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Who Watches the Watchdog? The CJR's Russia Problem - Byline Times - 0 views

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shared by Javier E on 11 Feb 23 - No Cached
  • In December 2018, Pope commissioned me to report for the CJR on the troubled history of The Nation magazine and its apparent support for the policies of Vladimir Putin. 
  • My $6,000 commission to write for the prestigious ”watchdog” was flattering and exciting – but would also be a hard call. Watchdogs, appointed or self-proclaimed, can only claim entitlement when they hold themselves to the highest possible standards of reporting and conduct. It was not to be
  • For me, the project was vital but also a cause for personal sadness.  During the 1980s, I had been an editor of The Nation’s British sister magazine New Statesman and had served as chair of its publishing company. I knew, worked with and wrote for The Nation’s then-editor, the late Victor Navasky. He subsequently chaired the CJR. 
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  • Investigating and calling out a magazine and editor for which I felt empathy, and had historic connections to, hearing from its critics and dissidents, and finding whistleblowers and confidential inside sources was a challenge. But hearing responses from all sides was a duty.
  • I worked on it for six months, settling a first draft of my story to the CJR‘s line editor in the summer 2019. From then on my experience of the CJR was devastating and damaging.
  • After delivering the story and working through a year-long series of edits and re-edits required by Pope, the story was slow-walked to dismissal. In 2022, after Russian tanks had rolled towards Kyiv, I urged Pope to restore and publish the report, given the new and compelling public interest. He refused.
  • he trigger for my CJR investigation was a hoax concerning Democratic Party emails hacked and dumped in 2016 by teams from Russia’s GRU intelligence agency.  The GRU officers responsible were identified and their methods described in detail in the 2019 Mueller Report.  
  • The Russians used the dumped emails decisively – first to leverage an attack on that year’s Democratic National Convention; and then to divert attention from Donald Trump’s gross indiscretions at critical times before his election
  • In 2017, with Trump in the White House, Russian and Republican denial operations began, challenging the Russian role and further widening divisions in America. A pinnacle of these operations was the publication in The Nation on 9 August 2017 of an article – still online under a new editor – claiming that the stolen emails were leaked from inside the DNC.  
  • Immediately after the article appeared, Trump-supporting media and his MAGA base were enthralled. They celebrated that a left-liberal magazine had refuted the alleged Russian operations in supporting Trump, and challenged the accuracy of mainstream press reporting on ‘Russiagate’
  • Nation staff and advisors were aghast to find their magazine praised lavishly by normally rabid outlets – Fox News, Breitbart, the Washington Times. Even the President’s son.
  • When I was shown the Nation article later that year by one of the experts it cited, I concluded that it was technical nonsense, based on nothing.  The White House felt differently and directed the CIA to follow up with the expert, former senior National Security Agency official and whistleblower, William Binney (although nothing happened)
  • Running the ‘leak’ article positioned the left-wing magazine strongly into serving streams of manufactured distractions pointing away from Russian support for Trump.
  • I traced the source of the leak claim to a group of mainly American young right-wing activists delivering heavy pro-Russian and pro-Syrian messaging, working with a British collaborator. Their leader, William Craddick, had boasted of creating the ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy story – a fantasy that Hillary Clinton and her election staff ran a child sex and torture ring in the non-existent basement of a pleasant Washington neighbourhood pizzeria. Their enterprise had clear information channels from Moscow. 
  • We spoke for 31 minutes at 1.29 ET on 12 April 2019. During the conversation, concerning conflicts of interest, Pope asked only about my own issues – such as that former editor Victor Navasky, who would figure in the piece, had moved from running and owning The Nation to being Chair of the CJR board; and that the independent wealth foundation of The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel – the Kat Foundation – periodically donated to Columbia University.
  • In the series, writer Jeff Gerth condemns multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning reports on Russian interference operations by US mainstream newspapers. Echoing words used in 2020 by vanden Heuvel, he cited as more important “RealClearInvestigations, a non-profit online news site that has featured articles critical of the Russia coverage by writers of varying political orientation, including Aaron Maté”.
  • On the day we spoke, I now know, Pope was working with vanden Heuvel and The Nation to launch – 18 days later – a major new international joint journalism project ‘Covering Climate Now!‘
  • Soon after we spoke, the CJR tweeted that “CJR and @thenation are gathering some of the world’s top journalists, scientists, and climate experts” for the event. I did not see the tweet. Pope and the CJR staff said nothing of this to me. 
  • Any editor must know without doubt in such a situation, that every journalist has a duty of candour and a clear duty to recuse themselves from editorial authority if any hint of conflict of interest arises. Pope did not take these steps. From then until August 2020, through his deputy, he sent me a stream of directions that had the effect of removing adverse material about vanden Heuvel and its replacement with lists of her ‘achievements’. Then he killed the story
  • Working on my own story for the CJR, I did not look behind or around – or think I needed to. I was working for the self-proclaimed ‘watchdog of journalism’. I forgot the ancient saw: who watches the watchdog?
  • This week, Kyle Pope failed to reply to questions from Byline Times about conflicts of interest in linking up with the subjects of the report he had commissioned.
  • During the period I was preparing the report about The Nation and its editor, he wrote for The Nation on nine occasions. He has admitted being remunerated by the publication. While I was working for the CJR, he said nothing. He did not recuse himself, and actively intervened to change content for a further 18 months.
  • On April 16 2019, I was informed that Katrina vanden Heuvel had written to Pope to ask about my report. “We’re going to say thanks for her thoughts and that we’ll make sure the piece is properly vetted and fact-checked,” I was told
  • A month later, I interviewed her for the CJR. Over the course of our 100 minutes discussion, it must have slipped her mind to mention that she and Kyle Pope had just jointly celebrated being given more than $1 million from the Rockefeller Family and other foundations to support their climate project.
