Rouge Forum Dispatch: Tribes Crow-hopping to World War III
We Say Fight Back!
Westin Gaslamp hotel workers walk off their jobs, part of nationwide strike
Westin San Diego Gaslamp hotel workers, from housekeepers to banquet captains, began walking off the job this week, joining a nationwide protest targeting global lodging behemoth Marriott International. Members of Unite Here Local 30, which represents the Westin’s 162 workers, had already authorized…a strike last month following stalled negotiations on a new contract. Workers at the Horton Plaza hotel have been working without a contract since April of last year.
Seymour Hersh on the Future of American Journalism
The problem today is you can’t go to an editor today and say “I’ve got a story,” which I would do for years. I joke about it, but it was real. I was the equivalent of walking to an editor’s desk and throwing a dead rat full of lice on his table and saying, “I want to do this, and it’s going to cost you a lot of money, and I may not get it, and if I do get it, you’re going to have law firms yelling at you, and you’re going to lose subscribers, and you’re going to publish something that a lot of people won’t like.”
You know, that does wear out, no matter how effective the stuff is––but I could do that then. I left the AP. They got tired of my Vietnam reporting. I left The New York Times. They got tired of my bitching and complaining about their processes there, which is sometimes sort of tedious and redundant, and at The New Yorker it was the same thing. They got tired of me always finding the dark side. It was much easier to do when Bush and Cheney were there, but when Obama was around, it was much harder.
It’s just the way it is. I feel sorry for kid reporters starting now, because the idea of telling an editor, “I want to spend two or three months on a story” just doesn’t work anymore. …
Everything’s so souped up now. Cable television is basically ruining media. You’ve got a president now that is considered to be a major liar but on an international event, if he puts out a statement, it’s immediately taken. “President says so and so did so and so,” and that’s the mantra. It’s a very strange procedure now. daily.jstor.org/seymour-hersh-future-american-journalism/?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=facebook
Mediation Fails Between LAUSD, Teachers Union; Potential Strike Looms
A third day of mediation efforts between the Los Angeles Unified School District and its teachers’ union failed to produce a labor agreement Friday, moving the stalemate into a fact-finding period and one step closer to the district’s first teacher strike since 1989.
Negotiators for the district and the United Teachers Los Angeles union met with a state mediator Friday — the third session in the past three weeks — but the sides moved no closer to a labor agreement. In fact, tensions between the district and union have only increased.
Following Friday’s mediation session, the LAUSD filed another unfair labor practice charge against the union with the state, accusing UTLA of refusing to participate in “good faith” in the mediation effort.
“By UTLA’s own admission, the only reason UTLA participated in mediation was to ensure that it could move quickly to a strike,” LAUSD attorney David Holmquist said in a statement…
The district thinks they can buy us off with a modest pay raise, but our fight has never been just about salary,” UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl said. “What’s driving educators is the absolute need to fix what we see every day: too many overcrowded classrooms where kids have to share desks, schools with a nurse only one day a week and overloaded psychologists and counselors doing their best to triage the socio-emotional needs of our students.
“The school district claims it can’t afford these very basic student needs,” he said. “We are ready to go to fact-finding and force the district to defend its position.”
Union officials have repeatedly blasted LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner in recent weeks, accusing him of spreading “disinformation” about the contract talks. Last week, union officials blasted Beutner for holding high-dollar meetings at ritzy Southland restaurants, often with charter-school advocates and operators….
With mediation ending without a resolution, the impasse between the district and union now moves into a fact-finding period, during which an independent third party reviews the arguments of both sides and recommends a potential solution.
Following the fact-finding period, the union could call for a strike. UTLA’s membership has already overwhelmingly voted to authorize its leadership to call a strike. www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Mediation-Fails-Between-LAUSD-Teachers-Union-Potential-Strike-Looms-497381631.html?akmobile=o
Them’s Fightin’ Words: 10 Great Protest Songs
To the barricades! And don’t forget the lyric sheet!
Protesters are going to the royal wedding
£2m taxpayer bill for Princess Eugenie’s nuptials, with support for monarchy ‘at breaking point’
Princess Eugenie’s wedding is stretching public support for the royal family “to breaking point”, campaigners have claimed, after nearly 50,000 people signed a petition protesting the cost to taxpayers.
Friday’s wedding, expected to leave police with a security bill of about £2m, could “damage the royals for a long time to come,” warned anti-monarchy pressure group Republic.
Eugenie is to marry long-term boyfriend Jack Brooksbank, a tequila brand ambassador, in a lavish ceremony in Windsor.
The cost of the wedding itself will be covered by the royal family, but the bill for policing, traffic management and stewarding will be picked up by the taxpayer.
Thames Valley Police is to deploy armed officers, specially trained search dogs, mounted horses, and high-visibility patrols in a major operation.
Eugenie and Mr Brooskbank will take a 1km open-topped carriage ride to Windsor following the ceremony at Windsor Castle’s St George Chapel. The decision has raised eyebrows because it requires road closures and will significantly increase the force’s costs. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/princess-eugenie-royal-wedding-taxpayer-bill-monarchy-breaking-point-2m-cost-windsor-thames-valley-a8580256.html
Debating US National Security Whistleblowing: Secrets, the State, and Democracy
Discussion with Whistleblowers, Advocates, and Historians
Are Edward Snowden, Reality Winner, and James Comey whistleblowers or leakers, heroes or traitors? Is WikiLeaks a media organization or a foreign agent? Is it ever appropriate to disclose official secrets to the public? Join us for a series of roundtable discussions featuring whistleblowers, advocates, and historians to debate the past, present, and future of national security whistleblowing. This event is organized by Hannah Gurman (NYU Gallatin) and Kaeten Mistry (University of East Anglia, UK) and is sponsored by the Urban Democracy Lab at NYU Gallatin, The Tamiment Institute Library at NYU, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK). gallatin.nyu.edu/utilities/events/2018/10/whistleblowing.html
The Little Red Schoolhouse
What Happens When States Un-Standardize Tests?
Few educators are fans of fill-in-the-bubble standardized tests that don’t yield results until after students leave the classroom.
