Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say Fight Back!

Barbarism Rising
Detroit and the International War of the Rich on the Poor
by RICH GIBSON
Every Detroit teacher was fired in the fall of 2012.
Apparently, the nation did not notice. Hence, this story.

On March 26, 2013, 78% of the voting members of the Detroit Federation of Teachers ratified a contract which DFT president, Keith Johnson, called, “terrible.”

The contract mirrors, does not improve, an edict imposed on the union by an “Emergency Manager,” Roy Roberts, a black 74-year-old former manager at the failed General Motors corporation, once the most powerful company in the world now commonly called Government Motors. Roberts was appointed by Michigan Governor Snyder, effectively setting aside all the key actions of the elected Detroit School Board–the third state takeover in 25 years. None of them repaired the school system.

The DFT contract, though, does allow the union to continue to collect dues, the pacified labor of its members sold to Roberts for the term of the contract. DFT president Johnson will continue to receive his $142,000 salary as the rank and file accept another set of wage and benefit concessions.

Concessions, DFT members should have learned, don’t save jobs. Beginning in 1996, the DFT made concession on concession until, in the fall of 2012, every Detroit public school teacher was effectively fired and forced to reapply for a position. Hundreds of them, including teachers with 20 years and more seniority, one of them a former DFT vice president, have never been recalled.    www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/28/detroit-and-the-international-war-of-the-rich-on-the-poor/

Indiana University Strike Preparations iuonstrike.tumblr.com/

Gitmo Concentration Camp Hunger Strike Spreads A hunger strike among detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who have been imprisoned by the United States military without trial – some for more than a decade – is continuing to grow, although there is sharp disagreement between the military and lawyers for the detainees about how many are participating.  As of Monday morning, 28 of the 166 prisoners had refused enough continuous meals to be deemed hunger strikers in the official count, and 10 of them were being force fed, said a military spokesman, Capt. Robert Durand. That was up from 26 hunger strikers and 8 who were being force fed on Friday, according to the military’s count. Three detainees have been hospitalized for dehydration, Captain Durand added.

Lawyers for detainees, however, citing declassified notes of conversations with their clients in person and by phone, claim that the military’s numbers are significantly undercounting the actual level of participation. Their clients have told them that an overwhelming majority of the detainees in Camps Five and Six – where low-level suspects who are not facing any charges before a military commission, the bulk of the inmate population, are being held – have been refusing to eat for weeks, they said.    www.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/us/guantanamo-hunger-strike-appears-to-widen.html?ref=global-home

Strongville O on Strike –3 weeks on Teachers have been picketing at board members homes since the first week of the strike, but began picketing work places on March 19, starting at Aleris International in Beachwood, where board member Carl Naso works. On March 20, the teachers picketed outside of Cuyahoga Community College, where board President David Frazee is an associate dean.    www.cleveland.com/strongsville/index.ssf/2013/03/both_sides_in_strongsville_tea_1.html

World Upside Down! Time Mag Hypes Marx (to the left of nearly the entire “left”)

With the global economy in a protracted crisis, and workers around the world burdened by joblessness, debt and stagnant incomes, Marx’s biting critique of capitalism — that the system is inherently unjust and self-destructive — cannot be so easily dismissed. Marx theorized that the capitalist system would inevitably impoverish the masses as the world’s wealth became concentrated in the hands of a greedy few, causing economic crises and heightened conflict between the rich and working classes. “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole,” Marx wrote.

A growing dossier of evidence suggests that he may have been right. It is sadly all too easy to find statistics that show the rich are getting richer while the middle class and poor are not. A September study from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington noted that the median annual earnings of a full-time, male worker in the U.S. in 2011, at $48,202, were smaller than in 1973. Between 1983 and 2010, 74% of the gains in wealth in the U.S. went to the richest 5%, while the bottom 60% suffered a decline, the EPI calculated. No wonder some have given the 19th century German philosopher a second look. In China, the Marxist country that turned its back on Marx, Yu Rongjun was inspired by world events to pen a musical based on Marx’s classic Das Kapital. “You can find reality matches what is described in the book,” says the playwright….“Virtually all progressive or leftist parties contributed at some point to the rise and reach of financial markets, and rolling back of welfare systems in order to prove they were capable of reform,” Rancière notes. “I’d say the prospects of Labor or Socialists parties or governments anywhere significantly reconfiguring — much less turning over — current economic systems to be pretty faint.”

