. He should have been in a lockup, after assaulting his wife many times and fracturing his infant stepson’s skull.

The press doesn’t appear to have noticed this, or if they have, they’ve declined to mention it, because, in their view, prison is some kind of illegitimate institution. It’s wrong, it shouldn’t exist. It’s “unfashionable” to demand tougher prison sentences for any street-level crime.
Fine. In that case, how about an island blocked off from escape by sea? Devin Kelley and those like him, at every level of society, can share roots and tubers, build huts, and try to share their new lives.

And the know-nothings, who reject all punishment for crimes committed against human beings, can swab the decks of ships stationed offshore to prevent the prisoners’ exit from their island paradise.

I wonder how well Devin Kelley’s jury members, from 2012, are sleeping at night.

(Jon Rappoport is he author of three explosive collections, The Matrix Revealed, Exit From The Matrix, and Power Outside The Matrix).

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To celebrate the El Show de Pepe

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

The Pepe Show, led by Pepe González, celebrates eight years of existence. And for that he invites all lovers of good salsa music and Peruvian culture to join in celebrating this anniversary.

Mary Navarro will be a special guest directly from Peru, with the best of Creole music. Also the salsa pride Pepe and His Orquésta.

On Saturday, Nov. 25, 2017, at Club Chalaca Annexo, 428 3rd. St. Oakland, Oakland. For more information call 415-531-9933.

Exhibition of Mechanical Sculptures returns to the Exploratorium

This year’s show features nearly 30 automata, 3 artists in residence, and workshops teaching visitors to build their own automata

On Nov. 16, the Exploratorium’s returning winter exhibition, Curious Contraptions, will open to the public. The collection of automata features the work of eleven artists from around the world and gives visitors a chance to interact firsthand with charming and often hilarious mechanical objects brought to life by intricate arrangements of handmade cams, cranks, and other simple mechanisms.

“I’m so excited about this year’s show,” says Nicole Minor, who curates the seasonal Curious Contraptions exhibition.

The Exploratorium is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Every Thursday, the museum reopens from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. for adults only. For more about how to get here, visit exploratorium.edu/directions. For tickets and pricing information, visit exploratorium.edu/tickets.

Annual fundraising event honoring excellence in the art of film

SFFILM has announced the date and venue for SFFILM Awards Night (formerly the Film Society Awards Night), its annual fund-raising celebration that pays tribute to filmmaking achievement. The historic 60th anniversary edition of this glamorous event and awards presentation will take place on Tuesday night December 5 at the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts, 39 Mesa Street, Suite 110, The Presidio, San Francisco.

JUNTOS Collective joins the Global #GivingTuesday Movement

JUNTOS Collective will participate in it’s second annual  #GivingTuesday, hosting Voices: An Evening of Untold Stories. This event, open to the general public, will honor JUNTOS supporters, and invite new faces to hear stories and share dances from past program participants. The event will include drinks and small bites, performance shorts, guest speakers and unique raffle prizes.

JUNTOS Collective, a non-profit organization enabling free contemporary dance workshops and performances in underserved communities of Guatemala, Mexico and Nicaragua, joined #GivingTuesday last year, inspired by the generosity, collaboration and philanthropy that the movement encouraged. The organization was able to successfully raise the funds to sponsor 3 trips abroad during this global day of giving.

One of the many stories supported by this fundraiser, involves the journey of Megan Stricker, a JUNTOS Alumni who had the opportunity to live and teach dance in Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, Oaxaca this past summer. Megan taught dance to a community of Mixe people for four weeks, one of Mexico’s oldest indigenous cultures.

On Dec. 2 at The Golden Stateroom. Tickets to Voices: An Evening of Untold Stories can be purchased in advance at http://bit.ly/JUNTOSvoices.

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No pyramid photos without a permit

Photographer was ‘trespassing’ when he used a drone to take photo at Chichén Itzá

by the El Reportero’s news services

A breathtaking pre-dawn aerial photograph of the Kukulcán pyramid in Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, got its author instant online notoriety — and legal action by Mexican authorities.

César Mendiburu Heredia used a drone to take the photo, which he shared on the social news aggregator Reddit. The accompanying caption indicated the photographer knew he could be in trouble.

“I took this aerial (and probably illegal?) photo of Chichén Itzá last weekend.”

Mendiburu did not break any drone regulations but the device he used to shoot Chichén Itzá is considered by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) as special photographic equipment.

As such, he should have completed an official form and paid 10,227 pesos (about US $540) if he wanted to shoot video, or 5,113 pesos ($270) if he only wanted to take photographs.

INAH’s legal liaison José Arturo Chab Cárdenas told El País that since the archaeological zone is property of the nation, it is subject to several federal laws. According to those regulations, Mendiburu’s photograph is illegal, because it was shot at a time when the archaeological zone was not open to the general public.

Even if the photo was obtained through a remotely operated vehicle, “it’s trespassing . . . it’s like breaking into a museum in the wee hours of the morning.”

In a press release issued on Wednesday, INAH said it had began a legal process against Mendiburu, as the photograph contravened the federal law on archaeological, artistic and historic monuments and zones. – Compiled by Mexico News Daily.
Source: El País (sp), El Universal (sp)

Havana Film Festival to Pay Tribute to James Ivory

The 39th International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema, which will take place in this capital city from December 8th to 17th, will pay tribute to U.S. director James Ivory with eight films from his fruitful career, said organizers today.

Ivory will be paid homage by screening films he shot between the mid-1980s and 2005, including the awarded films ‘The remains of the day’ and ‘Return to Howards End,’ said president of the festival Pavel Giroud.

The films to honor Ivory, 89, also include ‘Mr. and Mrs. Bridge’, ‘A Room with a View’, ‘The White Countess’, ‘The City of Your Final Destination’, ‘Jefferson in Paris’ and ‘Le Divorce’.

The 39th International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema, which is the most important cinema event organized in Cuba, will also pay tribute to the October Revolution on occasion of its centenary, with a restored copy of ‘October’, a silent film by Russian great filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, premiered in 1928 and considered a classic film.

The 39th International Festival of New Latin American Cinema will be held in 10 movie theaters of Havana, in which more than 400 films from the region and other parts of the world will be screened.

More than 9,000 files about Chinese philosopher Confucius go digital

More than 9,000 archives from philosopher Confucius, which became one of the greatest symbols of China, have gone digital with the aim of preserving and disseminating them among the new generations.

According to journalistic information, this is a vast collection of materials about the teachings of the thinker, some aspects of the traditional society of this country and the Kong Family Mansion in Qufu, where their direct descendants lived for centuries.

The project was approved in 2013 and the subsequent scanning and digitization work took four years.

Confucius (551-479 a.n.e) and his thought guided the civilization of this country for thousands of years.

He founded a school that influenced many generations in China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan. After his death, disciples and followers preached his moral and religious doctrines.

There are about 1,300 temples in his honor in and outside the country, and even several nations have opened institutions to teach the Chinese language and culture that bear his name.

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