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It’s pretty funny that so-called progressives seem not to care about someone masquerading as a phony African nonprofit and making false accusations of sexual assault. Yeah, no biggie.
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What does it have to do with it?? It’s what this kook Cochran was found guilty of.
I seriously don’t understand how you folks want to debate every single past action taken by Teamsters you disagree with but are averse to people looking into the history of your allies? Hypocrisy much? -
It has nothing to do with this brother’s charges against O’Brien, Zuckerman and Davison. It also has nothing to do with the charge against Cochran from the 2014 case that found no evidence of this tabloid nonsense. The IBT troll farm is working overtime.
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What does this have to do with the charge?
Also, if you read Cochran’s book—or any book for that matter—you might see this tabloid sensationalism is BS. He was never charged with filing a false police report (very serious) or fraud for those charities (very serious) that Ham&High “discovered.” The case against him was about one person. All else had no evidence. We’ve heard this all before at Local 162 and in JC37.
And so stop this BS.Comment
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Tony Cochran, 29, of Handel Street, Camden, was sentenced for fraud, theft and blackmail at St Alban’s Crown Court on Friday.
The American national was found guilty of manipulating a vulnerable woman and moving into her house to carry out “radical existential psychoanalysis”.
He then stole her credit card and attempted to withdraw £1,490 in two minutes at a cash point.
Cochran broke her trust and stole her credit card and PIN before leaving her Hertfordshire home on March 1, 2015, the court heard.
When the victim went to police he tried to blackmail her and concocted a story accusing the woman of sexually assaulting him, the jury heard.
She was put through the ordeal of cross-examination about lurid allegations that he had found her masturbating in the hallway of her home next to a dead fish.
But Judge Plumstead told the jury after the guilty verdicts: “This is plainly a man who got a moderate education.
Rogues College in small town Oregon seems to have given him notions of his own capacities that are delusional.
“He’s talked himself into thinking that by reading Jean Paul Sartre and Heidegger he can form a basis to give therapy. That’s delusional.”
The victim said after Cochran’s conviction that she was “relieved that justice has been served” and she hoped he would “never be able to commit crime again”.
The Ham&High revealed after the trial that Cochran had raised thousands of dollars through the crowdfunding website IndieGoGo.
The pages took donations in the name of Africa Help – Liberia, Help Africa – Liberia, and Medical and Housing Costs – Liberia, but the Ham&High could find no such charities.Comment
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Tell us about the charges brought against Trumper Sean and his lackey Fred. The charges are not filed on Cochrane.Comment
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Brothers, Sisters and Comrades Beyond the Binary,
I hope this finds you all well and in good spirits.
As a proud UPS Teamster, I am moved by the support I have received from my coworkers. And I am thankful for the people who have been mentors to me, and those who have stood in solidarity with me in the sad and solemn process of bringing charges against President Davison, General Secretary-Treasurer Zuckerman and General President O'Brien.
In the next 10 months we face the greatest threat to the Republic of the United States since the presidential election of 1860. We are careening, some might say sleep walking, toward the permanent institutionalization of the neo-fascist far-right at the highest levels of ourgovernment. Mr Trump as both an individual and a signifier represents the culmination, the apogee, of a constellation of far-right, white nationalist movements that had been for decades attempting to take over every level of government. The White House is their prize, and since Goldwater's 1964 campaign, they have progressively taken over the Republican Party. Any and all "moderates" - even arch-conservatives like Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol who opposed the Trump machine - have been expelled from the Republican Party. For all intents and purposes, the Republican National Committee, the central organ of the Party's apparatuses, has become solidly neo-fascist and even neo-Confederate as our great brother Chris Silvera has said. There is no doubt that these forces wish to take away the hard won rights of working people, LGBTQ people, Black people, Latinx people, Asian people, women, immigrants and others. The RNC is actively promoting candidates who are calling for terror campaigns against trans people, abortion bans and attacks on immigrants. Trump, using the power of the presidency, viciously attacked and destroyed the lives of two Black election workers, Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman. Please watch a brief clip of the devastating testimony of Ruby Freeman here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw2yxupsLT0
Furthermore, as Robert Reich noted in his Guardian article Billionaires are lining up to fund Donald Trump's anti-democratic agenda,
Reich continues,During the first half of the year, multiple billionaires donated to the Trump-aligned Make America Great Again, Inc Super Pac. Phil Ruffin (net worth of $3.4bn), the 88-year-old casino and hotel mogul, has given multiple $1m donations. Charles Kushner (family net worth of $1.8bn), the real estate mogul and father of Jared, who received a late-term pardon from Trump in December 2020, contributed $1m in June. Robert “Woody” Johnson (net worth of $3.7bn), Trump’s former ambassador to the United Kingdom and co-owner of the New York Jets, donated $1m to the Maga Pac in April ...