That leaves open a scary possibility: that Marx not only diagnosed capitalism’s flaws but also the outcome of those flaws. If policymakers don’t discover new methods of ensuring fair economic opportunity, the workers of the world may just unite. Marx may yet have his revenge.
Read more: business.time.com/2013/03/25/marxs-revenge-how-class-struggle-is-shaping-the-world/#ixzz2OartPfMk

Congratulations on the Publication of

Parks was politically active before and long after the Montgomery bus boycott, and her family was equally engaged. Her grandfather (who had been enslaved) was a supporter of Marcus Garvey, and her husband, Raymond, participated in the Communist-led movement defending the Scottsboro Boys. Parks spent a decade working alongside E. D. Nixon, the Pullman porters’ unionist, in the Montgomery branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Through the N.A.A.C.P., Parks also met the veteran organizer Ella Baker, who mentored her. Throughout her career, she never shied away from progressives, even those labeled Communist.    www.amazon.com/Rebellious-Theoharis-Jeanne-Edition-Hardcover/dp/B00BR9WNS0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1364705850&sr=8-2&keywords=rebellious+life+of++rosa+parks

Chicago Protests School Closings (AFT voted overwhelmingly for Obama) After gathering at Daley Plaza, protesters started a march that included a sit-in by about 150 people in the southbound lanes of LaSalle Street outside City Hall. Many were led away by police peacefully, their hands behind their backs but not handcuffed. CTU had earlier written in its news release that the protesters would “risk arrest,” but police made a point of noting that 127 people were issued tickets on site, not arrested.
The school closing issue has been controversial for months. After hearings that the district said were attended by more than 20,000 people, CPS last week unveiled a plan to shut down 53 elementary schools and one high school program.   articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-28/news/chi-rally-march-in-loop-today-against-cps-closings-20130327_1_chicago-teachers-union-school-closings-53-elementary-schools

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Corruption is Systematic in Captalism and its Schools Fulton County prosecutors announced that a grand jury had indicted the Atlanta Public Schools’ ex-superintendent and nearly three dozen other former administrators, teachers, principals and other educators of charges arising from a standardized test cheating scandal that rocked the system.

Former Superintendent Beverly Hall faces charges including conspiracy, making false statements and theft because prosecutors said some of the bonuses she received were tied to falsified scores. Hall retired just days before the findings of a state probe were released in mid-2011. A nationally known educator who was named Superintendent of the Year in 2009, Hall has long denied knowing about the cheating or ordering it.  …The allegations date back to 2005. In addition to Hall, 34 other former school system employees were indicted. Four were high-level administrators, six were principals, two were assistant principals, six were testing coordinators and 14 were teachers. A school improvement specialist and a school secretary were also indicted.

Howard didn’t directly answer a question about whether prosecutors believe Hall led the conspiracy.

“What we’re saying is, is that without her, this conspiracy could not have taken place, particularly in the degree that it took place. Because as we know, this took place in 58 of the Atlanta Public Schools. And it would not have taken place if her actions had not made that possible,” the prosecutor said…. A 2011 state investigation found cheating by nearly 180 educators in 44 Atlanta schools. Educators gave answers to students or changed answers on tests after they were turned in, investigators said. Teachers who tried to report it faced retaliation, creating a culture of “fear and intimidation,” the investigation found.      news.yahoo.com/3-dozen-indicted-atlanta-cheating-scandal-214241949.html

The School Worker Force as Segregated as Capitalist Schooling Itself (stop the prattling about “public” schools) Classrooms are becoming more diverse, but the people leading them remain predominantly white.