  • Pope then asked me to identify my confidential sources from inside The Nation, describing this as a matter of “policy”
  • Pope asked several times that the article be amended to state that there were general tie-ups between the US left and Putin. I responded that I could find no evidence to suggest that was true, save that the Daily Beast had uncovered RT attempting cultivation of the US left. 
  • Pope then wanted the 6,000-word and fully edited report cut by 1,000 words, mainly to remove material about the errors in The Nation article. Among sections cut down were passages showing how, from 2014 onwards, vanden Heuvel had hired a series of pro-Russian correspondents after they had praised her husband. Among the new intake was a Russian and Syrian Government supporting broadcaster, Aaron Maté, taken on in 2017 after he had platformed Cohen on his show The Real News. 
  • On 30 January 2023, the CJR published an immense four-part 23,000-word series on Trump, Russia and the US media. The CJR‘s writers found their magazine praised lavishly by normally rabid outlets. Fox News rejoiced that The New York Times had been “skewered by the liberal media watchdog the Columbia Journalism Review” over Russiagate”. WorldNetDaily called it a “win for Trump”.
  • Pope agreed. Trump had “hailed our report as proof of the media assault on Trump that they’ve been hyping all along,” he wrote. “Trump cheered that view on Truth Social, his own, struggling social-media platform
  • She and her late husband, Professor Stephen Cohen, were at the heart of my reporting on the support The Nation gave to Putin’s Russia. Sixteen months later, as Pope killed my report, he revealed that he had throughout been involved in an ambitious and lucratively funded partnership between the CJR and The Nation, and between himself and vanden Heuvel. 
  • As with The Nation in 2017, the CJR is seeing a storm of derisive and critical evaluations of the series by senior American journalists. More assessments are said to be in the pipeline. “We’re taking the critiques seriously,” Pope said this week. The Columbia Journalism Review may now have a Russia Problem.  
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A federal watchdog weighs in on the Ukraine matter, saying the Trump administration bro... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...p-administration-broke-the-law trump politics
shared by brookegoodman on 16 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • The House impeachment managers are expected to enter the Senate chamber about noon, where they will read the articles of impeachment against President Trump aloud to the assembled senators.
  • A federal watchdog concluded the Trump administration violated the law in the Ukraine matter by withholding security assistance.
  • The Trump administration violated the law in withholding security assistance aid to Ukraine
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  • The Government Accountability Office said the White House Office of Management and Budget withheld the nearly $400 million, which was allocated by Congress, for “a policy reason” in violation of the Impoundment Control Act.
  • Ms. Grisham also criticized the House impeachment proceedings and said the White House expected that Mr. Trump’s formal response to the charges would prove he did nothing wrong.
  • History will be made swiftly on Thursday, as the Senate initiates only the third presidential impeachment trial in American history in three hours or less.
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BBC News - Syria chemical weapons equipment destroyed, says OPCW - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-middle-east-24754460 policy history politics crisis bbc news syria chemical weapons equipment economic
shared by julia rhodes on 01 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • 31 October 2013 Last updated at 19:42 ET Share this page Email Print Share this page2.6KShareFacebookTwitter Syria chemical weapons equipment destroyed, says OPCW Advertisement $render("advert-post-script-load"); Jerry Smith, OPCW: "We have... observed all of the destruction activities" Continue reading the main story Syria conflict Arms destruction Chemical stockpile 'Please let it be over' Assad opponents Syria's declared equipment for producing, mixing and filling chemical weapons has been destroyed, the international watchdog says. This comes a day before the deadline set by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The weapons have been placed under seal, an OPCW spokesman said. Inspectors were sent to Syria following allegations, denied by the government, that its forces had used chemical weapons in civilian areas. Continue reading the main story Analysis Jonathan Marcus BBC diplomatic correspondent The achievement of this crucial initial target is an important moment for the chemical weapons destruction effort in Syria. The inspectors' first task was to move swiftly to prevent the government from producing any more chemical agent and to destroy facilities and equipment used for mixing agents and filling munitions. Production facilities will be closely monitored to ensure that there are no moves to repair them. The next deadline is mid-November, by which time the OPCW and the Syrians must agree a detailed plan to destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile. All sorts of questions are raised. Where will this destruction be carried out ? Who will provide the necessary equipment and so on? Western intelligence agencies will be studying Syria's declarations carefully. They will be eager to direct inspectors to additional locations if there are any grounds to believe that Damascus has been less than frank in its disclosures. The inspections were agreed between Russia and the US after Washington threatened to use force in Syria. Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad
  • Syria's declared equipment for producing, mixing and filling chemical weapons has been destroyed, the international watchdog says.
  • nspectors were sent to Syria following allegations, denied by the government, that its forces had used chemical weapons in civilian areas.
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  • "I hope those who have always thought of us negatively will change their minds and understand that Syria was, is, and will be always a constructive partner," Mr Mekdad told our correspondent
  • Mr Countryman, the assistant secretary for international security and non-proliferation, told US lawmakers that "our target dates are ambitious but they are achievable".
  • In a separate development, a large explosion at a Syrian army base has been reported outside the coastal city of Latakia. A White House official told the BBC Israeli planes carried out the attack, saying he believed the intended target was Russian missiles. Separately, a US security official said Russian-made SA-125 missiles had been targeted, according to the Associated Press news agency.
  • Israel is believed to have targeted the same base in July and is concerned that some weapons in Syria are being moved to Hezbollah militants in neighbouring Lebanon.
  • Mr Smith said that verifying the destruction of Syria's weapons production capability had been a "particularly challenging job" because it had to be done in the midst of a conflict, with a tight deadline
  • The first step is for the weapons watchdog and the Syrian government to agree a timetable for the destruction of the chemical weapons stockpile - this should be done within the next two weeks
  • The US says more than 1,400 people were killed when government forces used a nerve agent to attack Ghouta on the outskirts of Damascus on 21 August. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies have said rebel groups were responsible
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Washington unsure of whether to scrap nuke deal, UN watchdog says | The Times of Israel - 0 views

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shared by horowitzza on 06 Mar 17 - No Cached
  • The new US administration has not yet decided what to do about the 2015 Iran nuclear deal
  • They are looking “not only at that issue but also at many other issues. So it is very early for them to give their assessment,
  • Trump said while campaigning for the presidency that he wanted to “dismantle” the July 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers including the United States.
