Biggest Source Of Coronavirus Infections In Illinois Are Federal, State And County Prisons And Jails

investigatemidwest  | Newly obtained confidential statewide data shows that coronavirus outbreaks in workplaces, schools and prisons are driving Illinois’ rising cases — and many of these outbreaks have never been made public. 

Illinois surpassed 300,000 confirmed cases this past weekend and recorded its highest daily death count since late June on Friday. 

The internal data — prepared by the state health department and covering four different days between July and September — was obtained by the Documenting COVID-19 project at Columbia University’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting as part of an open-records request. It gives detailed information and case counts for nearly 2,600 separate outbreaks across Illinois. 

The Illinois Department of Public Health, citing a state communicable diseases law, does not release details about where many outbreaks have occurred, limiting its disclosures to long-term care and assisted living facilities. Separately, the Illinois Department of Corrections and some counties regularly release numbers of infected inmates and prison staff. 

Public health officials issued a “warning list” last week for 28 Illinois counties at risk for coronavirus surges and blamed, in part, businesses who were "blatantly disregarding mitigation measures, people not social distancing, gathering in large groups and not using face coverings."

“Even though they are close to it, sometimes the infected don’t know that there’s a serious outbreak where they work. It’s a problem,” said Dr. Michael D. Cailas, an associate professor of occupational and environmental health sciences at the University of Illinois School of Public Health, who reviewed the confidential state data for this story. Cailas, who has mapped Chicagoland mortality data, added that many of the workplace outbreaks in Illinois are simply “not publicly known.”

In refusing to release the locations of outbreaks, the Illinois Department of Public Health said that it is bound by state and federal laws that are designed to protect the identity of those infected.

“Another consideration is the fact that people may not have become infected at the business location,” said department spokeswoman Melaney Arnold.

As part of its contract tracing efforts, the health department is compiling data on the types of facilities and locations where outbreaks are occurring and is “working to make this information available.” (The Documenting COVID-19 project and the Midwest Center have made the data available in a searchable format below.)

The data shows:

• The single biggest source of coronavirus infections in Illinois are federal, state and county prisons and jails. The Cook County Jail, once considered the worst outbreak in the U.S., listed 1,074 positive cases as of Sept. 30, the largest count of any single outbreak. (The Cook County figure is now up to 1,118, according to the jail’s website, including the deaths of seven inmates and four staffers.)
  
  But significant outbreaks at other Illinois prisons, including Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, near Chicago; East Moline Correctional Center in Rock Island; and Robinson Correctional in Crawford, brings the prison total as of Sept. 30 to at least 3,500 cases across 36 different facilities. That’s nearly double the almost 1,800 prison figure for Illinois reported by the Marshall Project and The Associated Press.
  
  In response to questions, the Illinois Department of Corrections said its response to the coronavirus “continues to be deliberate and aggressive,” noting that, in mid-March, it suspended visitation and placed all of its facilities in quarantine to stem the virus’s spread. 
  
  Aside from personal protective equipment and cleaning, all state prison staff are screened and temperature checked; inmates are regularly reviewed for early release; and the department appointed a statewide infection coordinator to handle the response.

The Hidden Cost Of American Criminal Injustice

Time  |  We all know getting entangled in the criminal justice system leads to serious consequences. But few among us really understand that the slightest brush with the law bears an even stricter potential sentence – a lifetime trapped in an inescapable cycle of poverty.

A new report from the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law shows that $372 billion in earnings are lost in the United States each year for those who have a criminal conviction or have spent time in prison. That is enough money to close New York City’s poverty gap 60 times over.

While it is no secret that our criminal justice system has economic implications for those who serve time, we now understand just how devastating those impacts are. Time in prison slashes annual earning potential in half, which results in a loss of nearly half a million dollars over the course of a career. But if you are a person of color, these gaps widen even more dramatically. Blacks and Latinos who have a prison record experience a nearly flat trajectory in earnings after imprisonment, while their white counterparts’ earnings climb steadily across a lifetime.

These findings have enormous implications for the U.S. economy. More than 7 million people living in the U.S. have served time in prison and more than 45 million, and well over a tenth of all Americans, have been convicted of a misdemeanor, such as shoplifting.

These lost earnings impact the entire country, and they disproportionally drain resources and wealth from communities of color. Blacks are jailed at more than triple the rate of whites, and nearly half of all people serving effective life sentences are Black. This overrepresentation exacerbates an already disturbingly wide racial wealth gap that sees the median white family holding 10 times the wealth of the median Black family.

Why Isn't Glenn Greenwald In Jail Like Julian Assange Or A Fugitive Like Edward Snowden?

washingtonbabylon |  Greenwald, who won a Pulitzer for his spoon-fed reporting on Snowden, has been surprisingly reticent about the closing. He has provided only the vaguest of details about the future of the documents that Snowden earmarked for him while he was working for Booz, one of America’s most notorious intelligence contractors. In a Twitter post the after the Beast story broke, he took the company line that it was purely a business decision. “Like all digital media outlets, the Intercept has been confronted with financial restraints,” the $500K+ a year founder and journalist explained in his best bureaucratic voice. “The budget given to the Intercept by First Look Media for 2019 forces its editor-in-chief Betsy Reed, in consultation with the Intercept’s senior editors, to make extremely difficult decisions.”