But when states had a chance to try out richer forms of assessment under a new pilot program established by the Every Student Succeeds Act, all but two demurred, in part because the pilot comes with tough technical requirements and no extra federal funding.
That doesn’t mean, though, that states are planning to stick with the Scantron sheets over the long haul.
In fact, several are looking to experiment with new performance assessments that ask students to complete some sort of hands-on task to show what they know or are able to do. Others are moving to use shorter tests throughout the year, instead of one big exam at the end, or redesigning tests to better reflect material students see in the classroom.
“We’re seeing a lot of momentum in states across the country around this idea of creating assessments that address student learning in more meaningful ways,” said Lillian Pace, the senior director of national policy at KnowledgeWorks, which supports state and federal policymakers interested in personalized-learning systems. “Nobody right now has the answer, but there is a lot of energy to try to figure out what we could do better.”
Some states—like Georgia—are planning to apply to the Innovative Assessment pilot to support this work, now that the U.S. Department of Education has opened a new window for applications.
But others—including Kentucky—are keeping their plans separate from the federal flexibility, at least for now. (EdWeek)
Equity Implications
One big knock on new forms of assessments is that they aren’t helpful for equity. It can be hard to compare the results from one district to the next or measure the performance of particular populations of students, like English-language learners and students in special education.
Natasha Ushomirsky, the director of P-12 policy development at the Education Trust, a research and advocacy organization in Washington, is uneasy about the potential downside of the changes for vulnerable children. These students are often given lower-level classroom work than their more-advantaged peers.
“Statewide annual assessments are a check on those differences in expectation,” Ushomirsky said. “They give parents an objective picture of where their students are in relation to grade-level standards, with the knowledge that that bar is the same across all students, across all schools within the state.” www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/10/11/what-happens-when-state-un-standardize-tests.html?r=454216669&cmp=eml-enl-eu-news1&M=58638430&U=1666178&UUID=1077d6867cfb1e9eaaaa4a81b0c3ab4b&mkey=A527E740-CE75-11E8-8CBC-29CEC819EBCD
The Little College Where Tuition Is Free and Every Student Is Given a Job
Berea College, in Kentucky, has paid for every enrollee’s education using its endowment for 126 years. Can other schools replicate the model?
There’s a small burst of air that explodes from every clap. And when hundreds of people are clapping in unison, it begins to feel like a breeze—one that was pulsing through the Phelps Stokes Chapel at Berea College in Kentucky. The students and staff that had gathered here were stomping, clapping, and singing along, as they were led in a rendition of the Civil Rights era anthem, “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around.”
They had packed into the wood-framed building for a convocation address, where the speaker, Diane White-Clayton, would be talking about “Jesus, the Ultimate Rebel with a Cause.” Berea does not have a sectarian affiliation, but the remnants of its Christian foundation are readily apparent—so much so that, as Alicestyne Turley, a history professor at the college, told me, “we have students who come here who think they’re coming to a Christian college,” à la Liberty University or Notre Dame.
White’s address was dotted with the markings of a Sunday sermon—not the stuffy kind, but the kind I’d heard time and again growing up—the jokes, the whooping, the lessons that come in threes. In her speech, White explained to the students that it didn’t take supernatural abilities to do great things—only a purpose—and that all the evidence they needed could be found on the campus where they stood. www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/10/how-berea-college-makes-tuition-free-with-its-endowment/572644/
Germany’s far-Right urges schoolchildren to expose ‘biased’ teachers
Germany’s far-right AfD party has been criticised for launching a child informant programme in schools where pupils expose teachers who attack the party or show political bias.
The Hamburg chapter of Alternative Fur Deutschland, which made major gains in last year’s general election, launched a “Neutral Schools” website for anonymous complaints about teachers.
But Katarina Barley, the German justice minister, condemned the programme, warning that “organised denunciation is a tool of dictatorships.”
“A party using this to expose disagreeable teachers … reveals a lot about its own understanding of democracy,” she added.
German teaching unions also hit out at the Stasi-esque surveillance scheme, which the AfD hopes to extend to nine other states, including Bavaria, Brandenburg, Baden-Württemberg and Saxony.
It’s to be expected that a party that wants to ostracise dissenters is now creating platforms to denounce people who have different opinions,” Ilka Hoffmann, a board member of the German Education Union, told the Funke newspaper group.
“Teachers should be scared. This is a frightening development.”
The AfD is the largest opposition party in the German parliament, the Bundestag, following a surge in support in the September 2017 election which handed them 90 seats.
It has capitalised on popular anger against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal refugee policy that resulted in a record refugee influx in 2015. But the extreme rhetoric of some of its members has led to claims that the party harbours neo-Nazi and fascist sympathisers. Alexander Gauland, the party’s leader, has described the Third Reich as a “speck of bird poo in over 1,000 years of successful German history.” www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/11/germanys-far-right-urges-schoolchildren-expose-biased-teachers/
Stephen Miller’s Third-Grade Teacher: He Was a “Loner” and Ate Glue (teacher suspended, clown show continues)
I can still picture him sitting in my classroom.
Do you remember that character in Peanuts, the one called Pig Pen, with the dust cloud and crumbs flying all around him? That was Stephen Miller at 8. I was always trying to get him to clean up his desk — he always had stuff mashed up in there. He was a strange dude. I remember he would take a bottle of glue — we didn’t have glue sticks in those days — and he would pour the glue on his arm, let it dry, peel it off and then eat it.
I remember being concerned about him — not academically. He was OK with that, though I could never read his handwriting. But he had such strange personal habits. He was a loner and isolated and off by himself all the time.
At the end of the year, I wrote all my concerns — and I had a lot of them — in his school record. When the school principal had a conference with Stephen’s parents, the parents were horrified. So the principal took some white-out and blanked out all my comments. I wish I could remember what I wrote, but this was 25 years ago. I’ve taught a lot of third-graders since then. Of course, Stephen wasn’t political then — it wasn’t until later that he started to make waves. www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/stephen-millers-third-grade-teacher-tells-all-1150549
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
Failed Counterinsurgency is here to stay: Marines plan to double foreign military training adviser group
While the Marines and the U.S. military are amid an overhaul to prep the force for a fight with near-peer adversaries, the Corps hasn’t lost focused on its counterinsurgency mission.