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  • Iran has always denied wanting nuclear weapons, saying its activities are purely peaceful.
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UN watchdog: Access to key Iranian data lacking since Feb 23 | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...nian-data-lacking-since-feb-23 US politics
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  • The United Nations’ atomic watchdog hasn’t been able to access data important to monitoring Iran’s nuclear program since late February when the Islamic Republic started restricting international inspections of its facilities, the agency said Monday.
  • Iran started limiting inspections in a bid to put pressure on the government of U.S. President Joe Biden to lift crippling sanctions reimposed after then President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran unilaterally in 2018.
  • In the IAEA report, the agency for the first time released estimates of Iran’s stockpile rather than precise figures, saying that as of May 22, Iran’s total enriched uranium stockpile was 3,241 kilograms (7,145 pounds), up about 273 kilograms (600 pounds) from the last quarterly report.
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  • IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi was able to negotiate a last-minute deal in February, however, under which promised the IAEA it would hold onto footage shot by its surveillance cameras and would hand them over if diplomats reached a deal in Vienna to lift the sanctions it faces. Otherwise, Tehran said it would delete the images.
  • The ultimate goal of the deal is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, something it insists it doesn’t want to do. Iran now has enough enriched uranium to make a bomb, but nowhere near the amount it had before the nuclear deal was signed.
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Trump Broke The Law In Freezing Ukraine Funds, Watchdog Report Concludes : NPR - 0 views

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shared by nrashkind on 20 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • A federal watchdog concluded that President Trump broke the law when he froze assistance funds for Ukraine last year, according to a report unveiled on Thursday.
  • The White House has said that it believed Trump was acting within his legal authority.
  • Trump's decision to freeze military aid appropriated by Congress is at the heart of impeachment proceedings against the president
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  • Democratic lawmakers have accused Trump of abusing his office by withholding hundreds of millions in assistance in order to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.
  • The Office of Management and Budget blocked the Defense Department from spending money designated by Congress on July 25,
  • a 1974 law that governs budget procedure within the government "does not permit OMB to withhold funds for policy reasons,"
  • Documents and testimony released during and after House impeachment hearings revealed some administration officials had raised concerns that the Ukraine hold might have violated the law known as the Impoundment Control Act.
  • in early January that Defense Department emails showed repeated warnings from the department to OMB that the delays put its ability to distribute the aid at risk.
  • Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, asked the GAO to assess Trump's decisions to freeze the Ukraine aid.
  • Van Hollen said he thought the report vindicated Congress' decision to impeach Trump.
  • Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., opposes the introduction of fresh witnesses or evidence into a Senate trial, arguing the Senate's role is to assess the House's fact-finding, not to do new investigations on its own.
  • After release of the GAO report, the OMB said it disagrees with the findings.
  • "OMB uses its apportionment authority to ensure taxpayer dollars are properly spent consistent with the president's priorities and with the law," said OMB spokeswoman Rachel Semmel.
  • If the White House wants to delay or deny funds, it must first alert Congress.
  • Back in 2016, as she campaigned for Hillary Clinton, Laura Hubka could feel her county converting.
  • "People were chasing me out the door, slamming the door in my face, calling Hillary names," Hubka recalled.
  • In 2012, Howard County voted for then-President Barack Obama by 21 percentage points. In 2016, it voted for candidate Donald Trump by 20 points.
  • Of Iowa's 99 counties, 31 swung from voting for the Democrat Obama in 2008 and 2012 to the Republican Trump in 2016,
  • oward County, with its 41-point shift, saw the biggest swin
  • National reporters have descended on the county, trying to understand the massive shift
  • Whatever the reason, local Democrats want to make sure they can win back some voters.
  • they're torn on how to do that.
  • Hubka is not supporting the former vice president. Instead, she's backing Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind. So is Dale Ernst.
  • "I think he's just kind of a calm voice in the middle of the chaos, which is what we're in the middle of now,
  • "I just don't think it's reasonable," he said. "I just really don't. I think for people younger than 65, they see this more free than, really, the cost of it."
  • The 66-year-old is skeptical of "Medicare for All."
  • "Amy Klobuchar is kind of right in the middle," Godwin said. "I like what she has to say."
  • "I will do my best to try to get this county back," said Hubka, the party chair. "I don't have high hopes. ... I don't know in November that it'll flip completely. I hope that I can get at least 10 of the points back or, you know, 15."
  • "Coming to a place like here, where the swing was 20 [for Obama] to 20 [for Trump], I think it steers the ship," he said. "It gives a good idea of where we should go."
  • The last time the county went for a Republican prior to Trump was in 1984 for Ronald Reagan. Four years later, it turned blue again.
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Iran watchdog passes law on hardening nuclear stance, halting U.N. inspections | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...-u-n-inspections-idUSKBN28C2F7 iran israel foreign-relations world
shared by anonymous on 02 Dec 20 - No Cached
  • Iran’s Guardian Council watchdog body approved a law on Wednesday that obliges the government to halt U.N. inspections of its nuclear sites and step up uranium enrichment beyond the limit set under Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal if sanctions are not eased in two months.
  • he killing last week of Iran’s top nuclear scientist
  • Tehran has blamed on Israel
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  • The Guardian Council is charged with ensuring draft laws do not contradict Shi’ite Islamic laws or Iran’s constitution
  • Tehran would give two months to the deal’s European parties to ease sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors, imposed after Washington quit the pact between Tehran and six powers in 2018.