Greenwald added that he and Poitras “continue to possess full copies of the archive” and that he is working to “ensure that publication” of the material will continue with “academics and researchers, not reporters” working with institutions that have enough funds “to do so robustly, quickly and responsibly.” He didn’t bother to mention Omidyar and the enormous investment ($250 million, equal to what Jeff Bezos paid to buy the Washington Post) gave to him and his partners to create The Intercept in the first place (Omidyar is the “sole shareholder” of First Look, its IRS form 990 states). And true to form, his “fearless” Intercept has yet to inform its many readers and supporters about the shutdown on its website. That’s odd, considering that it was financed by Omidyar specifically to control, publicize and promote Snowden’s archive. And perhaps that’s why the slogan “fearless, adversarial journalism” quietly disappeared from The Intercept Twitter feed in recent months and was replaced by the bland “We pursue the stories others don’t.” Who doesn’t?

The story of the shutdown raises fundamental questions about why the decision was made and what, ultimately, will happen to the Snowden collection and the vast number of secrets about US and global intelligence agencies still buried in its archive.

I believe the answers to these questions lie in two areas: first, the extensive relationships the Omidyar Group, the billionaire’s holding company, and the Omidyar Network, his investment vehicle, have forged over the past decade with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other elements of the national security state; and second, the massive funds Omidyar and his allies in the world of billionaire philanthropy control through their foundations and investment funds. “They have the resources of small nation-states,” says a corporate lawyer familiar with their operations.

In my view, the Snowden collection had become problematic to Omidyar as he positioned himself as a key player in USAID’s “soft power” strategy to wean the world from “extremism” with massive doses of private and public monies. The classified NSA documents may not have been a problem under the Obama White House, where Omidyar enjoyed privileged status. But under Trump, whose Justice Department has gone beyond Obama’s attacks on whistleblowers by pursuing Julian Assange and Wikileaks, holding on to the Snowden cache may had become a liability. It’s a plausible theory, based on extensive reporting and research I’ve done over the last five years.

 

Trump: The Man And The Record

post-gazette  |  Has Mr. Trump handled the pandemic perfectly? No. But no one masters a pandemic. And the president was and is right that we must not cower before the disease and we have to keep America open and working.

He has not listened well to people who could have helped him. He has not learned government, or shown interest in doing so.

But the Biden-Harris ticket offers us higher taxes and a nanny state that will bow to the bullies and the woke who would tear down history rather than learning from history and building up the country.

It offers an end to fracking and other Cuckoo California dreams that will cost the economy and the people who most need work right now. “Good-paying green jobs” are probably not jobs for Pittsburgh, or Cleveland, or Toledo, or Youngstown.

It offers softness on China, which Mr. Trump understands is our enemy.

Mr. Biden is too old for the job, and fragile. There is a very real chance he will not make it through the term. Mr. Trump is also too old but seemingly robust. But in Mike Pence, Mr. Trump has a vice president ready to take over, if need be. He is a safe pair of hands. Sen. Kamala Harris gives no evidence of being ready to be president.

This newspaper has not supported a Republican for president since 1972. But we believe Mr. Trump, for all his faults, is the better choice this year. We respect and understand those who feel otherwise. We wish that we could be more enthusiastic and we hope the president can become more dignified and statesmanlike. Each American must make up his or her own mind and do what he or she thinks is best for the community and the republic. Vote your conscience. And, whatever happens, believe in the country.

Trump Truck Swarm Scares "Riden With Biden" Bus Out Of The Red Kingdom...,

statesman |  A Trump Train swarmed a Biden Bus on Interstate 35 between San Antonio and Austin Friday afternoon, leading the Democrats on board, including congressional candidate Wendy Davis, to call 911 and cancel the Austin close of their “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” tour.

On Saturday evening, President Donald Trump tweeted his delight.

“I love Texas!” Trump tweeted with a video of the scene over the soundtrack of Tech N9ne’s “Red Kingdom. 

I LOVE TEXAS! pic.twitter.com/EP7P3AvE8L

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2020

According to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s Texas campaign, a Biden-Harris campaign bus was heading north on I-35 Friday afternoon on its way from San Antonio to a drive-by event with supporters at Texas State University in San Marcos, followed by a “closing argument” press conference at the Texas AFL-CIO headquarters in downtown Austin, when vehicles with Trump signs and flags surrounded the bus trying to slow it down in the middle of the highway or run it off the road.

Biden staff notified 911 and local law enforcement, and, they reported, officers helped the bus to reach its Austin destination.  (no surprise about who got scurred and called the police)

I flew down to Texas to help with the Biden/Harris bus tour, intended to drum up enthusiasm at polling locations. Instead, I ended up spending the afternoon calling 911. 1/ pic.twitter.com/gKAjv7gv85

— Dr. Eric Cervini (@ericcervini) October 31, 2020

“Rather than engage in productive conversation about the drastically different visions that Joe Biden and Donald Trump have for our country, Trump supporters in Texas instead decided to put our staff, surrogates, supporters, and others in harm’s way,” Tariq Thowfeek, Texas communications director of the Biden campaign, said in a statement Saturday.

“Our supporters will continue to organize their communities for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Democrats up and down the ballot, and to the Texans who disrupted our events today: We’ll see you on November 3rd,” Thowfeek said.

No one was injured, and there were no reports of anyone being arrested.

It is evident on a video of the incident that there was a glancing but obvious contact between a black Trump pickup and a white car being driven behind the bus by a Biden campaign staffer, but no apparent serious or disabling damage.