And on Wednesday, the top Marine told reporters at a media roundtable event that the Corps plans to double its foreign military training adviser group that aids in stability operations and helps train future Marine foreign advisers.
While America’s focus is once again on great power competition, that “doesn’t mean we are going to forget or forgo the requirements to be able to do counterinsurgency or stability ops,” Gen. Robert B. Neller, the commandant of the Marine Corps, told reporters Wednesday.
In 2012, the Corps stood up the Marine Corps Security Cooperation Group, or MCSCG, which carries out foreign military training and cooperation and trains Marine advisors preparing to deploy overseas with cultural and immersion training and foreign weapons handling.
The MCSCG runs a nearly 4-week course dubbed the Marine Advisor Course, which helps hone future Marine foreign military trainers in a plethora of skills from force protection to building rapport with foreign security forces. www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/10/10/counterinsurgency-is-here-to-stay-marines-plan-to-double-foreign-military-training-adviser-group/
US Nato envoy’s threat to Russia: stop developing missile or we’ll ‘take it out’
The US ambassador to Nato has warned Russia that if it does not halt the development of a new cruise missile in violation of a treaty between the countries, the US will “take out” the missile.
Kay Bailey Hutchison was speaking to reporters about a longstanding issue of contention, a Russian ground-launched cruise missile which Washington says breaks the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).
Moscow has denied the charge, and the Trump administration has announced plans to develop its own medium-range cruise missile in response, raising the spectre of a new nuclear arms race.
But Hutchison went further in her remarks and appeared to suggest the possibility of a pre-emptive strike when the Russian missiles became operational.
“The counter-measures would be to take out the missiles that are in development by Russia in violation of the treaty,” the envoy said, mistakenly referring to the missile in question as a ballistic missile, rather than a cruise missile. She also suggested the missile, known as 9M729, was still in development, even though the US accused Russia of deploying it last year. www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/02/us-ambassador-nato-russia-kay-bailey-hutchison
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United State
America’s War With Afghanistan Enters 18th Year
On Oct. 7, 2001, less than a month after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, U.S. warplanes bombed targets in Afghanistan in what would be the opening offensive of Operation Enduring Freedom, the effort to drive the Taliban and al-Qaida from the country and install a democratic government.
CIA operatives and U.S. special forces teamed with the mostly-Tajik Northern Alliance to take Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and other cities under an air umbrella that was provided primarily by the Navy and used Joint Direct Attack Munitions to devastating effect.
Then-Marine Brig. Gen. Jim Mattis, now the U.S. secretary of defense, led Task Force 58, consisting of the 15th and 26th Marine Expeditionary Units, on an air assault that eventually resulted in the taking of Kandahar, birthplace of the Taliban movement.
By Dec. 9, 2001, the Taliban had collapsed and leader Mullah Omar had fled to Pakistan. Then, the U.S. focus turned to the invasion of Iraq.
On Oct. 7, 2018, the military endgame for the U.S. in Afghanistan was still an increasingly difficult and long-term work in progress. That date marked the start of the 18th year of war in Afghanistan — a war that has claimed thousands of American lives and shows no clear indication of drawing to a close.
The resurgent Taliban is back and firmly in control of large swaths of territory. Osama Bin Laden is dead, but U.S. and Afghan special forces are still on the hunt for elements of al-Qaida. The new terrorist factor is the ISIS offshoot called Islamic State-Khorasan Province, or “ISIS-K.”
The “blood and treasure” costs to the U.S. continue to mount…
Since the war began, at least 2,414 U.S., 455 British and 686 troops from other coalition nations have been killed in Afghanistan for a total of 3,555, according to the website icasualties.org. (and hundreds of thousands of Afghans).
Depending on who is doing the counting and how it is done, the estimates for the costs of the war for the U.S. since 2001 have generally exceeded $1 trillion. The Pentagon estimates the U.S. will spend at least $45 billion on the war effort this year.
Since 2001, U.S. policy has changed radically. The main goal is no longer to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan but rather to drive them into a negotiated peace settlement to end the war, according to Army Gen. John Nicholson, who recently turned over command of U.S.-Forces Afghanistan and the NATO Resolute Support Mission to Army Gen. Scott Miller.
At his Senate confirmation hearing in June, Miller said he would not talk about turning points “unless there is one” and that he could not guarantee “a timeline or an end date” to the war.
The estimated 14,000 to 15,000 U.S. troops in Miller’s command are operating under a new strategy for Afghanistan announced in August 2017 by President Donald Trump.
At the time, Trump acknowledged that his first instinct was to withdraw all U.S. forces, but he agreed with the advice of Mattis and others to initiate a “conditions-based” approach with no timelines that would put more focus on counter-terror raids and airpower to back the increasingly stressed Afghan security forces. www.military.com/daily-news/2018/10/08/americas-war-afghanistan-enters-18th-year.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ebb%2010/9/18&utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Military%20-%20Early%20Bird%20Brief
The Navy’s Terrible Accident Record Is Now Hidden From Public View
Websites appear and disappear every day. The internet is an amorphous beast, constantly being edited and updated. We accept these changes as simple fact, but crucial information is frequently removed from government websites—and small changes over time can have major downstream consequences.
I made the disturbing discovery recently that, amid a dramatic five-year spike in aviation accidents, the Navy has put aviation safety data that used to be public behind a wall. I bumped into this change while researching for the documentary film Who Killed Lt. Van Dorn?, which uncovers the long history of negligence and institutional failure surrounding the 53E helicopter, the deadliest aircraft in the U.S. military.
I lost a high-school friend in the 2014 training accident that killed Wes Van Dorn, and soon after, I began investigating why he died. The safety data on Navy accidents that is now blocked was public when I began my reporting, and it was indispensable in producing what was first a newspaper series, then an NBC Nightly News investigation, and now a feature documentary. Without that safety data, these stories would have been far more difficult to tell.