  • In reaction to U.S. President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy on Tehran, Iran has gradually reduced its compliance with the deal.
  • The law
  • would make it harder for U.S. President-elect Joe Biden
  • to rejoin the agreement.
  • Biden has said he would return to the pact and would lift sanctions if Tehran returned to “strict compliance with the nuclear deal”.
  • Rouhani, the Iranian architect of the 2015 deal, criticised parliament’s move as “harmful to diplomatic efforts” aimed at easing U.S. sanctions.
  • The deal caps the fissile purity to which Iran can refine uranium at 3.67%, far below the 20% achieved before the deal and below the weapons-grade level of 90%. Iran breached the 3.67% cap in July 2019 and the enrichment level has remained steady at up to 4.5% since then.
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Senate Looks to Move Fast on Trump Administration Hearings, Health Law - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...gs-obamacare-repeal-1483876802
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  • abbykleman on 09 Jan 17
     
    The GOP-controlled Senate, brushing aside concerns from Democrats and a government-ethics watchdog, is moving quickly this week to help help President-elect Donald Trump staff his administration and will vote on a step toward repealing much of the Affordable Care Act.
  • davisem on 09 Jan 17
     
    The GOP-controlled Senate, brushing aside concerns from Democrats and a government-ethics watchdog, is moving quickly this week to help help President-elect Donald Trump staff his administration and will vote on a step toward repealing much of the Affordable Care Act.
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DOJ watchdog launches probe into handling of Clinton email investigation - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...of-clinton-email-investigation
shared by davisem on 13 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • davisem on 13 Jan 17
     
    The announcement, which was expected, comes after criticism of the Justice Department's handling of the investigation, particularly on how the public was notified. The email probe was a major issue on the 2016 campaign trail. Developing story - more to come
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Ethics Watchdog Denounces Conway's Endorsement of Ivanka Trump Products - The New York ... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...onway-ivanka-trump-ethics.html new york times trump history politics US
shared by anonymous on 15 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Ethics Watchdog Denounces Conway’s Endorsement of Ivanka Trump Products
  • WASHINGTON — The White House adviser Kellyanne Conway’s public endorsement of Ivanka Trump’s product line appears to be “a clear violation of the prohibition against misuse of position,”
  • Last week, Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called Ms. Conway’s endorsement of Ms. Trump’s product line “wrong, wrong, wrong,” and he called on the ethics office to investigate. His response was all the more striking given that Mr. Chaffetz, a Republican, had brushed off previous calls to investigate Mr. Trump or those around him, despite his committee’s broad investigative powers.
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Netanyahu Asserts Israel Will Be Iran's Watchdog - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...el-will-be-irans-watchdog.html netanyahu israel iran
shared by jongardner04 on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel warned on Sunday that his nation would ensure that Tehran never obtains nuclear weapons, while also taking credit for keeping Iran from already having them.
  • Mr. Netanyahu has been an open and vocal opponent of the deal with Iran.
  • “Israel’s policy has been and will remain exactly what it has been: not to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.”
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  • “What is clear is that Iran will now have more resources to dedicate to their terrorism and aggression in the region and in the world, and Israel is prepared to deal with any threat,” he said.
  • Mr. Netanyahu believes, as he said in a statement issued late Saturday, when it became clear that the United Nations would accept Iran’s partial dismantling of its nuclear infrastructure in what has been called “implementation day,” that “Iran has not relinquished its ambition to obtain nuclear weapons.”
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GOP group 'Stop Stacey' targets Abrams ahead of expected 2022 run | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...ams-ahead-of-expected-2022-run Politics Georgia targets
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  • GOP group 'Stop Stacey' targets Abrams ahead of expected 2022 run By Julia Manchester - 02/01/21 09:19 AM EST 863 17,083 AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to FacebookFacebookFacebookShare to TwitterTwitterTwitter Share   Just In... Fauci: CDC will release new guidance for vaccinated Americans 'very soon' Healthcare — 2m 39s ago Veteran PAC slams Tucker Carlson for comments on female service members BriefingRoom BlogRoll — 24m 3s ago US officials debating sending millions of AstraZeneca doses awaiting clearance overseas: report Administration — 48m 11s ago Biden denounces hate, violence against Asian Americans: 'It must stop' News — 1h 29m ago Biden administration to implement testing programs in schools as part of reopening effort field
  • publican strategists aligned with Georgia Gov. Brian KempBrian KempGeorgia Senate votes to repeal no-excuse absentee voting Two Republicans can stop voter suppression Trump fires back at WSJ editorial urging GOP to move on MORE (R) on Monday launched an outside group aimed at stopping a potential 2022 gubernatorial run by Democrat Stacey Abrams.
  • "We will do whatever it takes to expose Stacey Abrams’ radical network, highlight her dangerous agenda, and ultimately defeat her — and her left-wing candidates — at the ballot box," the group's senior strategist, Jeremy Brand, said in a statement. "There is no time to waste: We must stand up, fight back, and Stop Stacey.”
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  • In the two years since Abram's first run, her group Fair Fight has registered tens of thousands of voters in the Peach State and raised $100 million.
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Pentagon watchdog finds National Guard's use of helicopters to fly over DC protestors "... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html politics trump us
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  • The Pentagon's watchdog found that the DC National Guard's use of low-flying helicopters in response to protests in DC on June 1, 2020, over the death of George Floyd was "reasonable," but the mission was mired in confusion.
  • The report from the Department of Defense's Inspector General, released Thursday, concluded the deployment of helicopters was justifiable based on the needs of the emergency, as well as the direction from President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Mark Esper to "flood the zone" and "use everything available" to protect "federal property and symbols."