More than 80 percent of the bachelor’s degrees in education awarded during the 2009-10 school year were to non-Latino white students, according to a new study by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). Three-quarters went to women, and only 4.2 percent went to Latinos.

At the same time, the racial and ethnic makeup of the country’s student body has become less monolithic over the years. Nearly half of all children under five right now are minorities, and no racial or ethnic group will constitute a true majority in the United States by 2050, according to Census data.    abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/student-diversity-teachers-white/story?id=18782102#.UVDvSOfD59k

Wayne Ross: Dr Seuss and Dangerous Citizenship First, Dr. Seuss’ Yertle the Turtle was deemed too political for British Columbia classrooms, then the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms—specifically the
provision that protects free speech—was the subject of censorship in the Prince Rupert School District (No. 52). In an effort to “shield children from political messaging,” Prince Rupert school administrators and trustees have been vigilant (to the point of absurdity) in their attempts to enforce a 2011 arbitrator’s ruling that BC students must be insulatedfrom political messages in schools www.academia.edu/2923365/Dr._Seuss_and_Dangerous_Citizenship

Smashing the California Community College System California has been disinvesting in higher education:
2009-10 categorical cut ($313 million) and apportionment cut ($190 million); 2011-12 apportionment cut ($385 million).

Served more than 252,000 FTES for whom the colleges did not receive funding; while additionally reluctantly turning away another 129,000 FTES due to workload reduction.

Received no statutory cost-of-living increase between 2007-08 and 2012-13 creating a cumulative loss of purchasing power totaling 18.3 percent, or $994 million.

Reduced course sections ranging between 5 to 15 percent per college. Increased class size.

Fees increased from $20/unit in 2008-09 to $46/unit in 2012-13 – a 130 percent increase in five years.

The California Community Colleges enrollment decreased by more than 485,000 students to 2.4 million in three academic years (from 2008-09 to 2011-12) due to severe budget cuts.

Course sections (classes) were reduced by approximately 24 percent due to state funding reductions.   Colleges have been forced to:

• Reduce course offerings by roughly 15 percent resulting in hundreds of thousands of students being turned away.
• Increase class sizes
• Lay off adjunct faculty and other staff.
• Institute furloughs.
• Spend down reserves and borrow money to manage cash flow.

californiacommunitycolleges.cccco.edu/PolicyInAction/KeyFacts.aspx

Hey! Digby Divers of the World! How Come Rhee didn’t get to keep the kids? The 43-year-old Rhee, whose children attend public school in Tennessee, where her ex-husband lives, is guided by the free-market principles that characterized her tumultuous three-year tenure in Washington.    www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-michelle-rhee-20130327,0,3997665.story

Rhee Hires Nunez whose Murdering Son was Pardoned by Gropenfuhrer chelle Rhee pushes her controversial brand of education reform in California’s capital, she has tapped one of the town’s most influential power brokers, Fabian Nunez, to guide her strategy.

The former Assembly speaker and high-powered consultant is serving as an advisor to StudentsFirst, the national advocacy group Rhee founded here.    discussions.latimes.com/20/lanews/la-me-pc-michelle-rhee-fabian-nunez-20130327/10

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

Women In Combat–Job Opportunity to become Cannon Fodder When the Pentagon said earlier this year that it would open ground combat jobs to women, it was cast in terms of giving women equal opportunities in the workplace — the military workplace.

But the move has practical considerations, too. The military needs qualified people to fill its ranks, and it’s increasingly harder to find them among men.

“It’s fairly common knowledge that our population of military-age young men, who qualify for the military, is declining,” Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said in an interview with NPR just after the Pentagon announced that women no longer be excluded from ground combat jobs.  Too many potential male recruits have criminal records, drop out of high school or have drug problems. In addition, the rising obesity rate is also a factor.   www.npr.org/2013/03/25/174966070/as-qualified-men-dwindle-military-looks-for-a-few-good-women

Having Broken Iraq and Forged an Iran/Shiite Victory, US Whines About Iraqi Airspace. Iraq yawns Iraq is helping to shore up the besieged regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by allowing Iranian arms and fighters to cross into Syria from Iraq, Secretary of State John F. Kerry charged Sunday.