 

Feminized View Through Overton's Window Of Glenn Greenwald's Departure....,

nymag  |  In Greenwald’s view, The Intercept was founded in order to resist such censorious impulses but has since succumbed to them, as he put it in his resignation essay:

Rather than offering a venue for airing dissent, marginalized voices and unheard perspectives, [The Intercept] is rapidly becoming just another media outlet with mandated ideological and partisan loyalties, a rigid and narrow range of permitted viewpoints (ranging from establishment liberalism to soft leftism, but always anchored in ultimate support for the Democratic Party), a deep fear of offending hegemonic cultural liberalism and center-left Twitter luminaries, and an overarching need to secure the approval and admiration of the very mainstream media outlets we created The Intercept to oppose, critique and subvert.

“He could have chosen to be a part of the mix, part of the conversation, the daily, weekly conversation about what we should be covering and what stories we were working on,” Hodge said. “But he never did that. He always held himself aloof from the newsroom and never, ever soiled himself with the day-to-day business of news gathering.”

Ryan Grim, The Intercept’s D.C. bureau chief, told Intelligencer that Greenwald’s conflict with The Intercept was part of a larger culture clash between Greenwald, a civil libertarian who objects in the strongest possible terms to any limitations on freedom of speech, and some of his younger left-leaning colleagues, who believe they have a responsibility to call out and try to shut down what they consider hateful or harmful speech. Greenwald wrote that he eventually concluded The Intercept itself embraced this so-called “cancel culture” in being reluctant to publish anything (like his Biden column) that might lead to accusations of aiding Trump and his supporters.

“There’s a phenomenon that exists everywhere, from corporate America to media, where the politics of younger people are different from the politics of some of the older people in these places,” Grim said. “The whole ‘woke debate’ that is played out endlessly on Twitter — he felt like there was too much of that going on at The Intercept.”

Once such example is a previously unreported incident from November 2018, when a group of Intercept staffers joined a virtual protest about Topic magazine, which was owned by the Intercept’s parent company, First Look Media. According to four First Look Media employees, the staffers went on the company’s Slack channel to object to Topic editor-in-chief Anna Holmes’s decision to publish a story about women who belonged to far-right groups, which included glamorous portraits of the women. The protest offended a number of senior Intercept editors, including Greenwald, who objected to the targeting of Holmes, a Black woman, and the suggestion that certain articles shouldn’t be published. (Nothing came of the protest, but Topic was shuttered in 2019 for unrelated financial reasons.)

Following the protest, Greenwald published a column that very pointedly criticized “the growing so-called ‘online call-out culture’ in which people who express controversial political views are not merely critiqued but demonized online and then formally and institutionally punished after a mob consolidates in outrage, often targeting their employers with demands that they be terminated.”

Another flash point occurred in June of this year, when Intercept reporter Akela Lacy publicly called out her colleague Lee Fang for “racist” behavior, including tweets about violence and Black Lives Matter protests. While Fang later released a thoughtful apology, many outside commentators saw him as a victim of cancel culture. In his resignation essay, Greenwald specifically criticized The Intercept’s “decision to hang Lee Fang out to dry and even force him to apologize when a colleague tried to destroy his reputation by publicly, baselessly and repeatedly branding him a racist.” Fang did not respond to a request for comment.

These generational and cultural dynamics have divided a number of newsrooms during the Trump administration.

Greenwald Censorship A Drop In The Bucket Compared To Across The Board Supression Of Biden Corruption...,

NYTimes |  Now Mr. Giuliani, undaunted and surrounded by a new cast of characters after some of his wingmen in the Ukraine caper were indicted, is trying again.

This time, he and his allies are using a mix of unsubstantiated assertions about the former vice president, innuendo and salacious material about his son, as well as records showing that Hunter Biden invoked his “family’s brand” as a reason he was valuable to a business venture, while his team’s business plan cited his father’s work in particular countries.

Mr. Giuliani and his allies — operating in parallel with a loosely linked network of conservatives — are in effect trying to recreate the blueprint Mr. Trump and his allies employed in 2016, when they used emails and documents, many stolen by Russian hackers, to paint Hillary Clinton as criminally corrupt and spread depraved conspiracy theories.

A Chinese-language media operation linked to Mr. Guo began promoting some of the material about the younger Mr. Biden weeks before it appeared in The New York Post.

The Post articles were quickly followed by others from Peter Schweizer, the conservative author who in 2016 had promoted unsubstantiated theories about corruption by the Clintons and who in this case was relying on material provided by a former associate of Hunter Biden who is serving a 30-month prison sentence for federal fraud charges. Hunter Biden was not charged in the case.

Mr. Schweizer’s work has been backed by some of the donors who fueled Mr. Trump’s rise in 2016, including the hedge fund heiress Rebekah Mercer’s family, the principal owner of the now-defunct data firm Cambridge Analytica, which also came under federal investigation after exploiting the private data of Facebook users in 2016.

Among the new participants in 2020 are some with close ties to Mr. Trump, including the former White House lawyer Stefan C. Passantino, a current White House official, Eric Herschmann, and the former Speaker Newt Gingrich. They worked to promote documents and claims by Tony Bobulinski, yet another unhappy former business partner of Hunter Biden.

But, as the anti-Biden forces quickly discovered, 2020 is not 2016.

While the president has promoted the material relentlessly, many of the Trump-friendly news outlets and other organizations that sustained the effort four years ago have been diminished or sidelined. Their 2020 replacements have had less reach, and the anti-Biden material they have been pumping out has been met with heightened skepticism from traditional news outlets and social media platforms determined to avoid being seen as abetting dirty tricks.

The New York Post articles based on the contents of the mysterious hard drive delivered by Mr. Giuliani failed to drive a broader narrative about Mr. Biden in the way that WikiLeaks did with the Clinton materials. Twitter and Facebook blocked or flagged the Post’s articles, which were published despite concerns from the paper’s newsroom.