Peter Thiel, the multibillionaire tech financier who once wrote that “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” contributed more than $35m to 16 federal-level Republican candidates in the 2022 campaign cycle, making him the 10th largest individual donor to either party. Twelve of Thiel’s candidates won, including Ohio’s now-senator JD Vance, who alleged that the 2020 election was stolen and that Biden’s immigration policy has meant “more Democrat voters pouring into this country”. The Republican House majority leader, Steve Scalise, is creating a new fundraising committee which will be soliciting contributions of up to $586,200 a pop.
[I]f capitalism and its moneyed interests are in charge, those excesses inevitably grow to the point where they are able to extinguish democracy and ride roughshod over the common good. That’s why Trump’s neofascism – and the complicity of today’s Republican party with it – are attracting the backing of some of the richest people in the US.
I have said on the shop-floor and at a union meeting that the power of union leaders flows from the membership. And as the leaders of our union, a union of 1.3 million workers, President Davison, General Secretary-Treasurer Zuckerman and General President O'Brien have now played a major role in legitimizing and normalizing not just Trump but all that he has done and represents. The directed and personal terror attacks against two Black women election workers, the attempts to overturn the 2020 election by putting pressure on the Secretaries of State in Georgia and Arizona to change the vote count, and when that failed, sending an armed mob to attack and even kill members of Congress and the Vice President to stop the certification of the election, all of these actions - and this is just a small sample - cannot be tolerated as normal. We cannot treat Mr Trump as normal candidate for president. President O'Brien meeting with Trump on January 3rd, 3 days before the 3rd anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol, to have a conversation, over dinner, about a possible presidential endorsement and a "thumbs up" photo-op afterwards, sent a message to everyone that Trump is a normal candidate, one that our union president is willing to break bread with. In authorizing $45,000 to the RNC on January 10th, the General Executive Board, with the exception of International Vice President John Palmer, at the request of General President O'Brien and General Secretary-Treasurer Zuckerman, provided, in principle and in kind, material support to a neo-fascist hate group.What’s the alternative? A loud pro-democracy movement that fights against concentrated wealth at the top, humongous CEO pay packages, a politically powerful financial sector, and tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations. And fights for higher taxes on the top (including a wealth tax) to finance Medicare for all, affordable housing, and accessible childcare and eldercare.
The willingness to make this a fight – to name the moneyed interests backing neofascism, explain why they’re doing this, and mobilize and energize the US against their agenda and in favor of democracy – is critical to winning the 2024 election and preserving and rebuilding US democracy.
To elucidate,
Notably, President O'Brien has given Senator Hawley, a staunch ally of Mr Trump, a tour of the IBT Headquarters to extract some ersatz "resolve" against right-to-work legislation, thereby throwing trans workers and trans Teamsters under the neo-fascist bus for three pieces of copper. The anti-trans threats of a "massacre" that I experienced on the shop-floor and the failure of both management and Local 162 to take decisive action - despite having audio of the conversation - indicates to me that Teamster's leadership is willing to tolerate - and in the case of Hawley and Trump - embrace the worst elements of the far-right, even when those elements present direct and immediate dangers to the membership. Senator Hawley's rhetoric mirrors the words of the young worker who talked about a "massacre" of trans people, the idea that trans people and their supporters are somehow hurting children is exactly the type of bigoted ignorance behind the violent rhetoric and threats I experienced at work.“We are facing the greatest challenge this country has ever seen, certainly in my lifetime,” the Republican Missouri senator Josh Hawley said to the crowd of hundreds gathered for the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual Road to Majority Policy Conference ...