During an unannounced trip to Baghdad, Kerry lobbied Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for greater scrutiny of flights that cross Iraq. He appeared to make little headway with Maliki, a Shiite with long ties to Iran and little inclination to do U.S. bidding 10 years after the American invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.    www.washingtonpost.com/world/kerry-asks-iraq-to-stop-syria-arms-flow/2013/03/24/61eec97e-9467-11e2-95ca-dd43e7ffee9c_story.html

US Backed Fake Syrian “Rebels” i.e., Jihadists Unravel: Syria’s opposition coalition was on the verge of collapse Sunday after its president resigned and rebel fighters rejected its choice to head an interim government, leaving a U.S.-backed effort to forge a united front against President Bashar al-Assad in tatters.

The resignation of Moaz al-Khatib, a moderate Sunni preacher who heads the Syrian Opposition Coalition, climaxed a bitter internal fight over a range of issues, from the appointment of an interim government to a proposal by Khatib to launch negotiations with the Syrian regime.  ..“The coalition is on verge of disintegrating,” he said. “It’s a big mess.”

The trigger for Khatib’s departure was the selection last week of Ghassan Hitto, a relatively unknown Syrian-born U.S. citizen, to head a proposed interim government. Khatib and his supporters had opposed the creation of an interim government at this time, as had the United States, whose diplomats argued against the move on the grounds that it created an unnecessarily divisive distraction from the goal of bringing down Assad’s regime, according to Syrian opposition members.

Hitto’s candidacy was backed, however, by the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the push to install him as Syria’s first opposition prime minister was widely seen as an effort by the Brotherhood to claw back some of the influence lost when the original Syrian opposition body, the Syrian National Council, was absorbed into the wider Syrian coalition.    www.washingtonpost.com/world/syrian-opposition-in-disarray-as-its-leader-resigns/2013/03/24/16523304-94ba-11e2-95ca-dd43e7ffee9c_story.html?hpid=z2

US Pouring Arms and $ to Jihadists While Demanding Iran and Russia Cut it out

click to enlarge arms shipment map

With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.  The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports.

Cost of War? Mass Human Carnage plus $6 Trillion According to the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, the Iraq War will end up costing more than $6 trillion. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, in review of building and infrastructure projects in Iraq, found “fraud, waste, and abuse,” funds shoveled mostly to Pentagon contractors, and “different masters with different agendas” thanks to the rivalry of the Defense and State Departments.   www.examiner.com/article/iraq-war-will-end-up-costing-at-least-6-trillion

Who Lost Bagram??? Never Mind. The US Gets to Continue the War Within hours of the American military’s formally transferring all but a “small number” of the Afghan prisoners at the Bagram Prison to the Afghan government, President Hamid Karzai held a friendly news conference with Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday that stood in stark contrast to his recent acrimonious tone toward the United States…   On detention, American officials had long feared that the Afghans might release dangerous Taliban prisoners. But the Obama administration has made a priority of reaching an agreement on an American military presence here after 2014 that will allow the United States to keep tabs on Iran and Pakistan and contain extremists in Pakistan’s ungoverned tribal areas. www.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/world/asia/us-cedes-control-almost-on-afghan-prisoners.html?ref=global-home&_r=0

There Goes Nerkh U.S. military leaders on Saturday formally handed over security responsibilities to Afghan troops in an area of Wardak province that was the focus of claims by President Hamid Karzai that U.S. troops were responsible for kidnappings and human rights abuses.

The transfer of a base in the Nerkh district of Wardak province from U.S. special operations forces to Afghan troops comes 10 days after Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, commander of the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, reached an agreement with Karzai to carry out the handover.

Karzai initially wanted all American special forces personnel out of Wardak, but later agreed to limit the immediate handover to Nerkh.   www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-american-forces-afghan-province-20130330,0,1819822.story

Pakistan’s Taliban Runs Wild in Key Port Karachi But there is a new gang in town. Hundreds of miles from their homeland in the mountainous northwest, Pakistani Taliban fighters have started to flex their muscles more forcefully in parts of this vast city, and they are openly taking ground.