 

 

Armed, Fully Autonomous Drone Swarms Are Weapons Of Mass Destruction

usma  |  AFADS should be classified as weapons of mass destruction. As I argue in my new study at the US Air Force Center for Strategic Deterrence Studies, AFADS can exceed any arbitrary threshold for mass casualties and are inherently unable to distinguish between military and civilian targets.

Armed, fully autonomous drone swarms should be classified as WMD because of their degree of potential harm and inherent inability to differentiate between military and civilian targets—both of which are characteristics of existing weapons categorized as WMD.

Scalable Harm

The scalability of armed drone swarms means they can bypass any arbitrary threshold for defining “mass destruction”—regardless of whether such a definition is pegged to one thousand casualties, two thousand, or any other number. Whereas the size and impact of conventional weapons are limited by a number of factors, few limits exist on drone swarm scalability. Drone platforms are known, relatively easy to acquire technologies. The Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College has identified ninety-five countries with military drones, comprising 171 different types of drone. The technology is rudimentary enough that basic drones can be bought at Best Buy or 3D printed. Converting drones into a swarm only requires the software and hardware to enable the drones to share information and make decisions and the finances to sustain development and acquisition.

Intel’s rapidly improving ability to control increasingly larger numbers of drones illustrates the ease of scaling. In 2016 the company flew one hundred drones simultaneously. In 2017 it flew three hundred drones. By 2018 it managed to fly 1,218 drones then 2,018. Give all 2,018 drones bombs and the collective certainly could inflict mass casualties.

Of course, the exact amount of harm is highly context dependent. Defenders may be armed with counter-drone systems or sophisticated air defenses. If slaughterbots become truly ubiquitous, states may just hang nets everywhere. Conversely, the flexible nature of drone swarms allows them to incorporate adaptations, such as standoff or chemical weapons. Drone swarms may also operate in multiple domains and incorporate antitank weapons, electronic-warfare equipment, or other systems that increase survivability.

Fortunately, so far few examples exist to judge drone swarms’ capacity for harm. The closest example occurred in January 2018, when Syrian rebels launched ten crude drones en masse against a Russian military base in Syria. Although the Russian military claimed it defeated the drones, the Free Alawite movement claimed to have destroyed an S-400 missile launcher valued at $400 million. Evidence on the damage is minimal and both actors have strong incentives to exaggerate or outright lie, so the exact harm is difficult to judge.

 

The Second And Third Drone Ages Are The End Of Both Infantry And Nocturnal Urban Crime...,

sicsempertyrannis  |  Back in early 1981, I did a few “odd jobs” between graduating from the Infantry Officer Advanced Course and starting the SF Officers Course. One of these jobs was as an ARTEP evaluator for a mech infantry company on Fort Benning. While I had plenty of book learning about tank-mech infantry teams, I was much more comfortable following a dismounted night attack through a cold January swamp. There was no Moon and a stiff, steady breeze so I felt we were making a stealthy approach. Although the attack was well executed, I learned something disconcerting during the after action review. Our night approach through the swamp was monitored by a high flying AC-130 gunship from 1st SOW. The gunship caught the heat signature of each approaching soldier as they silently slid through that moonless swamp. The lesson I took was that the idea of remaining undetected in uninhabited forests and mountains was a myth. Combine that with the Fort Benning aphorism, “If you can be seen, you can be killed” and I quickly became enamored with the concept of urban guerrilla warfare once I reached 10th Group. We would survive behind the Iron Curtain only by hiding among those we were to liberate from oppression.

So what does this stroll down memory lane have to do with the new drone wars? A lot, actually. It’s the same principle. Armies can be seen and killed from above by a wide range of drones in 2020 just as we could be seen and killed by the AC-130 back in 1980. The difference lies in the proliferation of these drones and the fact that they are less expensive than manned aircraft. They also don’t expose pilots or operators to death or capture. 

First there were our Predators and Reapers hunting down jihadis and the occasional wedding party. We have well over 500 of these heavy drones. We have even more smaller drones down to man packed, hand launched tactical varieties. But we are not alone anymore. China is producing them like gangbusters. Turkey has emerged as a major leader in the development and employment of drones. One of these, the Bayratkar T2B, has had success in Syria, Libya and Azerbaijan. Erdogan has also deployed the T2B against the PKK within Turkey and northern Iraq. 

The T2B is a medium altitude tactical drone. It has a range of more than 150 km and can fly at a maximum altitude of 22,500 feet. It has a maximum speed of 120 knots, a cruise speed of 70 knots and endurance of more than 24 hours. The T2B is powered with a 100 horsepower Rotax civil engine, an engine common to ultralight and homebuilt aircraft. The unit cost of the aircraft itself is less than 100 thousand dollars. Its electro-optical reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting system is now produced by Aselan in Turkey at a cost of 400 thousand dollars per unit. Although it does use GPS, it is not satellite controlled. Ground stations control the T2B by line-of-sight radio signal. The munitions, also produced in Turkey by Roketsan, are laser-guided, precision, long range and light weight. They include thermobaric and tandem warheads effective against reactive armor. Overall, the T2B is an impressive piece of kit.

How In The World Do You Detect Or Defend Against Truck-Hauled Swarms Of Smart Switchblade Drones?

thedrive  |  China recently conducted a test involving a swarm of loitering munitions, also often referred to as suicide drones, deployed from a box-like array of tubular launchers on a light tactical vehicle and from helicopters. This underscores how the drone swarm threat, broadly, is becoming ever-more real and will present increasingly serious challenges for military forces around the world in future conflicts.

