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16 October 19
Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. (photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo has been ravaged by rebel groups for years. (photo: Mackenzie Knowles/NPR)
EXCERPT:
Thanks to the looming impeachment crisis, the already Trumpian news cycle -- the media has dealt with The Donald as no human being in history -- is reaching a bizarre crescendo. And so is a president who seems to spend most of his White House time watching TV and tweeting ever more, ever wilder claims and threats about “spies” and “treason”; a “fake whistleblower report,” “savages” (his political opponents), and "coups"; even a future “civil war” in this country if he’s removed from office. Of course, you know the mantra by now. Who doesn’t? Think of it as the new definition of a news cycle, one that cycles nowhere but around him, 24/7. Think of it as the news cycle of an autocrat wannabe, the self-nominated Nebuchadnezzar of our imperial moment.
And give the president of the United States credit. At this point, it seems as if that impresario of bankrupt casinos and golden-lettered hotels, of reality television and surreal politics has done everything but block out the sun (on this fast-heating planet of ours). You would be hard-pressed, for instance, to notice America’s forever wars these days (as opposed to that “civil war” in a post-Trump America). From Afghanistan to Syria, Yemen to Libya, they do go on (and on and on), but unless Donald Trump briefly turns his attention to one of them, who would know?
And yet coverage of them is extensive compared to the war that TomDispatch Managing Editor Nick Turse so vividly describes today. Talk about never-ending wars that next to no one notices, the set of conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo should take the cake in this century, but who (myself included) knows a thing about them. I was talking to Turse about my own ignorance on the subject as we were preparing his piece for publication and here’s what he had to say on the subject: “When I cover the war in Libya, people at least have some clue about the violence. When I’ve reported on the civil war in South Sudan, people have some inkling of what it must be. But the war in Congo? No one has a clue -- and with good reason. Imagine this: just two Congolese provinces, South Kivu and North Kivu, are now home to an estimated 130 different armed groups. But when do you see Congo’s conflicts on the front page of a newspaper? When does it lead the nightly news? Or get placement on cable news?” Since we all know the answer to that, his piece today crucially fills in a few of those blanks -- and what horrific blanks they turn out to be! Tom
-Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested hundreds in Florida and Puerto Rico in March of 2018. (photo: ICE)
GM's union-represented workers must approve any labor deal by a simple majority. (photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty)
General Motors and UAW Reach Tentative Deal to End Month-Long StrikeBen Klayman, ReutersKlayman writes: "General Motors and the United Auto Workers union reached a tentative deal on Wednesday for a new four-year labor deal, moving closer to ending a costly month-long strike that shut down GM's most profitable factories in a test of wills over the future of U.S. auto industry jobs."READ MORE
The Central Park Five case is now known as one of the most notorious examples of police coercing people into giving false confession. (photo: Atushi Nishijima/Netflix)
The Tongass National Forest, near Ketchikan, Alaska. The spruce, hemlock and cedar trees of the Tongass have been a source of timber for the logging industry. (photo: Elissa Nadworny/NPR)