Taliban gunmen have mounted guerrilla assaults on police stations, killing scores of officers. They have stepped up extortion rackets that target rich businessmen and traders, and shot dead public health workers engaged in polio vaccination efforts. In some neighborhoods, Taliban clerics have started to mediate disputes through a parallel judicial system.

The grab for influence and power in Karachi shows that the Taliban have been able to extend their reach across Pakistan, even here in the country’s most populous city, with about 20 million inhabitants. No longer can they be written off as endemic only to the country’s frontier regions.   www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/world/asia/taliban-extending-reach-across-pakistan.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130329

Ten Years On–the Winner of the Iraq War is Ten years after the United States invaded and occupied Iraq, the country’s oil industry is poised to boom and make the troubled nation the No.2 oil exporter in the world. But the nation that’s moving to take advantage of Iraq’s riches isn’t the United States. It’s China.
America, with its own homegrown energy bonanza, isn’t going after the petroleum that lies beneath Iraq’s sands nearly as aggressively as is China, a country hungry to fuel its rise as an economic power.
Read more here: www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/27/187100/iraqi-oil-once-seen-as-us-boon.html#storylink=omni_popular#storylink=cpy

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Bitter Fruit of Fake Arab Spring in Egypt A fuel shortage has helped send food prices soaring. Electricity is blacking out even before the summer. And gas-line gunfights have killed at least five people and wounded dozens over the past two weeks. The root of the crisis, economists say, is that Egypt is running out of the hard currency it needs for fuel imports. The shortage is raising questions about Egypt’s ability to keep importing wheat that is essential to subsidized bread supplies, stirring fears of an economic catastrophe at a time when the government is already struggling to quell violent protests by its political rivals.

Farmers already lack fuel for the pumps that irrigate their fields, and they say they fear they will not have enough for the tractors to reap their wheat next month before it rots in the fields.

United States officials warn of disaster unless Egypt soon carries out a package of tax increases and subsidy cuts tied to a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.     www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/world/middleeast/egypt-short-of-money-sees-crisis-on-food-and-gas.html?ref=global-home

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement

From R. Palme Dutt, “Fascism and Social Revolution,” Chapter 5
The main method of the bosses was liberalism and concessions, as long as their forces were unprepared. Even in the face of outright Fascism, social democracy looked to parliamentary means for defense. The revolution in Italy was defeated by reformism. Fascism came when workers were disillusioned and disorganized already. The transition to fascism was no sudden, abrupt break, but of a continuation of the same old bosses using new means    richgibson.com/synopsisfascim.htm .

Tyranny Check List Part 1: Secrecy Reporters covering the government’s prosecution of Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is being court-martialed for conveying secret information to WikiLeaks, have spent a year trying to pierce the veil of secrecy in what is supposed to be a public proceeding.  In pretrial hearings at Fort Meade, Md., basic information has been withheld, including dockets of court activity, transcripts of the proceedings and orders issued from the bench by the military judge, Col. Denise Lind. A public trial over state secrets was itself becoming a state secret in plain sight.

Finally, at the end of last month, in response to numerous Freedom of Information requests from news media organizations, the court agreed to release 84 of the roughly 400 documents filed in the case, suggesting it was finally unbuttoning the uniform a bit to make room for some public scrutiny.

Then again, the released documents contained redactions that are mystifying at best and at times almost comic. One of the redacted details was the name of the judge, who sat in open court for months.    www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/business/media/in-wikileaks-trial-a-theater-of-state-secrecy.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

More Money For Obamagogue’s Concentration Camp (it’s not closed???) The United States Southern Command has requested $49 million to build a new prison building at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for “special” detainees on top of other renovations it says are necessary since Congress has decided to keep it open indefinitely. That brings the potential taxpayer bill for upgrading the deteriorating facilities to an estimated $195.7 million, the military said on Thursday.