  • A lack of clear guidance on the helicopters' mission compounded the confusion, because Ryan "did not provide clear and consistent direction and mission guidance" and "did not provide his clear and consistent commander's intent to include key tasks and parameters for the operation."Enter your email to sign up for CNN's "What Matters" Newsletter. "close dialog"Sign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.Sign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.Please enter aboveSign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN What Matters Newsletter<di
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  • "No specific training, policies, or procedures were in place for using helicopters to support requests for assistance from civilian authorities in civil disturbances," the report's authors wrote. "Prior to the night of June 1st, 2020, the DC [National Guard] did not have a prepared plan to maintain command and control of aviation assets used to support civil disturbances."Read More
  • Well after the curfew, protesters were still out on the streets, and video captured by CNN showed a military helicopter hovering over a group of them, kicking up strong wind and debris with its downwash. The tactic is a show of force and commonly used by the military in overseas combat zones to drive away targets from a specific area.
  • The Defense Department Inspector General largely agreed with an earlier report from an Army investigation that found the use of helicopters was not against federal laws or policies, though there was a "lack of understanding" about their mission.But the new report contradicted the Army investigation's finding that MEDEVAC helicopters were used against regulations and that the helicopters were used without approval from the chain of command.
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Capitol riot: Scathing watchdog report reveals Capitol Police had expired ammo and inef... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html politics US trump GOP crisis Culture policy
shared by carolinehayter on 08 Apr 21 - No Cached
  • A scathing report by the US Capitol Police watchdog obtained by CNN reveals that there were even more law enforcement failures prior to January 6 than previously known, including new details about expired ammunition, ineffective shields and a previously unreported warning more than two weeks ahead of the insurrection about a map of the Capitol's underground tunnels that was posted on a pro-Donald Trump website.
  • Further, the report points out Capitol Police leadership knew as far back as July 2020 the department needed to make significant changes, but inexplicably failed to do so.
  • On that day, "the Department of Homeland Security notified the Department of a blog referencing tunnels on U.S. Capitol grounds used by Members of Congress and research of the website identified four 'threads/blog topics containing comments of concern,'" the summary states.
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  • The report goes on to expose, for the first time, a startling degree of indifference from Capitol Police leadership when it came to routine house-keeping items, such as failing to maintain an accurate roster of officers assigned to the Civil Disturbance Unit.
  • there were several longstanding issues that the department "either knew and did not address in time or did not address in a routine manner to prevent,"
  • Even equipment maintenance appeared to be a low priority. The summary shows the CDU shields were not stored in the correct temperature, rendering them ineffective, while some ammunition in the armory was expired.
  • In the end, the unit was "operating at a decreased level of readiness," due to the numerous failures, the report states.
  • The summary lists 27 recommendations for corrections, including changing procedures to "refine document reporting that better captures operational impact to include improbable outcomes based on intelligence, trend data, threats to members, and information analysis."
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Solo Extremists Might Pose Higher Risk Than Organized Groups - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...n-organized-groups-11610818819 terrorism election
shared by mariedhorne on 19 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • As Washington, D.C., and state capitals enact security measures, solo actors may pose a threat in coming weeks as extremist groups are advising followers to avoid large rallies but remain opposed to the incoming administration, according to people who track such groups.
  • Nonetheless, extremism watchdog groups and former law-enforcement officials say there is still a threat from lone-wolf extremists who are inspired by such groups. The far-right groups, which don’t accept the legitimacy of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over President Trump, could become more aggressive in the coming months after security is lowered, the watchdogs and ex-officials said.
  • “These are people that honestly are intent on doing what it is they’re going to do under the cover of darkness. They’re going to do it in a way that people are not going to see them coming.”
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  • In Washington, D.C., the National Mall is ringed by tall metal fencing. Army trucks and police cars, lights flashing, are parked perpendicular at intersections, closing off streets in swaths of the city.
  • Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who was recently the target of an alleged kidnapping plot by an antigovernment group known as the Michigan III%ers, called the action “a good start” but said she wanted to see a ban on all weapons at the Capitol.
  • on Robinson, a former supervisory agent for the FBI who specialized in domestic extremist groups and now works as an independent consultant, said he sees the risk across a range of potential actors. “Once the finality of Biden’s inauguration hits them I’m worried that some will act out violently,” said Mr. Robinson. “If one target is a hardened U.S. Capitol they may just seek out another venue.”
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White House Responds To Senate Impeachment Trial Summons : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...nate-impeachment-trial-summons US politics trump gop impeachment
shared by liamhudgings on 20 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • The White House's legal team has called the House impeachment process "highly partisan and reckless"
  • "The articles of impeachment submitted by House Democrats are a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their President,"
  • "President Trump abused the powers of his office to invite foreign interference in an election for his own personal political gain and to the detriment of American national security interests,"
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  • President Trump's misconduct presents a danger to our democratic processes, our national security, and our commitment to the rule of law. He must be removed from office.
  • Last week, the House of Representatives delivered the articles of impeachment against Trump to the Senate after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi named seven Democratic members of Congress as the managers who will argue the case for impeachment.
  • On Thursday, a nonpartisan federal watchdog concluded that Trump broke the law when he froze assistance funds for Ukraine. The White House has said that it believed Trump was acting within his legal authority.
  • Twenty Republican senators would need to break with the president and join with all Democrats to remove Trump from office. There is little to no indication at this point that this is likely to happen — or come close.
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How Insurers Exploited Medicare Advantage for Billions - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...vantage-fraud-allegations.html medicare insurance industry fraud cheating overbilling
shared by Javier E on 09 Oct 22 - No Cached
  • The health system Kaiser Permanente called doctors in during lunch and after work and urged them to add additional illnesses to the medical records of patients they hadn’t seen in weeks. Doctors who found enough new diagnoses could earn bottles of Champagne, or a bonus in their paycheck.
  • Anthem, a large insurer now called Elevance Health, paid more to doctors who said their patients were sicker. And executives at UnitedHealth Group, the country’s largest insurer, told their workers to mine old medical records for more illnesses — and when they couldn’t find enough, sent them back to try again.