The decision to suppress this data from public view came as the Navy, which also oversees Marine aviation, was dealing with headlines pointing out that its safety problems are increasing faster than any other branch: The Navy has seen an 82 percent spike in accidents between the 2013 and 2017 fiscal years, while the overall military increase for that same period of time is 40 percent.
America’s obesity is threatening national security, according to this study
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It’s well known at this point that just under 30 percent of Americans ages 17 to 24 ― the prime age to join the Army ― aren’t eligible to join.
But beyond that, almost a third of those who sit down with a recruiter to take the first steps are immediately disqualified.
Why? Because of their weight.
“Out of all the reasons that we have future soldiers disqualify, the largest – 31 percent ― is obesity,” Maj. Gen. Frank Muth, head of Army Recruiting Command, said Wednesday at AUSA’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
A freshly published study, “Unhealthy and Unprepared” concludes that America’s rising numbers of overweight youth are going to have real impacts on the military’s ability to maintain effectiveness.
“We’ve got to make sure that message gets out, because our concern is what happens when that percentage that qualify … potentially goes down?” Muth said. “Or if the obesity, if that starts to go up.” www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/10/10/americas-obesity-is-threatening-national-security-according-to-this-study/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ebb%2011.10.18&utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Military%20-%20Early%20Bird%20Brief
A Fighter Jet Flipped. Hangars Shredded. At Tyndall Air Force Base, a ‘Complete Loss.’
As Hurricane Michael tore across the Florida Panhandle on Wednesday, shredding buildings and homes in its path, the mostly empty Tyndall Air Force Base braced for a ferocious impact.
A wind gauge surged to 130 miles per hour, and then broke. Hangars where Air Force jets have sheltered during past tropical storms began to groan and shudder before being ripped to ribbons.
The eye of the storm cut directly over the base, which sits on a narrow spit of land that juts into the Gulf of Mexico, about a dozen miles south of Panama City. Trees bent in the howling wind, then splintered. Stormproof roofs only a few months old peeled like old paint and were scraped away by the gale. An F-15 fighter jet on display at the base entrance was ripped from its foundation and pitched onto its back amid twisted flagpoles and uprooted trees.
When it was over, the base lay in ruins, amid what the Air Force called “widespread catastrophic damage.” www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/us/air-force-hurricane-michael-damage.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
Trade tensions could trigger another global financial crisis, but investors appear complacent, IMF says
- Stock prices — particularly those in the U.S. — have hit record-high levels multiple times over the past year, which is an indication that investors have continued to take on risks.
- Yet the International Monetary Fund warned on Wednesday that “a further escalation of trade tensions, as well as rising geopolitical risks and policy uncertainty in major economies, could lead to a sudden deterioration in risk sentiment.”
- According to the organization, that could trigger “a broad-based correction in global capital markets and a sharp tightening of global financial conditions.”
Risks are building up in the global financial system, and a further escalation in trade tensions could push the situation over the edge, the International Monetary Fund warned. www.cnbc.com/2018/10/10/trade-tensions-could-trigger-another-global-financial-crisis-imf.html
Ex-Flint emergency manager bills city taxpayers for growing legal tab over water crisis
Former Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Earley, who is under investigation for his handling of the drinking water crisis, wants city taxpayers to pick up his growing legal tab – $75,000.
Earley has paid an attorney up to $750 an hour to guide him through a congressional hearing last month and to represent him in several investigations into the water crisis, according to records obtained by the Detroit Free Press. In March alone, Earley spent $64,000 in legal fees and billed the city of Flint.
Earley was the state-appointed emergency manager when the cash-starved city switched to the Flint River for drinking water in April 2014 to save money.
Record obtained by Motor City Muckraker show that Earley rejected numerous opportunities to stay with Detroit’s historically safe water for a dramatically discounted price. On March 7, 2014, Earley wrote in an e-mail to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) that he was not interested in a short-term contract to avoid using the Flint River, despite serious concerns raised by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in 2012.
“There will be no need for Flint to continue purchasing water (from DWSD) to serve its residents and businesses after April 17, 2014,” Earley wrote to DWSD Director Sue McCormick.
But months later, after studies began to show dangerously elevated levels of lead from Flint River water, Earley and Gov. Rick Snyder claimed the city was forced to use the river because DWSD would not provide a short-term contract.
Earley, who previously refused to testify before Congress, was slammed for his handling of the crisis at a hearing before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last month.
Rep. Elijah Cummings said he “almost vomited” when Earley tried to dismiss responsibility.
“It is sickening – all of it,” Cummings said. “You don’t have to be a water treatment expert. A 5-year-old could figure out” there were problems with the water. motorcitymuckraker.com/2016/04/24/ex-flint-emergency-manager-bills-city-taxpayers-for-growing-legal-tab-over-water-crisis/
After Water Fiasco, Trust of Officials Is in Short Supply in Flint (1,100 days)
…“But the loss of trust is so profound, and the sense of betrayal so complete — some Flint residents will never consume or bathe in tap water again. Given their personal experiences, I would not call that unreasonable.”
The distrust is so ingrained that some people in Flint are not washing their hands enough, a factor in a recent outbreak of shigellosis, a contagious infection that can cause severe diarrhea, fever and stools containing blood and mucus, health officials said.
Laura Sullivan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Kettering University in Flint who has worked closely with the authorities on solving the crisis, was among the sick, hospitalized for several days in July with shigellosis.
She washes her hands frequently and has not been able to definitively pinpoint the cause of her infection.
But Ms. Sullivan, too, is afraid of the water, and she said convincing others in Flint that it is fit to drink is a long way off.
“It’s difficult to convince people once they’re aware that it has been unsafe that it is now safe,” she said. “The messenger that says the water is safe can’t come from the state government. They’ve already ruined their potential to be someone who can be trusted.” www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/us/after-water-fiasco-trust-of-officials-is-in-short-supply-in-flint.html?rref=collection%2Fnewseventcollection%2Fflint-water-crisis&action=click&contentCollection=us®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection
Detroit’s HIV rate is more than 4 times the state average. Here’s why.