He described the challenge as “a new Marxism that is rising in this country”, one that tells Americans, among other things: “That there’s no such thing as male and female, that there are not two genders. There’s 2,000 genders and it tells our children that the way God made them is wrong.
“These new Marxists want to give America a new religion. They want to impose on us the religion of woke. It is the religion of transgenderism, critical race theory and open borders multiculturalism, and they are shoving it down our throats,” Hawley said.
Why is our General President letting these dangerous far-right vampires into our sacred house of labor? We all know that vampires cannot enter without permission.
In conclusion, if some elements of the O'Brien-Zuckerman slate wish to demonize me, vilify me, or attack me, then let them know that I am not hiding. I wrote a book about my experiences as incarcerated person, I organized my fellow prisoners to demand better conditions and the UK minimum wage, I have worked hard over the past four years to change and return to the ethical person of my early 20s and not the traumatized distorted self of my mid and late 20s, including doing extensive psychotherapy. I am a recovering alcoholic, and I have been sober since August 2020. Yes, I am also a person who has made mistakes. I have failed people, and I admit that and take ownership of my past. I have been very open about all of this with everyone. I am not running and I am not hiding. If anyone here, behind anonymous names attacking me, wishes to engage in a real conversation please email me with a verifiable name at nihologist@icloud.com and I will be open to a real dialogue. But let us not be distracted from the greatest threats we face as working people, let us unite against these attacks on workers, LGBTQ people, Latinx people, Black people, Muslim people, Asian people, women and immigrants. As labor - and organized labor - we are the last defense against fascism - let us not be its nursemaid.
In Solidarity,
Tony Robert CochranYou do not have permission to view this gallery.
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So why did you swindle that woman pal?Comment
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People like you do not realize how many people you actually push to become a trump supporter. The Teamsters are all inclusive. With whoever’s discriminating against the trans community the Teamsters are not. You ran into a bad person that did something that was awful. You are mad that the Teamsters are giving equal time and consideration to all political candidates running for president. With your logic what if the roles were reversed and we aren’t talking about the presidency but a different scenario that the teamsters wouldn’t listen to a trans candidate. You have to include all sides. That’s how we got into this predicament.
Let us learn from our mistakes instead of perpetuating hate cycles; we must open ourselves up to different perspectives if we wish to heal together as a society. Through self-reflection and an embrace of different viewpoints, we can transform our societal struggles into opportunities for growth and understanding.Comment
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Indeed
“ Let us learn from our mistakes instead of perpetuating hate cycles; we must open ourselves up to different perspectives if we wish to heal together as a society. Through self-reflection and an embrace of different viewpoints, we can transform our societal struggles into opportunities for growth and understanding.”
Amen brother.
Did Brother Cochran’s testimony give you an epiphany! -
Maybe meeting with Trump and letting him do a campaign event at the union hall is actually getting people supporting Dump? I am 24 - Gen Z so I guess you would maybe dismiss me - but for what it's worth I think fascism = bad. I think most good people think that.
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Organizing all workers is important. I’m an old Portland born and raised lefty. Solidarity with the oppressed - not the RNC - is what we need.
some resources
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Brothers, Sisters and Comrades Beyond the Binary,
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Tony we are all proud of you! I spoke with some of the crew tonight and we are here for you.
For all the haters: come all guys, this is Tony, you throw mud at him and refuses to lay down in the dirt. We need a strong union to protect us on the job and its people who are "radical" like Tony here that have made this happen. Like I said in an earlier comment I have a high school education but I ain't stupid. I see who does the work and who stands up for people at the hub, and I see the hypocrisy. I have heard it from the safety committee and the trash talking that the stewards let happen or pass along on their little WhatsApp group. At least Tony tells people what he believes and fights for it. Agree disagree whatever, but at least be respectful. Don't trash talk when you got appointed stewards with DUIs and felony convictions - glass houses and stones. Sorry I am bit tipsy and I am going to bed. Goodnight everyone. Have a great weekend - even the haters!!!Comment
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lol funny after talking with you on the phone tonight I realized you asked if I had checked on here. It's damn cold outside. Thanks for texting me now to remind me again. That vodka was whoosh! So yes, I am here now, kind of. LOL -
LOL and we wanted to mention that we all took the MAX/bus home so no DUIs
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Love and peace!
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