  • Each of the strategies — which were described by the Justice Department in lawsuits against the companies — led to diagnoses of serious diseases that might have never existed.
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  • But the diagnoses had a lucrative side effect: They let the insurers collect more money from the federal government’s Medicare Advantage program.
  • Medicare Advantage, a private-sector alternative to traditional Medicare, was designed by Congress two decades ago to encourage health insurers to find innovative ways to provide better care at lower cost.
  • by next year, more than half of Medicare recipients will be in a private plan.
  • a New York Times review of dozens of fraud lawsuits, inspector general audits and investigations by watchdogs shows how major health insurers exploited the program to inflate their profits by billions of dollars.
  • The government pays Medicare Advantage insurers a set amount for each person who enrolls, with higher rates for sicker patients. And the insurers, among the largest and most prosperous American companies, have developed elaborate systems to make their patients appear as sick as possible, often without providing additional treatment, according to the lawsuits.
  • As a result, a program devised to help lower health care spending has instead become substantially more costly than the traditional government program it was meant to improve.
  • Eight of the 10 biggest Medicare Advantage insurers — representing more than two-thirds of the market — have submitted inflated bills, according to the federal audits. And four of the five largest players — UnitedHealth, Humana, Elevance and Kaiser — have faced federal lawsuits alleging that efforts to overdiagnose their customers crossed the line into fraud.
  • The government now spends nearly as much on Medicare Advantage’s 29 million beneficiaries as on the Army and Navy combined. It’s enough money that even a small increase in the average patient’s bill adds up: The additional diagnoses led to $12 billion in overpayments in 2020, according to an estimate from the group that advises Medicare on payment policies — enough to cover hearing and vision care for every American over 65.
  • Another estimate, from a former top government health official, suggested the overpayments in 2020 were double that, more than $25 billion.
  • The increased privatization has come as Medicare’s finances have been strained by the aging of baby boomers
  • Medicare Advantage plans can limit patients’ choice of doctors, and sometimes require jumping through more hoops before getting certain types of expensive care.
  • At conferences, companies pitched digital services to analyze insurers’ medical records and suggest additional codes. Such consultants were often paid on commission; the more money the analysis turned up, the more the companies kept.
  • they often have lower premiums or perks like dental benefits — extras that draw beneficiaries to the programs. The more the plans are overpaid by Medicare, the more generous to customers they can afford to be.
  • Many of the fraud lawsuits were initially brought by former employees under a federal whistle-blower law that allows them to get a percentage of any money repaid to the government if their suits prevail. But most have been joined by the Justice Department, a step the government takes only if it believes the fraud allegations have merit. Last year, the department’s civil division listed Medicare Advantage as one of its top areas of fraud recovery.
  • In contrast, regulators overseeing the plans at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or C.M.S., have been less aggressive, even as the overpayments have been described in inspector general investigations, academic research, Government Accountability Office studies, MedPAC reports and numerous news articles,
  • Congress gave the agency the power to reduce the insurers’ rates in response to evidence of systematic overbilling, but C.M.S. has never chosen to do so. A regulation proposed in the Trump administration to force the plans to refund the government for more of the incorrect payments has not been finalized four years later. Several top officials have swapped jobs between the industry and the agency.
  • The popularity of Medicare Advantage plans has helped them avoid legislative reforms. The plans have become popular in urban areas, and have been increasingly embraced by Democrats as well as Republicans.
  • “You have a powerful insurance lobby, and their lobbyists have built strong support for this in Congress,”
  • Some critics say the lack of oversight has encouraged the industry to compete over who can most effectively game the system rather than who can provide the best care.
  • But for insurers that already dominate health care for workers, the program is strikingly lucrative: A study from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a research group unaffiliated with the insurer Kaiser, found the companies typically earn twice as much gross profit from their Medicare Advantage plans as from other types of insurance.
  • In theory, if the insurers could do better than traditional Medicare — by better managing patients’ care, or otherwise improving their health — their patients would cost less and the insurers would make more money.
  • But some insurers engaged in strategies — like locating their enrollment offices upstairs, or offering gym memberships — to entice only the healthiest seniors, who would require less care, to join. To deter such tactics, Congress decided to pay more for sicker patients.
  • Almost immediately, companies saw ways to exploit that system. The traditional Medicare program provided no financial incentive to doctors to document every diagnosis, so many records were incomplete
  • Under the new program, insurers began rigorously documenting all of a patient’s health conditions — say depression, or a long-ago stroke — even when they had nothing to do with the patient’s current medical care.
  • “Even when they’re playing the game legally, we are lining the pockets of very wealthy corporations that are not improving patient care,”
  • The insurers also began hiring agencies that sent doctors or nurses to patients’ homes, where they could diagnose them with more diseases.
  • Cigna hired firms to perform similar at-home assessments that generated billions in extra payments, according to a 2017 whistle-blower lawsuit, which was recently joined by the Justice Department. The firms told nurses to document new diagnoses without adjusting medications, treating patients or sending them to a specialist
  • Nurses were told to especially look for patients with a history of diabetes because it was not “curable,” even if the patient now had normal lab findings or had undergone surgery to treat the condition.
  • Adding the code for a single diagnosis could yield a substantial payoff. In a 2020 lawsuit, the government said Anthem instructed programmers to scour patient charts for “revenue-generating” codes. One patient was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, although no other doctor reported the condition, and Anthem received an additional $2,693.27, the lawsuit said. Another patient was said to have been coded for “active lung cancer,” despite no evidence of the disease in other records; Anthem was paid an additional $7,080.74. The case is continuing.
  • The most common allegation against the companies was that they did not correct potentially invalid diagnoses after becoming aware of them. At Anthem, for example, the Justice Department said “thousands” of inaccurate diagnoses were not deleted. According to the lawsuit, a finance executive calculated that eliminating the inaccurate diagnoses would reduce the company’s 2017 earnings from reviewing medical charts by $86 million, or 72 percent.