While the overall number of people diagnosed with new cases of HIV in Michigan has remained relatively stable since the early 2000s, it has been rising in a key demographic: young African-American gay and bisexual men who have seen a sweeping statewide increase in diagnoses, according to Jennifer Miller, an HIV epidemiology manager for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
Meanwhile other states, including parts of Ohio and Indiana, have seen an uptick in HIV cases fueled by the nationwide opioid crisis.
The number of new HIV diagnoses in Michigan peaked in 1992 at 1,525, before dropping sharply throughout the rest of the decade. Roughly 10 years after the peak, the decline leveled out as the numbers started increasing among black men between the ages of 15 and 29.
If current HIV diagnosis rates persist, according to a new analysis by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), half of black gay or bisexual men and a quarter of Latino gay or bisexual men nationwide are expected to be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime, according to a 2016 CDC analysis. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/10/07/detroit-michigan-hiv-rate/1345370002/
Big promises for a thriving urban core in Detroit vanish in a swath of parking lots
The city’s billionaire Ilitch family made ambitious promises in 2013, but now the area remains a redevelopment deadzone
Along the streets leading to Detroit’s recently minted Little Caesars Arena, colorful banners hang from temporary fencing, informing visitors they have arrived in the District Detroit. The neighborhood holds “a dynamic mix of shopping and dining” with “places to live in the heart of the action”, the signage reads. The banners depict a thriving urban core with smiling families holding hands while well-dressed people drink under patio lights.
Beyond the fencing, the landscape isn’t quite so lively. There are few places to live in the District, and little to eat. Vacant, decaying buildings make up entire city blocks. There are almost no lights, save for those illuminating surface lots and parking garages.
The arena, the Red Wings ice hockey team that plays there, and almost all the blighted property in the District share the same owner: Detroit’s billionaire Ilitch family. Their company hung the banners, but there’s growing frustration among many Detroiters over the discrepancy between the Ilitches’ imaginative marketing and the neighborhood’s stark reality.
Just down the street from LCA, Sean Swierkosz, general manager of the longstanding sports bar Harry’s, watched the Ilitches make progress, “but then it stalled”, he said. “I feel like I’m looking over the fence at my neighbor’s yard at his half-finished project or garage.”
The project began in 2013 when the Ilitches unveiled plans to revive the area between Detroit’s now-thriving mid- and downtowns. Their ambitious vision included a 50-block sports and entertainment neighborhood called The District Detroit, anchored by the 20,000-seat LCA. The Ilitches promised $200m in development around the arena, claiming new housing, stores, restaurants, bars and offices would bloom.
Though the late Mike Ilitch was worth $5.1bn at the time, local leaders handed the family a huge tax deal to help fund the vast rehab. They did so in early 2014, just as Detroit slid into the nation’s largest-ever municipal bankruptcy. The agreement will be worth at least $740m if the arena is open for 48 years, as the Ilitches estimate.
While LCA opened in 2017, the surrounding neighborhood that justified the huge tax deal never materialized, so The District largely remains a redevelopment deadzone. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/08/detroit-the-district-redevelopment-ilitch-companies
The stock market’s nightmare may be far from over
After a nail-biting week with the Dow Jones Industrial Average sinking nearly 1,400 points over two sessions, the jury is still out on whether the selloff signals a fundamental shift in the stock market or a brief episodic correction.
But one thing is certain: Investors should brace for more market drama in the coming days as corporate earnings, rising interest rates and economic data all converge to create an angst-ridden trading backdrop.
Stocks bounced back decisively on Friday with major indexes finishing in positive territory even though they were sharply lower for the week. The fact the market closed on a strong note heading into the weekend negates some of the “technical damage” wrought earlier, according to Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James. (Market Watch)
Take a Tour of Manafort’s Multimillion-Dollar Homes, Going Up for Sale
Long Island: 174 Jobs Lane, Water Mill, N.Y.
Ten bedrooms! A tennis court! A little patch of green and a sand trap to practice your putt!
Those amenities, plus its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, make Mr. Manafort’s forfeited Long Island mansion a pretty desirable property, said Paul Brennan, Douglas Elliman’s executive manager for sales in the Hamptons.
Video: Michael Lewis traces the ‘gutting of the civil service’ under Trump
Bestselling author Michael Lewis says the idea that civil servants are “lazy or stupid or dead weight on the society is…the most sinister idea alive in this country right now.” In his new book, “The Fifth Risk,” Lewis examines how the Trump administration has been staffing the federal government, and its “ignorance of the mission.” Lewis sits down with William Brangham for a conversation. www.pbs.org/newshour/show/michael-lewis-traces-the-gutting-of-the-civil-service-under-trump
Solidarity for Never
Below, FEA’s boss, McCall
It’s been a tough few years for Florida teachers. Will a new union leader shake things up? Tweedle Dee Vs Dumber
Top education leaders have spent years pleading, lobbying and rallying at the state Capitol, but Tallahassee lawmakers keep making life harder and harder for Florida’s public school teachers.
The Florida Education Association advocates for the state’s nearly 200,000 educators, but it hasn’t been able to fend off these blows to public education:
▪ A charter-friendly law that requires school districts to share their construction dollars with charter schools.
▪ A thrice-denied attempt to sue over the state’s voucher-like, tax credit scholarship program because the FEA argues that it siphons public school dollars away to send low-income students to private schools.
▪A new law that endangers the certification of any local teachers’ union that doesn’t have 50 percent of its membership paying dues.
And teacher salaries that rank among the lowest in the country are now affecting recruiting: There were 4,000 teacher vacancies statewide when the school year started.
The FEA, whose delegates will meet Friday evening in Orlando to choose a new leader, is at a crossroads.
Current FEA President Joanne McCall has had a rough three years in the post. She’s being challenged by her own vice president, Fedrick Ingram, the former president of United Teachers of Dade. Read more here: www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article219812695.html#storylink=cpy
The remnants of the American Federation of Teachers (think Pat Tornillo in jail) have taken over the Florida Education Association. Ingram is the new boss. This is the result:
More money for New York City teachers in contract deal, but is it a raise? Some are pushing back
…as educators worked to make sense of a proposal that union officials were asking them to move forward just 24 hours later, some union members began to raise concerns.