The China Academy of Electronics and Information Technology (CAEIT) reportedly carried out the test in September. CAEIT is a subsidiary of the state-owned China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), which carried out a record-breaking drone swarm experiment in June 2017, involving nearly 120 small fixed-wing unmanned aircraft. Four months later, CAEIT conducted its own larger experiment with 200 fixed-wing drones. Chinese companies have also demonstrated impressive swarms using quad-copter-type drones for large public displays.

We don't know the name or designation of the drones CAEIT used in its September test, or that of the complete system being employed. However, video footage, seen below, shows that the unmanned aircraft are very similar in form and function to more recent models of China Poly Defense's CH-901 loitering munition. 

When the tube-launched CH-901 first emerged in 2016, it featured a pair of pop-out wings, as well as a folding v-tail. More recently, that design has evolved and replaced the v-tail with another set of pop-out wings and folding twin-tail arrangement, similar to the drones we see in the CAEIT test video. 

Of course, designs featuring two pairs of folding wings are very common for tube-launched drones and loitering munitions, including the Switchblade suicide drone from U.S. manufacturer AeroVironment. The unmanned aircraft CAEIT employed in its experiment is also reminiscent of American defense contractor Raytheon's Coyote.

The Coyote comparison also extends to launch options CAEIT demonstrated in its recent test. The 48-tube ground-based launcher, which is mounted on a modified 6x6 version of the Dongfeng Mengshi light tactical vehicle, is similar in some respects to multi-tube trail-mounted launchers that the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research used to launch Coyotes as part of its Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology (LOCUST) effort, as seen in the video below. Poly Defense has also shown at least a mock-up of an array of tubular launchers for the CH-901.  Fist tap Dale

Turkey Also Regularly Uses Its Own Drones On Its Own Soil Against Its Own Citizens...,

theintercept |  Finding oneself in the crosshairs of a military drone is, for most people, not the most comforting situation. Yet at an air show last fall, tens of thousands of people had a different reaction.

A military drone took off from a runway, and moments later it began transmitting its view to a giant screen on stage. The video from the drone was clear enough to pick out your own face among the crowd. It was exactly what the drone’s pilot, seated in a trailer not far from the stage, was seeing. The crowd was in the crosshairs, and you could see the data about the aircraft’s pitch, roll, and altitude. In the bottom right corner of the screen, the words “Bore Invalid” indicated the drone was currently unarmed.

It’s the kind of video that, in a war zone, can end with a giant plume of smoke and the tattered remains of whatever the drone has just obliterated. Yet for this crowd, it was like catching a glimpse of themselves on the Jumbotron at a football game. When an announcer shouted out, “We see you, wave your hands!” they erupted in excitement.

The event had all the trappings of a typical air show. Hundreds of thousands of people — from government officials to school children bussed in by the thousands — paraded around the tarmac. They posed for selfies alongside fighter jets and attack helicopters. A team of F-16s flew in close formation, leaving intricate patterns of red and white smoke in their wake. A nearly constant series of sonic booms made it difficult to talk. Massive speakers blared pulsing music.

But there was something different about this air show: It wasn’t in America, the global pioneer of weaponized drones and the customary host of such pageants. It was in Turkey, just outside Istanbul. And the pilotless aircraft that delighted the crowd wasn’t made in America; it was manufactured by Turkey. The crowd was enthusiastic to be in its crosshairs because the spectacle signified that their homeland had taken its place among the most technologically advanced countries in the world.

Their country had entered the second drone age — in which the use of drones to kill people has proliferated far beyond the United States, the first country to kill people with missiles launched from drones after 9/11. Turkey now rivals the U.S. and the U.K. as the world’s most prolific user of killer drones, according to a review by The Intercept of reported lethal drone strikes worldwide. (Other countries that have reportedly killed people with drone-launched weapons include Israel, Iraq, and Iran.) The technology has been used by Turkey against ISIS in Syria and along Turkey’s border with Iraq and Iran, where ever-present Turkish drones have turned the tide in a decades-old counter-insurgency against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

While the U.S. was the foremost operator of armed, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the world for more than a decade, launching the first drone attack in 2001, today more than a dozen countries possess this technology. The U.K., Israel, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, and Turkey have all used armed UAVs to kill targets since 2015. Efforts by Washington to control proliferation through restrictions on drone exports have failed to slow down a global race to acquire the technology. Meanwhile, the U.S. has set a precedent of impunity by carrying out hundreds of strikes that have killed civilians over the last decade.

“We are well past the time when the proliferation of armed drones can in any way be controlled,” said Chris Woods, a journalist who has tracked drone use for more than a decade and director of the conflict monitor Airwars. “So many states and even nonstate actors have access to armed drone capabilities — and they are being used across borders and within borders — that we are now clearly within the second drone age, that is, the age of proliferation.”

 

 

Have You Yet Spied Out The Corner Of Your Eye How Much Turkey Has Been Flexing Lately?

smallwarsjournal  |  In the Syrian conflict, drone operations will continue to represent a significant element of Turkey’s strategy for maintaining a buffer zone to retain control of Idlib and other territory along its border. Undoubtedly, Syrian forces will take various actions to mitigate the Turkish air threat to their operations. A rough outline of a counter-drone approach would likely include operations designed to attrit Turkish UAS at a steady pace, implementing tactics to reduce Syrian exposure to air attacks, and acquiring technologies which limit the effectiveness of Turkish drones.