  • Some of the companies took steps to ensure the extra diagnoses didn’t lead to expensive care. In an October 2021 lawsuit, the Justice Department estimated that Kaiser earned $1 billion between 2009 and 2018 from additional diagnoses, including roughly 100,000 findings of aortic atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. But the plan stopped automatically enrolling those patients in a heart attack prevention program because doctors would be forced to follow up on too many people, the lawsuit said.
  • Kaiser, which both runs a health plan and provides medical care, is often seen as a model system. But its control over providers gave it additional leverage to demand additional diagnoses from the doctors themselves, according to the lawsuit.
  • At meetings with supervisors, he was instructed to find additional conditions worth tens of millions of dollars. “It was an actual agenda item and how could we get this,” Dr. Taylor said.
  • few analysts expect major legislative or regulatory changes to the program.
  • Even before the first lawsuits were filed, regulators and government watchdogs could see the number of profitable diagnoses escalating. But Medicare has done little to tamp down overcharging.
  • Several experts, including Medicare’s advisory commission, have recommended reducing all the plans’ payments.
  • Congress has ordered several rounds of cuts and gave C.M.S. the power to make additional reductions if the plans continued to overbill. The agency has not exercised that power.
  • The agency does periodically audit insurers by looking at a few hundred of their customers’ cases. But insurers are fined for billing mistakes found only in those specific patients. A rule proposed during the Trump administration to extrapolate the fines to the rest of the plan’s customers has not been finalized.
  • Ted Doolittle, who served as a senior official for the agency’s Center for Program Integrity from 2011 to 2014, said officials at Medicare seemed uninterested in confronting the industry over these practices. “It was clear that there was some resistance coming from inside” the agency, he said. “There was foot dragging.”
  • Last year, the inspector general’s office noted that one company “stood out” for collecting 40 percent of all Medicare Advantage’s payments from chart reviews and home assessments despite serving only 22 percent of the program’s beneficiaries. It recommended Medicare pay extra attention to the company, which it did not name, but the enrollment figure matched UnitedHealth’s.
  • “Medicare Advantage overpayments are a political third rail,” said Dr. Richard Gilfillan, a former hospital and insurance executive and a former top regulator at Medicare, in an email. “The big health care plans know it’s wrong, and they know how to fix it, but they’re making too much money to stop. Their C.E.O.s should come to the table with Medicare as they did for the Affordable Care Act, end the coding frenzy, and let providers focus on better care, not more dollars for plans.”
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International campaign finance: How do countries compare? - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...global-campaign-finance international campaign finance politics US history crisis
shared by lenaurick on 29 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • The Center for Responsive Politics estimates $6 billion will be spent in the U.S. elections by campaigns, political parties and corporations hoping to propel their candidates into the White House and what writer Mark Twain once called the "best Congress money can buy."
  • The projected price tag of the 2012 U.S. election dwarfs that of other nations, but corruption monitors from Transparency International (TI) say it's not just how much will be spent but where the money is coming from that threatens the integrity of politics around the world.
  • While the trajectory for spending in U.S. elections is soaring, total party spending in the 2010 general election in the United Kingdom was actually 26% less than in 2005.
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  • the absence of limits on the amount individuals or corporations can donate has contributed to the ongoing erosion of public confidence in the political process in the UK, according to one watchdog organization. "When donors are making contributions exceeding £20,000 ($31,000) -- and some are making donations well over £250,000 ($390,000) -- it's perfectly understandable you don't give away that kind of money without expecting something in return,"
  • n Norway, government funding accounted for 74% of political parties' income in 2010, according to Statistics Norway. And unlike in the U.S., where candidates and their supporters can buy as much television time as they can afford, political ads are banned from television and radio.
  • Corruption monitors say the lack of public funding in India, the world's largest democracy, has contributed to a staggering influx of under the table corporate contributions to candidates that has undercut the integrity of recent elections.
  • Intelligence reports received by India's Electoral Commission suggested that upwards of $2 billion in so-called "black money" will be spent to influence the Uttar Pradesh state elections this year, according to Anupama Jha, executive director of TI India."Everybody knows about black money," Jha told CNN. "Corporations are expected to donate no more than 5 percent of their profits, but they pay more than that under the table. Those who donate funds also control the politicians, and the politicians (become) more accountable to their sponsors than to their constituents."
  • ut it's not just corporate black money that's a problem, but the buying of votes in poor areas with hard cash, and sometimes with smuggled liquor.
  • In the 2009 election in Tamil Nadu, a state with a population roughly the size of France, 33.4% of voters received money from candidates' supporters for their vote, according to a poll by India's Centre of Media Studies -- and in 2011, voters were lured to the polls with blenders, grinders and other household appliances.
  • "This is why good people don't want to contest elections ... so ultimately you vote for corrupt people, because those are the only people you have to choose from."
  • While there are no limitations on the amount U.S. political parties can spend on televison ads, broadcast time in Russia is doled out on a limited basis, and is proportionate to the results of the last election.
  • "There are two sets of rules in Russia -- one set for parties who are paying out of their own pockets, and another for the party and candidates with access to public resources," says Elena Panfilova, head of TI Russia.
  • The parties try to hijack whatever they can hijack in Russia," Panfilova told CNN
  • Roughly $2 billion was spent by parties and candidates in the 2010 presidential election, according to Claudio Weber Abramo, executive director of TI Brazil.
  • Nearly 98% of winner Dilma Rouseff's campaign donations -- and 95.5% of her main opponent's -- came from corporations, says Abramo.Abramo says corporations donated 99.04% of all money spent in Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populous state, during the 2010 election -- a reflection mainly of voters' apathy and politicians' failure to form relationships with their constituents.
  • "The distribution of money reveals something deeper in the Brazilian political landscape, which is that citizens are not very much concerned about supporting parties and having a political life."While some observers want to ban corporate spending outright, Abramo says that will only make it harder to track corporate influence on politics in the country."The interests are still there even if you prohibit corporations from donating to candidates above the board," he told CNN. "They will do it in a hidden way, and they will lose visibility."
