DL Open Thread: Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Russian Software Was Hiding In Plain Sight. Homeland Security, the agency charged with ferreting it out, was infected by it.  How the Russians did it.

How The White House Destroyed The CDC.  Its strategy:

Washington’s dismissal of science, the White House’s slow suffocation of the agency’s voice, the meddling in its messages and the siphoning of its budget.

Philanthropist Of The Year.   Quite a bit of the money is going to HBCU’s.  To a large degree, she’s stepping in to fill holes left by the pandemic. Del State gets $20 mill, YMCA Of Delaware gets $10 mill.

Trump Pushing For Special Counsel To Investigate Hunter Biden.  It’s another poison pill designed to cripple the incoming administration.

Buttigieg. Granholm.  McCarthy.  Biden’s latest appointments. I think they’re all good choices.

Will Russia Benefit Most From Global Warming?  Makes sense. Parts of Russia are ungodly cold.  Gee, maybe Syracuse will become a vacation hot spot…

American Correctional Association Prison Evaluation Process ‘Corrupt’.  According to a report from Sen. Elizabeth Warren.  Would it shock you to learn that the ACA accepted millions of dollars from private prison companies?  A must-read. A snippet:

The problem, Warren’s report found, is that the “best of the best” includes virtually every facility that pays its accreditation fees. The ACA currently counts over 1,200 accredited facilities; since 2007, only four have been denied accreditation. The groups provides three months’ notice and preparation tools for audits, “essentially providing the answers to the test in advance,” as the report puts it. And the ACA’s seal of approval lasts three years, with facilities conducting “self-reporting” in the interim.

Riddle me this: How does a ‘nongovernmental’ agency become the evaluator of prisons, all of which are at least funded by government $$’s?  Might as well put the Better Business Bureau in charge of business regulation.  This should be a government function, pure and simple.

What do you want to talk about?