Beyond the Syrian theater, it will be interesting to watch how Turkish drones operate and their degree of success. In an article we recently published in the Small Wars Journal, we describe how differences between operational environments greatly affects the introduction of new technologies.[xxvi] This will be undoubtedly true for the Turkish drones as they are exported to other theaters of war. Observations of the Bayraktar’s performance in Libya suggest Turkey has had trouble generating sorties and the aircraft’s impact on the battlefield is minimal. On the other hand, Tunisia may fare better with their Anka-S procurement. In Tunisia, Anka-S can operate as ISR platforms for coordinating counterterror operations against Islamist militants in the country’s northwest and law enforcement activities designed to counter illicit trafficking. There, the Anka-S may prove ideal for operating across wide open terrain where there is little risk or exposure to hostile fire.

In Ukraine, the employment of Bayraktar UCAV could be more problematic. There, the principle threat to country’s Joint Forces Operation comes from Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass Region. More so than the Syrians, the Donbass separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk have effectively demonstrated their ability, with Russian assistance, to defeat unmanned systems by using electronic warfare (EW). On many occasions, the rebels have used EW to bring down or disrupt drones being operated by the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to the OSCE which is monitoring compliance of the Minsk II arms agreement. In the Donbass, the SMM has detected and tracked the presence of Russia’s most advanced EW systems, such as the R-330Zh Zhitel, automated jamming communication station and the Tirada-2 EW system. It is reasonable to expect these systems would be used against Ukraine’s Bayraktars in response to an increase in hostilities in the region.

When considered in total, the Turkish drone program still represents a significant technological and engineering achievement. Aside from Turkey, there is only a handful of countries capable of producing sophisticated, military UAS. What makes Turkey’s accomplishments more remarkable is the speed with which they were done. TAI only started making Ankas in 2013, while Baykar Makina just began its Bayraktar TB2 production in 2014.  The Bayraktar TB2 UCAV has been an extremely effective counterterrorism tool for Turkey and its role in Spring Shield was decisive. The lessons Turkey is learning on the battlefield in Syria will fuel further innovation and enable the country to mature an important segment of its defense industry sector.

Before Bullshidt Ruled The World The Military Would Tell You What It Cost To Field An "Army Of One"....,

30 Years old, so you know that the current cost is some multiple of what it was back in the days of Desert Storm.  Total estimated annual cost for the current Soldier System is $138.3 K per year which includes individual soldier personnel cost - $39.5 K, soldier clothing and equipment - $1.6K, soldier supplies - $2.6K, division support - $40.8K, and Echelon Above Division support - $53.9K. Current Soldier System equipment represents about 1% oftotal system cost. 

What does this mean? From a system perspective, even significant increases in equipment costs translate into only minor system level cost increases. For example, a 500% increase in soldier clothing and equipment cost for a future Soldier System would translate into about a 6% increase in total Soldier System cost. In turn, for this increase to be cost effective, the future Soldier System need only generate a 6% increase in soldier effectiveness to be more effective than the current Soldier System.

CONCLUSION. The current expenses for soldiers' clothing and equipment represent about 1% of the total Soldier System cost. The investment in advanced equipment/material technologies for future Soldier Systems, even if significantly more expensive, need generate only minimal improvements in overall Soldier System effectiveness to be cost-effective. Analysis of Current Light Infantry Soldier System Costs 

- Now, on to the current bullshidt

NBCNews |  “The least important part really of the cost of a soldier, sailor, airman or woman is the equipment, helmets, boots, even airplanes and tanks and things like that,” says Daniel Goure of the Lexington Institute. “The real costs are the personnel costs, we’re talking about training, we’re talking about housing, we’re talking about dependent care for families, daycare for children, we’re talking about health care, which is a huge issue.”

Let’s just look at recruiting alone. This year, recruiting one Marine cost $6,539, including advertising, college fund and enlistment bonuses. Train that marine and you add $1,614, including the uniform, gear, laundry and chow. Then give that recruit some real classroom learning and tack on an additional $301. Remember, you haven’t paid him yet. Pay, allowance, clothing and moving expenses will add $19,973. Give him some ammo at $787 and then provide him with a staff of drill sergeants, teachers and support staff for $15,674. Total value of a new Marine: $44,887.

But in the interest of accuracy, we’re still way off.

“We have an extraordinarily technical military,” says Goure. “The majority of people are not on the front line, coming off the beaches with rifles. They are behind the scenes, running equipment; they’re the people running unmanned aerial vehicles like the Predator.”

HIGHER EDUCATION

Old-fashioned infantrymen are in fact one of the rarest commodities in today’s military, a force now filled with Ph.D.s and highly specialized officers. What about that kind of education? Last year, the cost of graduating one officer, likely specializing in science and engineering, from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point was $340,000. But let’s say that officer likes to fly. Put him in a $19 million F-16 fighter.

So what’s the overall average cost of sending a soldier to defend our freedom? Well, that was my assignment, and after spending two weeks trying to pry that number out of the U.S. military, our crack team of investigative journalists in the Washington bureau came up with the following answer: it’s simply not a knowable number. Suffice it to say, the figure is priceless.

Who Are Homeless Veterans?

NCHV  |  The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) states that the nation’s homeless veterans are predominantly male, with roughly 9% being female. The majority are single; live in urban areas; and suffer from mental illness, alcohol and/or substance abuse, or co-occurring disorders. About 11% of the adult homeless population are veterans.

Roughly 45% of all homeless veterans are African American or Hispanic, despite only accounting for 10.4% and 3.4% of the U.S. veteran population, respectively.