That overall price tag is significantly higher than the estimate of $150 million to $170 million that General John F. Kelly, the Southcom commander, gave in Congressional testimony on Wednesday. The special detainee facility was not included on the list of requested construction projects released by Southcom on Wednesday when reporters asked for details. atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/pentagon-wants-to-build-new-prison-at-guantanamo/

No Repercussions for CIA Torturers In the years since the Sept. 11 attacks, C.I.A. officers involved in detainee abuse and botched rendition cases have repeatedly escaped internal punishment by the spy agency, and some have even been promoted, according to The Associated Press.

The A.P. concludes that the Central Intelligence Agency’s disciplinary system “takes years to make decisions, hands down reprimands inconsistently, and is viewed inside the agency as prone to favoritism and manipulation.”

The report does not reveal any new cases of detainee abuse, but unearths new details about already reported instances of detainee deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the C.I.A.’s 2003 rendition of Khaled el-Masri — a German citizen detained in Macedonia and brought to a secret prison in Afghanistan.

George Little, a C.I.A. spokesman, objected to the fact that The A.P. decided to publish the first names of some undercover C.I.A. officers, and challenged the conclusion that the C.I.A. doesn’t hold its officers accountable.

“It’s wrong for anyone to suggest that the agency ignores allegations of misconduct,” he said.   atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/report-c-i-a-agents-tied-to-abuse-escape-punishment/

Cartel Update This is what happens when a drug cartel turns on itself in a community where the law is largely in the hands of a creepy parallel power structure. When the narcotics business goes smoothly, residents say, they learn to put up with the influence of the narcos. Lately, it’s been anything but smooth.
Rival gangster bosses are skirmishing to fill a vacuum at the top of the Gulf Cartel, a criminal group that traces its roots to whiskey bootleggers in the 1930s. The smugglers turned to narcotics in the 1970s. Despite their longevity, they’re racked by internecine disputes that have been in crescendo for several years.

Different factions control Reynosa (Los Metros) and Matamoros (Los Rojos), two of the largest cities in Tamaulipas state, along the border with Texas near the Gulf of Mexico.  Read more here: www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/28/187196/gulf-cartels-power-struggle-holds.html#emlnl=Daily_News_Update#storylink=cpy

Solidarity for Never

Indiana State Teachers Union Investigated for Multi Million $ Securities Fraud The state seeks damages of more than $24 million from ISTA over mishandling of its insurance fund, which went bust in 2009.

The state’s lawsuit was filed the same year, alleging that the state’s largest teachers union unlawfully sold securities without registering them and engaged in fraudulent misrepresentation in selling its insurance products to school districts.   www.indystar.com/article/20130327/BUSINESS/303270085/Judge-rejects-Indiana-teachers-union-request-dismiss-case?nclick_check=1

The Long March Plus

Begat Chinese Fashion Week

China’s Counterfeit Communist Bosses Run To MBA Schools “After the Cultural Revolution, a lot of people felt the need to make up for lost time, so we worked extremely hard,” said Mr. Wang, 56, who studies at the China Europe International Business School, or Ceibs.    www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/education/in-china-executives-flock-back-to-graduate-school.html?ref=internationaleducation

Spy versus Spy

Sure Route to CIA promotion–Coverup Torture A C.I.A. officer directly involved in the 2005 decision to destroy interrogation videotapes and who once ran one of the agency’s secret prisons has ascended to the top position within the C.I.A.’s clandestine service, according to current and former intelligence officials.  … The years since the Sept. 11 attacks have transformed the C.I.A., and a whole generation of clandestine officers are rising through the agency’s ranks who have more training in hunting, capturing and killing terror suspects than in typical spying work like recruiting foreign agents to spy against their governments for the United States.

The promotion of the officer, who spent years working inside the agency’s Counterterrorist Center and once was in charge of a so-called black site, played a role in developing the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program, was first reported by The Washington Post. Because the officer remains undercover, The New York Times is not disclosing her identity.