For one thing, the average annual raises fall below the 2.8 percent that the federal government has identified as matching the rising cost of living. When inflation exceeds pay increases, workers effectively experience pay cuts.
“Wait. The negotiated contractual increases are going to be LOWER than the government’s own 2019 COLA increases?” one union member wrote on the union’s Facebook page. “Are you kidding me?”
“The city economy is growing at a rate of 2.7%,” James Eterno, a retired teacher who once ran a quixotic bid to unseat United Federation of Teachers chief Michael Mulgrew, wrote on his blog, referring to the economic growth rate reported for the second quarter of this year. “The prosperity of the last ten years has passed us by.”
The city negotiates pay raises for its municipal unions as a group, hemming in the UFT because other unions had settled on new contracts first. The union also agreed to raise health care costs for new members earlier this year as part of a deal to secure paid parental leave for the first time, further limiting what could be on the table in the contract talks www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2018/10/12/more-money-for-new-york-city-teachers-in-contract-deal-but-is-it-a-raise-some-are-pushing-back/
Michael Bloomberg joins Democrats again, remains silent on possible 2020 bid (he knows they’re 2 heads of the same snake)
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg rejoined the Democratic Party on Wednesday, going back to his political roots weeks before the Nov. 6 congressional elections and amid speculation that he might run for the White House in 2020.
Bloomberg, the billionaire founder and chief executive of global media company Bloomberg LP, said in a post on social media he was re-registering as a Democrat, citing a potential constitutional crisis under Republican President Donald Trump, a fellow New York businessman. globalnews.ca/news/4532278/michael-bloomberg-democrats-2020/
The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement and The War on Reason
R. Palme Dutt on the Role of Social Democrats (a la Lula’s Workers Party) in laying the groundwork for fascism.
Chapter Eight Social Democracy (SD) and Fascism
Social democracy shares twin characteristics with Fascism. In fact it is social Fascism
These are the shared tendencies:
(a) Both split the working class and hope to maintain capitalism. Both create a favored section of the work force. Fascism and reformism exist together and supplement one another. Fascism draws the middle and lower classes, SD the upper structure of industrial workers. Fascism smashes workers organizations from without, SD undermines them from within. Fascism relies on force. Then lies: SD relies on lies, then force.
(b) Fascism draws many of its leaders from SD (Pilsudski) and fascist ideology comes from SD which closely ties its party with its nation and endorses class collaboration. Fascism and SD are both anti communist.
SD helps Fascism come to power by:
Disorganizing workers, preaching defeatism, opposing real struggle, disarming strikers, warring on reds, pointing people away from class battles and toward ballots etc. SD drives militants out of unions. SD adapts to fascist forms of government and serves as handmaiden to Fascism. richgibson.com/synopsisfascim.htm
Brazil Election: Jair Bolsonaro Heads to Runoff After Missing Outright Win
A far-right candidate who has spoken fondly of Brazil’s onetime military dictatorship came close to an outright victory in the country’s presidential election on Sunday, as Brazilians expressed disgust with politics as usual and endorsed an iron-fisted approach to fighting crime and corruption.
Voters delivered a first-round victory to Jair Bolsonaro, who had stunned the political establishment by rising to the top of a crowded presidential field despite a long history of offensive remarks about women, blacks and gays.
With 99.9 percent of votes tallied, Mr. Bolsonaro had 46 percent of the vote; he needed 50 percent to avoid a runoff. His nearest rival finished far behind, with 29 percent.
With the presidency in sight, Mr. Bolsonaro said Sunday night he intended to unite a nation that is “on the brink of chaos” and said, “Together we will rebuild our Brazil.”
Brazilians will now vote in the runoff election on Oct. 28 between Mr. Bolsonaro and Fernando Haddad, the leftist Workers’ Party candidate. The two men represent radically different visions for Brazil, the world’s fourth-largest democracy, where leftists have won the presidency in every election since 2002.
However strongly Mr. Bolsonaro performed on Sunday, he remains an extremely divisive figure who alienated large segments of Brazil’s highly diverse population during the campaign.
But political analysts said Sunday night that Mr. Haddad faces a daunting task in the second round to rally a majority of Brazilians to his side. www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/world/americas/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-election.html
The Ongoing, Avoidable Horror of the Trump Administration’s Texas Tent Camp for Migrant Kids
The detention camp for migrant kids in Tornillo, Texas, was supposed to be gone by now. Set up as a temporary “emergency influx shelter” in June, when the government was running out of places to put the kids it was tearing from parents at the border, the camp, located in the desert forty miles southeast of El Paso, was originally scheduled to close on July 13th. But the government kept pushing back the deadline, in thirty-day increments, until recently disclosing that the facility will remain open at least through the end of the year.
The Times put the camp back in the news this week, reporting that the facility’s capacity was also recently increased, so that it could accommodate up to thirty-eight hundred kids—some ten times as many kids as it was housing in June. “[T]he intent is to use these temporary facilities only as long as needed,” Evelyn Stauffer, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the facility, told the Times. From the start at Tornillo, though, “as needed” has been less about outside forces than about the Administration’s own decisions and goals. The government has discussed Tornillo as if it’s a necessary response to a crisis “when it’s not a crisis,” Bob Carey, a former H.H.S. official, told me on Monday. Carey ran the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the branch of H.H.S. responsible for the care of migrant kids, during the final two years of the Obama Administration. Tornillo was, and is, “a consequence of the actions of the Administration,” he said. www.newyorker.com/news/current/the-ongoing-avoidable-horror-of-the-trump-administrations-texas-tent-camp-for-migrant-kids?mbid=social_facebook
Crop-protecting insects could be turned into bioweapons, critics warn
Researchers are studying whether aphids and other insects could be used to transmit viruses that help protect plants.