Homeless veterans are younger on average than the total veteran population. Approximately 9% are between the ages of 18 and 30, and 41% are between the ages of 31 and 50. Conversely, only 5% of all veterans are between the ages of 18 and 30, and less than 23% are between 31 and 50.

America’s homeless veterans have served in World War II, the Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam War, Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq (OEF/OIF), and the military’s anti-drug cultivation efforts in South America. Nearly half of homeless veterans served during the Vietnam era. Two-thirds served our country for at least three years, and one-third were stationed in a war zone.

About 1.4 million other veterans, meanwhile, are considered at risk of homelessness due to poverty, lack of support networks, and dismal living conditions in overcrowded or substandard housing.

How many homeless veterans are there?

Although flawless counts are impossible to come by – the transient nature of homeless populations presents a major difficulty – the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates that 40,056 veterans are homeless on any given night.

Approximately 12,700 veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation New Dawn (OND) were homeless in 2010. The number of young homeless veterans is increasing, but only constitutes 8.8% of the overall homeless veteran population.

Why are veterans homeless?

In addition to the complex set of factors influencing all homelessness – extreme shortage of affordable housing, livable income and access to health care – a large number of displaced and at-risk veterans live with lingering effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance abuse, which are compounded by a lack of family and social support networks. Additionally, military occupations and training are not always transferable to the civilian workforce, placing some veterans at a disadvantage when competing for employment.

Why Did Trump Have To Protect The Military Healthcare Budget From The Pentagon?

commondreams  |  Shortly after both chambers of Congress approved a $740 billion Defense Department budget for fiscal year 2021, Pentagon officials are reportedly pushing for more than $2 billion in cuts to military healthcare over the next five years, potentially threatening the coverage of millions of personnel and their families amid a global pandemic.

Politico reported Sunday that the proposed $2.2 billion cut to the military healthcare system is part of a "sweeping effort" by Defense Secretary Mark Esper to "eliminate inefficiencies within the Pentagon's coffers."

"Ever notice that it's never a cut to things used to send kids to war?" asked Josh Moon of the Alabama Political Reporter. "It's always—always—a cut to the promises we make to get them to volunteer for us. What a disgrace."

According to Politico, "Esper and his deputies have argued that America's private health system can pick up the slack" for any servicemembers who lose coverage.

"Roughly 9.5 million active-duty personnel, military retirees, and their dependents rely on the military health system, which is the military's sprawling government-run healthcare framework that operates hundreds of facilities around the world," Politico noted. "The military health system also provides care through TRICARE, which enables military personnel and their families to obtain civilian healthcare outside of military networks."

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the push for billions in healthcare cuts shows once again that the Pentagon "puts more effort in protecting defense contractor profits than the lives of our troops."

 

Our War-Fighters Suffer Privatized Base Housing And Payday Loan Parasitism?

americanbanker |   Regardless of the product, usage rates of short-term loans and other alternative financial products are incredibly high among active duty members of the military — despite a concerted effort by the U.S. armed forces to promote fiscal responsibility and deter their active duty members from obtaining short-term lending products. At Javelin Strategy & Research’s blog, we’ve found 44% of active duty military members received a payday loan last year, 68% obtained a tax refund loan, 53% used a non-bank check-cashing service and 57% used a pawn shop — those are all extraordinarily high use rates. For context, less than 10% of all consumers obtained each of those same alternative financial products and services last year. 

Why is this happening? At least part of this phenomenon can be attributed to age as those in the military tend to be young and Gen Y consumers are generally higher adopters of these services because they are earlier in their financial lives — earning less income and in possession of less traditional forms of credit.

But those conditions don’t tell the whole story. With the explosion of digital financial services, a lack of accessibility doesn’t explain these differentials. Is there something more? Why are these products so attractive to a segment of the population with a very regular paycheck? It could be a function of unintended consequences.

 

 

Once Upon A Time Didn't The Military Take Good Care Of "Our War-Fighters"?

militaryfamily |  Families living in housing on military installations used to have one simple thing in common: their military service. Now, many families are speaking up about another thing they have in common: substandard living conditions.

Military families deserve better.

Military families have been living in privatized, on-base housing for the last 20 years at over 100 installations nationwide. The Department of Defense (DoD) said this was supposed to ensure better living conditions, but many families now report the opposite.

From lead and asbestos exposure to untreated pest infestations, military families have faced a slew of health risks because of lapses in oversight and a ‘code of silence’ that keeps them from reporting housing issues for fear of career-ending retaliation from military commands. Families are speaking out about the way they’re being treated by the private companies contracted by the individual service branches to oversee military housing communities. And now, thanks in large part to a stinging investigation by Reuters, Washington is paying attention.

Mice & Mold, and in Fear of Retribution

Sharon Limon’s home on Camp Pendleton was home to both mold and mice, neither of which were effectively treated.

“We ended up taking a loan out to move off base,” Sharon explained. She says Lincoln Military Housing—the private company that maintains Camp Pendleton housing—made “too many calls to count” to her husband’s command, which Sharon says caused his career to take “the biggest hit of all.” She says he was forced out in August 2018.

Living in Squalor and Paying the Price

Lisa Mayfield says her family experienced mold in multiple areas of their Fort Belvoir home. Their furniture was damaged because of mice and they were shocked with how they were treated upon moving out. “We were charged a ridiculous amount of money for ‘damaged carpet’ and HVAC cleaning, which I asked them to do while I lived there after the AC unit broke mid-summer and the house smelled awful,” she says.