The officer served as the C.I.A. station chief in London and New York, and the branch of the agency she now leads — called the National Clandestine Service — is responsible for all C.I.A. espionage operations and covert action programs. The head of the clandestine service is one of the most coveted jobs in the C.I.A., and has never before been run by a woman.

The destruction of dozens of C.I.A. interrogation tapes, documenting the interrogations of Qaeda operatives Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in a secret C.I.A. detention facility in Thailand, was one of the most controversial episodes of the past decade. The Justice Department undertook an investigation into the matter after the destruction of the tapes was disclosed in late 2007, but no C.I.A. officers were criminally charged.

The destruction was ordered by Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., who at the time was the head of the agency’s clandestine service.   The officer was serving as Mr. Rodriguez’s chief of staff, and several former C.I.A. officers said she was a strong advocate for getting rid of the tapes, which had been sitting for years inside a safe in the agency’s station in Bangkok. “She and Jose were the two main drivers for years for getting the tapes destroyed,” said one former senior C.I.A. officer.    www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/us/officer-tied-to-tapes-destruction-moves-up-in-cia.html?hp&_r=0

NPR Killing Talk of the Nation NPR is ending the 21-year-old call-in radio show “Talk of the Nation” and will encourage local stations to replace it with an expanded version of “Here and Now,” an afternoon news broadcast that is produced here, the organization announced on Friday.  ..As fans cried “say it isn’t so” on social networking Web sites on Friday, the show’s host since 2001, Neal Conan, said in an e-mail to staff members, “I’m proud that we go out on top, with record station carriage and the largest audience in the program’s history.”

NPR officials denied that the organization’s budget deficit of $7 million spurred the decision. They portrayed the change as a move away from opinion and toward straightforward storytelling (sic). www.nytimes.com/2013/03/30/business/media/npr-to-end-talk-of-the-nation.html?ref=media&_r=2&

Prisoner X JERUSALEM — Israel has revealed very little about the man known as Prisoner X, an Australian-Israeli who was jailed here in 2010 after apparently getting caught in a web of espionage and intrigue, other than how he died: alone, by asphyxiation, after hanging himself in the shower of his cell.  Since the episode was exposed last month, the authorities here have rigorously concealed the reason for the arrest and secret imprisonment of the man, identified as Ben Zygier, as he awaited trial in solitary confinement, citing interests of national security.

But in the latest twist, two news organizations have reported that Mr. Zygier, who was 34 when he died in December 2010, had unintentionally exposed two top spies for Israel in Lebanon, revealing their identities to a European man known to be close to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite organization Israel fought in a monthlong war in 2006.   www.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/world/middleeast/israels-prisoner-x-said-to-have-exposed-spies.html?ref=global-home&_r=0

CIA or Jihadist? As US Army veteran Eric Harroun awaits trial in Virginia for allegedly fighting alongside al-Qaeda supporters, the man’s father claims he was working for the CIA and was reporting back to the agency from Syria.

Harroun, a 30-year-old American from Phoenix, Arizona, has been charged by the US government for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction (namely a rocket propelled grenade launcher) to conduct an attack against the Syrian government. The US Army veteran dubbed by media ‘Phoenix jihadist’ appeared in numerous videos alongside members of the al-Nusra Front, designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization in December, but which has also been fighting alongside the Syrian opposition to take down the Assad regime. To date, 29 US-backed Syrian opposition groups have linked with al-Nusra, and have signed a petition calling for the support of the Islamist group that the White House believes is a branch of al-Qaeda.   rt.com/usa/cia-harroun-us-syrian-064/

The Magical Mystery Tour

SNAP vs Abusing Nuns For at least eight years, victims of child molesting nuns and members of SNAP have repeatedly urged America’s largest organization of nuns to expose the truth about child sex crimes and cover ups by women religious. But the LCWR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious) continues to essentially rebuff us and them.

Now more than ever, since they’re being attacked by bishops like we have been (and are being), nuns should be sympathetic to our plight. It grieves us to have to keep prodding them to take long-overdue, simple steps to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded. But how can we do otherwise? www.snapnetwork.org/nun_abuse

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

So Long