Larry Mayer/Getty Images
It sounds like science fiction: A research program funded by the U.S. government plans to create virus-carrying insects that, released in vast numbers, could help crops fight threats such as pests, drought, or pollution. “Insect Allies,” as the $45 million, 4-year program is called, was launched in 2016 with little fanfare. But in a policy forum in this week’s issue of Science, five European researchers paint a far bleaker scenario. If successful, the technique could be used by malicious actors to help spread diseases to almost any crop species and devastate harvests, they say. The research may be a breach of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the piece argues.
The paper is likely to touch off another round in the long-running debate about “dual-use research of concern,” scientific work that may have benefits but could also be used for nefarious means. Other recent examples of such science include the creation of a flu mutant better able to spread in mammals and the synthetic creation of the extinct horsepox virus, a cousin of the virus that causes smallpox.
Funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Virginia, Insect Allies aims to use insects such as aphids or whiteflies to infect crops with tailormade viruses that can deliver certain genes to mature plants; www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/crop-protecting-insects-could-be-turned-bioweapons-critics-warn
Chicago Officer Is Cleared in Fatal Shooting of 15-Year-Old in Back of the Head
On a November afternoon in 2012, a Chicago police officer opened fire on a teenager, 15-year-old Dakota Bright, fatally striking him in the back of the head.
On Thursday, an independent civilian body decided that the officer, Brandon R. Ternand, 34, would be allowed to remain on the force.
In a 5-to-3 vote, that body, the Police Board of the City of Chicago, cleared Officer Ternand of charges that he had used unnecessary force in the shooting death of Dakota. In its 21-page decision, the board said that it had found “credible and persuasive” the testimony of Officer Ternand that he had feared for his life after the teenager turned around during a foot chase, looked at him and reached for his left side as if for a gun.
No gun was found on or near Dakota’s body, but the police said they had discovered a gun near an alley where the officers first saw the teenager. www.nytimes.com/2018/10/12/us/chicago-police-shooting-dakota-bright-brandon-ternand.html
Spy versus Spy
Chinese Officer Is Extradited to U.S. to Face Charges of Economic Espionage
A Chinese intelligence official was arrested in Belgium and extradited to the United States to face espionage charges, Justice Department officials said on Wednesday, a major escalation of the Trump administration’s effort to crack down on Chinese spying.
The extradition on Tuesday of the officer, Yanjun Xu, a deputy division director in China’s main spy agency, the Ministry of State Security, is the first time that a Chinese intelligence official has been brought to the United States to be prosecuted and tried in open court. Law enforcement officials said that Mr. Xu tried to steal trade secrets from companies including GE Aviation outside Cincinnati, in Evendale, Ohio, one of the world’s top jet engine suppliers for commercial and military aircraft.
A 16-page indictment details what appears to be a dramatic international sting operation to lure Mr. Xu to what he believed was a meeting in Belgium to obtain proprietary information about jet fan blade designs from a GE Aviation employee, only to be met by Belgian authorities and put on a plane to the United States.
China has for years used spycraft and cyberattacks to steal American corporate, academic and military information to bolster its growing economic power and political influence. But apprehending an accused Chinese spy — all others charged by the United States government are still at large — is an extraordinary development and a sign of the Trump administration’s continued crackdown on the Chinese theft of trade secrets.
The administration also outlined on Wednesday new restrictions on foreign investment aimed at keeping China from gaining access to American companies. www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/us/politics/china-spy-espionage-arrest.html
Owner of limousine company involved in horror crash is a former FBI informant who was paid $96,000 to go undercover to expose terror plots after fleeing to the US from Pakistan where he’d been accused of murder
- Shahed Hussain is the owner of Prestige Limousines, also known as Hasy Limos
- It was one of his cars that crashed in upstate New York on Saturday, killing 20
- The vehicle failed a safety inspection last month and the company has had four others taken off the road
- Hussain, who also goes by ‘Malik’, worked as an informant for the FBI after being caught running a DMV scam where he helped test takers cheat
- In 2007, he started going undercover in mosques in Newburgh, New York, to record conversations with alleged terrorists www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6253639/Owner-limousine-company-involved-horror-crash-former-FBI-informant.html
The Magical Mystery Tour
The Catholic Church’s Biggest Crisis Since the Reformation
Why a New Wave of Sexual Abuse Revelations Has Deepened Preexisting Divisions
The Catholic Church is facing its most serious crisis in 500 years. In these last few months, a new wave of clerical sexual abuse revelations left the world in shock. From Australia to Chile to Germany to the United States, horrifying reports revealed thousands of cases of child molestation by members of the clergy. One U.S. grand jury report documented 1,000 children abused by 300 priests in the state of Pennsylvania alone over seven decades.
The new wave of revelations in 2018 was disturbing not only because it exposed the persistence of abuse but also because it implicated high level church officials in the abuse and its cover-up. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, resigned from the College of Cardinals in July when credible accusations came to light that he had sexually abused a minor and harassed seminarians he supervised. The McCarrick revelations were particularly troubling because the former archbishop had played a leadership role in the Catholic Church’s response to the last U.S. clerical sexual abuse scandal in 2002. In late August, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former papal diplomat, published a letter accusing Pope Francis of knowing about McCarrick’s sexual abuses for years and helping to cover them up. Viganò concluded by calling on the pope to resign.
The Viganò letter, and the scandal itself, have sent shockwaves through a foundation that was already cracked. The church is bitterly divided between progressive and conservative wings. This split is particularly pronounced in the United States, where highly mobilized, neo-traditionalist Catholics took up Vigano’s call for Francis’ resignation. This branch of the church already feared that Francis presented a progressive threat to church teachings on marriage and sexuality. The letter seemed to vindicate such distrust by accusing the current papacy and its supporters in the church of complacency towards what Viganò called a “pro-gay ideology” and “homosexual networks” among the clergy. In Viganò’s opinion, this was the cause of the abuse crisis. Church progressives, meanwhile, have defended Francis against the allegations, but without the resolve of those who are demanding his resignation—in part because they too view his general record on the sexual abuse crisis as weak.