The number of reports about unreasonable charges and significant health hazards continues to grow, mostly unanswered by the Services and the private companies who manage the properties.

The Purge Movies: Who Will Survive In America?

 NYTimes |  I loathe the idea of a topical movie. The process of filmmaking doesn’t even really allow for it. A tight turnaround from idea to distribution is two years. If you started writing a screenplay when the N.F.L. made the rule requiring players to stand for the national anthem, you would be wrapping up the edit right around the time Minneapolis began to burn. To be on time, you have to think years ahead, or else have an intuitive understanding of the history and form of a society.

“The Purge” is always on time. The franchise, created by James DeMonaco, operates around a simple but provocative premise: After years of rising crime and societal breakdown, a quasi-fascist government is swept into power promising to restore peace by instituting an annual bloodletting — one night when all crime is legal. Each entry finds a different group of Americans just before the purge is set to begin. It’s a tidy narrative conceit promising violence and a ticking clock. That it has been a wildly successful series even though it dumps its main characters — generally played by semi-recognizable TV actors — with each iteration is shocking enough. What’s more impressive is that it manages to do it in the tradition of the best B movies: They are cheap and willing to wallow in the muck, and consequently less likely to lie about the violence that underpins American law and order.

Although they’re rarely mentioned in the same breath, it’s notable that the franchise came from Blumhouse, the same company behind “Get Out.” It has put together a string of projects whose animating principle is asking “Who will survive in America?” These movies commit to portraying our society in a way that finely calibrated awards-season films rarely do. Oscar bait’s great sin is not artistic pretension; it’s a lack of curiosity. We have developed a tradition of quality for our big “message” films — well shot, well acted, well made, redemptive and toothless. The better fare is praised for humanizing its characters, as though the realization that the working class also falls in love, faces disappointment and makes meaning were some sort of mind-bending epiphany. In these movies, a few good men can always outrun a history of violence. Realism reigns over the art form, yet it keeps returning to the same story: “Things might be bad, but they’re getting better all the time.” In the real world you might ask: “For whom have things been getting better?”

What Is Going On With The Homeless In California?

latimes  |  A divided Los Angeles City Council backed off Wednesday from voting on a proposal that would have allowed the removal of homeless encampments anywhere in the city — if shelter is first offered to those living in them.

Facing intense opposition from the public and some of their colleagues, the seven council members who pressed for the amendments to the city’s anti-camping ordinance were unable to muster a majority to move it to a quick adoption.

After a four-hour hearing, when it was clear the council planned to refer the proposal to a committee, Council President Nury Martinez continued the vote to Nov. 24 before the whole council. She said the issue was too important to be shunted to a committee.

The proposed ordinance, prepared by City Attorney Mike Feuer in less than a week after several council members requested it, would also allow the city to remove homeless camps under freeway underpasses and near homeless shelters without the condition of offering shelter.

The proposal divided public speakers between those who opposed a ban, with more than one comparing it to Nazi Germany, and those who pleaded for relief from homeless camps near their homes.

Even though the meeting was held remotely, about 40 opponents gathered outside City Hall to protest.

“Where will we go?” asked Ayman Ahmed, who said he is homeless in Echo Park. “The math doesn’t even add up to go into shelters. There aren’t enough. This lacks common sense.”

Other opponents participated in the council meeting remotely.

 

Pay Bills Or Buy Food?

Guardian |  Americans struggling with broken state unemployment systems throughout the US are still fighting to obtain benefits, as utility shut-off moratoriums are expiring and evictions continue despite a federal suspension.

The coronavirus pandemic has devastated the US jobs market. Some 787,000 people filed for benefits last week – roughly equal to the population of Seattle. The figure is sharply down from the peak in April, when 6.6 million people filed claims in just one week, but it remains four times as high as it was before the pandemic struck and many hit by the Covid recession are now finding that the benefits and protections they need are running out.

Ann Largent of Orlando, Florida, has been out of work as a patient care technician through the pandemic, but found a new job and was hired at the beginning of August at a nursing home. She has yet to receive a start date, but a hold was placed on her unemployment benefits on 5 September, and she hasn’t received any benefits since.

Largent, 39, lives in a mobile trailer park with her 12-year-old daughter, who requires frequent doctor appointments as her cancer is in remission. When she first lost her job in the beginning of the pandemic, Largent received $355 a month in Snap food assistance, but the benefits were reduced to $16 a month when her unemployment benefits began.

The Trump administration authorized a $600-a-week boost to unemployment benefits in March but that was cut to $300 and Congress has since been deadlocked on a replacement. Once the expanded unemployment benefits ended on 26 July, Largent was only receiving $247 a week, Florida’s maximum unemployment benefit payout after taxes are taken out.

Her rent is $244 weekly, which includes water and electricity, and she is currently at risk of eviction for running late on rent.

“I have fallen behind. I have to miss a rent payment to try to pay the other bills. I already had my car insurance canceled four times so far this year. My internet is usually a month behind, and I’m out of gas,” said Largent. “I cry a lot, so I try to hide my tears from my daughter. She doesn’t need to know my problems. This has been the worst year. I had put in 347 job applications and nothing. Finally got a job, and I haven’t started yet. Now I’m getting screwed over with a work hold.”

She is not alone. As of October 1.76m US households in 36 states were no longer protected by utility shut-off moratoriums, according to a report by the energy efficiency startup Carbon Switch. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an eviction moratorium through the end of 2020 for those meeting eligibility requirements, but the order hasn’t fully halted evictions during the pandemic and landlords are still able to start eviction processes.