  • no reliable information exists for how much money was spent during the 2011 presidential election in Nigeria.
  • While Nigerian law gives the country's election commission the right to set a maximum spending limit for parties, the commission neglected to do so before the 2011 election, according to Magnus Ohman."Parties can do whatever they want, there's no limit to the amount they can spend," Ohman told CNN. "Candidates do have limits, but the money they get from their parties is excluded from that limit."
  • 2011 elections were hailed as a step forward in Nigeria's evolution as a young democracy, the lack of restraint on political spending is a worrying development for election monitors."It really was an expensive election not only at a presidential level but also at the gubernatorial level, especially down in the south," said Ohman. "It's an electoral system where you need to spend."
  • UK corruption monitor Chandu Krishnan says an ever-increasing amount of money in elections is a global problem."In many countries across the world, the cost of elections is increasing," he told CNN. "If parties and politicians can't find the resources from the state, there is an increasing desperation to seek them from private sources -- and that is where the corruption comes in."
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A blueprint for resistance to Trump has emerged. Here's what it looks like. - The Washi... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...erged-heres-what-it-looks-like resistance trump politics
shared by Javier E on 11 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • The outlines of a meaningful blueprint for resisting Trump are now taking shape.
  • This applies both to the battle against Trump’s authoritarian impulses and serial shredding of our democratic norms, and to the battle against the various ways in which Trump will work with Republicans to advance a more conventional GOP agenda.
  • 1) Have (guarded) faith in our system.
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  • this is template for further resistance by states, in the courts and out, that could make a difference in other areas where Trump may unleash regressive and destructive onslaughts, such as Obamacare, climate change and other aspects of his promised immigration crackdown.
  • 2) Keep pressuring Republicans to exercise real oversight on Trump
  • congressional Republicans cannot ignore any and all of the Trump White House’s ethical transgressions forever.
  • all the procedural tools that Senate Democrats can use to “focus attention on controversial parts of the president’s agenda and force Republicans to cast potentially unpopular votes
  • 3) Fight hard in the Senate with all available procedural weapons.
  • A schoolteacher stood up and demanded to know: “Where is your line in the sand?”
  • 4) Keep looking to civil society and try to fortify it where possible.
  • civil society — a loosely knit coalition of legal and political groups, given ammunition by intense scrutiny from watchdogs and media outlets, and backed up by meaningful, sustained public mobilization — can have a real illuminating and constraining impact.
  • 5) Keep Trump distracted and off balance, to minimize the damage he can do.
  • Trump’s&nbsp;cause is also harmed by trivial, petty and burlesque distractions.
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Turkish Leader Disowns Trials That Helped Him Tame Military - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-helped-him-tame-military.html turkey justice system politics
shared by Javier E on 27 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • In an assertion reminiscent of the many denials over the years by the officers and their lawyers, Mr. Erdogan’s office released a statement saying that the recordings released on Monday were “a product of an immoral montage that is completely false.”
  • Many of the prosecutors and investigators in both cases — the corruption inquiry and the old military trials — are followers of Fethullah Gulen,
  • Recently, under pressure from the government, Turkish lawmakers voted to abolish the special courts in which the officers were tried, a significant step toward new trials. Variations of these courts, set up under antiterrorism laws, have been in place in Turkey since the 1970s. They operate under special rules that allow secret witnesses and wiretaps that would not be admissible in regular courts.
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  • More remarkably, one of the judges involved in the trials, Koksal Sengun, recently said that he had never read all the indictments, and that if he had he would never have accepted them as legitimate. “I would have rejected the indictment for many reasons now,” he said in an interview with the Turkish news website T24.
  • top adviser to Mr. Erdogan, Yalcin Akdogan, who is considered the prime minister’s mouthpiece, has called those military cases a “plot against their own country’s national army,” which is now being replicated in the corruption investigation against the government. A government watchdog recently issued a report that determined that some of the evidence against the military was manipulated.
  • That makes them vulnerable to manipulation for political ends, legal analysts say. “The courts are specially designed for the government to use the judicial forces against opponents,” said Metin Feyzioglu, the head of Turkey’s bar association. “They managed to get the military out of politics,” but “that was not the right way to do it.”
  • These cases, Ergenekon and Sledgehammer, are the two pillars of Erdogan’s now autocratic system,” said Selim Yavuz, a lawyer who represents his father, a former army general who was convicted and imprisoned in Sledgehammer. “People saw if he could do this to the army, he could do it to anyone. Now he is seen as the almighty.”
  • In 2005, years before the trials, a man affiliated with the Gulen movement approached Eric S. Edelman, then the American ambassador, at a party in Istanbul and handed him an envelope containing a handwritten document that supposedly laid out a plan for an imminent coup. But as Mr. Edelman recounted, he gave the documents to his colleagues and they were determined to be forgeries.
  • is putting new light on what has been hailed, here and abroad, as Mr. Erdogan’s most important achievement: securing civilian control over the military. The way it was done, however, is now increasingly viewed as an act of revenge by Turkey’s Islamists against their former oppressors in the military
  • n now moving to discredit some of the evidence, Mr. Erdogan’s government is walking a tightrope, clinging to its record of democratizing the country and removing the military from politics, while putting distance between itself and the tactics employed to do so.
  • When the corruption investigation went public, Gareth Jenkins, a longtime writer and analyst in Turkey, said he noticed several similarities in tactics to the investigation of the military, and listed them: the same prosecutors, the use of simultaneous dawn raids on the homes and offices of suspects, an immediate defamation campaign in the Gulen-affiliated news media, and the leaks of wiretapped conversations.
  • They substantially weakened the military politically and empowered a mafia within the state,” Mr. Rodrik said. “That’s their record.”
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