In desperate need of institutional reform and facing growing political, theological, and geopolitical rifts, the church has not experienced so great a crisis since the Protestant Reformation. Unlike that of the sixteenth century, the current situation probably won’t result in a schism or the establishment of new churches. But to understand the magnitude and complexity of what is now taking place, we have to look that far back, and to so significant a rupture. www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-10-11/catholic-churchs-biggest-crisis-reformation?cid=nlc-fa_twofa-20181011
San Diego priest suspended, as diocese finds allegations of sexual misconduct credible
Twice, in 1995 and in 2002, the Diocese of San Diego cleared the Rev. Justin Langille of allegations that he had sexually abused a teenage girl.
But a third investigation — conducted last month by the Diocesan Independent Review Board — found new evidence that undermined the priest’s alibi. On Tuesday, the diocese announced that Langille, 65, has been suspended and is no longer able to perform priestly duties.
“I felt strongly that even older, previously decided cases involving currently serving priests would benefit from being examined by the Independent Review Board,” Bishop Robert McElroy said in a statement released by the diocese Tuesday. “The voice of the laity needs to be heard on these matters…”
The review board, which includes lay attorneys, criminal investigators, psychologists and a clergy abuse victim, offers “exceptionally valuable guidance and expertise,” McElroy said.
Langille was accused of inappropriately touching an adolescent girl. While stopping short of sexual intercourse, a diocesan official described the priest’s actions as a clear “boundary violation.” www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/religion/sd-me-priest-suspended-20181009-story.html
Abuse survivors angry over Pope’s praise for fallen cardinal
Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the embattled archbishop of Washington and one of the church’s most powerful Americans. But the Pope’s high praise for Wuerl in the wake of two clergy sexual abuse scandals angered some abuse survivors.
But Francis has asked Wuerl to remain as the archdiocese’s apostolic administrator — akin to an interim manager — until a successor is named. And in a letter released Friday, the pope praised Wuerl for his “nobility” in handling the criticism against him.
The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World
Obama’s Resistance to Investigating the Bush Administration Allowed Brett Kavanaugh to Skate Onto the Supreme Court
One of Barack Obama’s first decisions after being elected president continued to haunt the country over the weekend, as Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as the fifth hard-line conservative on the Supreme Court.
In January 2009, George W. Bush left office with an abysmal 22 percent approval rating, the lowest ever recorded. Almost everyone with anything to do with his administration was considered politically toxic.
With full Democratic control of the federal government, calls came for an investigation into the scandals of the Bush administration, including torture, mass surveillance, and war profiteering. While some called for criminal prosecutions, others wanted hearings or an independent investigation that would — at minimum — put into the public record the details of who did what and when. At the least, the argument went, Democrats could ensure that the GOP had to wear the Bush administration for years; that the officials involved in wrongdoing would be written out of polite society; and that future administrations would not revert to those practices.
Obama refused. “We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards,” he said famously on January 11, 2009,
Had he looked forward far enough, he would have seen one of the chief boosters of the torture program elevated to CIA director, and a Bush administration attorney with complicity in a wide array of its most controversial programs lifted up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Kavanaugh’s rise to the Supreme Court is the result of elite institutional failure. The judge was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts on Saturday evening, even as demonstrators banged on the doors of the court. “The road that led us here has been bitter, angry, and partisan,” said Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer on the Senate floor after the vote, “steeped in hypocrisy and hyperbole and resentment and outrage.”
Three allegations of sexual assault — the first was broken by The Intercept — and and FBI investigation weren’t enough to sink Kavanaugh. Nor were indications of perjurious testimony — in part because a trove of documents relating to Kavanaugh’s time with the Bush administration that is currently being analyzed by the National Archives, including emails and memos about surveillance, torture, and Kavanaugh’s involvement with a hacking scandal, won’t be released until the end of October.
At least 100,000 documents relating to Kavanaugh’s involvement in developing policy during his time as associate counsel to the president from 2001 to 2003, and his time as staff secretary from 2003 to 2006, have been withheld by the Trump administration, citing executive privilege. theintercept.com/2018/10/09/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-bush-administration/
Melania Trump says she ignores reports of Trump’s infidelity (“don’t touch me…”)
Melania Trump says she has ‘‘much more important things to think about and to do’’ than worry about allegations of President Donald Trump cheating on her.
Mrs. Trump says she’s ‘‘a mother and a first lady.’’ She says allegations of her husband’s infidelities are not a ‘‘concern and focus.’’ www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2018/10/12/melania-trump-says-she-ignores-rumors-trump-infidelity/JR8P6DGYRvbH6zXg8HYFlM/story.html
Woman with ’emotional support squirrel’ is ordered off plane; passengers cheer (video within)
Police had to remove a woman who brought an “emotional support squirrel” on a Frontier Airlines flight headed from Orlando, Florida, to Cleveland.
Frontier says the passenger had noted in her reservation that she was bringing an emotional support animal with her on Flight 1612 Tuesday night. But she did not indicate it was a squirrel.
The airline says rodents, including squirrels, are not allowed. The airline says police were called when the passenger refused to leave the plane.
Police requested the other passengers disembark while officers dealt with the woman, who was eventually escorted into the main terminals. www.mercurynews.com/2018/10/10/woman-with-emotional-support-squirrel-is-ordered-off-plane-passengers-cheer/
So Long
www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=4496
David Wise, Journalist Who Exposed C.I.A. Activity, Dies at 88
Mr. Wise was the author, with Thomas B. Ross, of “The Invisible Government,” an explosive 1964 exposé of the C.I.A. and its covert operations. To keep its contents from the public, the C.I.A. considered buying up all copies of the book but backed off when the publisher, Random House, made clear that it would simply print more….
“The Invisible Government.” It was a startling unmasking of C.I.A. involvement in the Bay of Pigs and in coups in Guatemala and Iran. It also revealed the agency’s covert operations in Laos and Vietnam and its attempts, with British assistance, to overthrow President Sukarno in Indonesia, among many other previously undisclosed activities. www.nytimes.com/2018/10/09/obituaries/david-wise-dead.html