Chris Hedges's Blog, page 517

CBS Is Investigating Misconduct Claims Against Own CEO

NEW YORK—CBS said Friday it is investigating personal misconduct claims after the company’s chief executive, Les Moonves, was the subject of a New Yorker story detailing sexual misconduct allegations.

The media company said independent members of its board of directors are “investigating claims that violate the company’s clear policies” regarding personal misconduct.

CBS Corp.’s stock fell 6 percent — its worst one-day loss in nearly seven years — as the reports of the misconduct allegations began to circulate around noon Friday, triggering investor concerns Moonves might be forced to step down. The CBS chief has been a towering figure in television for decades, credited with turning around a network that had been mired for years at the bottom ratings.

The New York-based company did not mention Moonves by name but said it issued a statement in response to the New Yorker article, which was published on the magazine’s website late Friday. The article was written by Ronan Farrow, who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning story last year for the same magazine uncovering many of the allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

The article says six women who had professional dealings with Moonves say he sexually harassed them between the 1980s and late 2000s. Four of the women described forcible touching or kissing during business meetings, it says, while two said that Moonves physically intimidated them or threatened to derail their careers.

Among the women quoted in the article were the actress Illeana Douglas, writer Janet Jones and producer Christine Peters. Farrow told The Associated Press that all the women quoted in the article had to overcome “a lot of fear of retaliation to tell very serious stories of sexual misconduct about Les Moonves.”

Moonves acknowledged in a statement that there were times decades ago when he may have made some women uncomfortable by making advances. But he says, “Those were mistakes, and I regret them immensely.”

He said that he never misused his position to harm or hinder anyone’s career.

The New Yorker article also said a culture of misconduct extended from Moonves to other parts of the corporation, including CBS News. It said men in that division who were accused of sexual misconduct were promoted, even as the company paid settlements to women with complaints.

CBS said that once the investigation by its independent board members is completed, the full corporate board will review the findings and “take appropriate action.”

It took issue in a statement with the New Yorker article, however, for not accurately representing “a larger organization that does its best to treat its tens of thousands of employees with dignity and respect.”

Mooves is the latest media giant to become embroiled in sexual misconduct allegations since the downfall of Weinstein in October triggered the #metoo social media movement.

In November, CBS fired veteran news host Charlie Rose over allegations he had groped women, walked naked in front of them and made lewd phone calls. Rose has apologized for his behavior but questioned the accuracy of some of the claims.

In December, Moonves joined a meeting of chief executives of nearly every major Hollywood studio, TV network and record label to establish a commission to comb sexual misconduct in the industry. They agreed to fund the Commission On Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, and chose Anita Hill to chair it.

The allegations come as CBS is in the middle of a legal battle with its controlling shareholder, National Amusements, which has been pushing for a merger with Viacom, also controlled by National Amusements.

CBS and Viacom were once part of the same company, known as Viacom, but were split in 2005 into separate entities, both controlled by Sumner Redstone. His daughter, Shari Redstone, has been pushing to reunite the companies under one corporate umbrella. Moonves has been opposed to the deal.

CBS said its current “management team has the full support of the independent board members” in the ongoing litigation involving National Amusements. The legal case is being played out in Delaware court.

National Amusements jumped into the controversy with a statement denying what it called “the malicious insinuation that Ms. Redstone is somehow behind the allegations of inappropriate personal behavior by Mr. Moonves or today’s reports.”

“Ms. Redstone hopes that the investigation of these allegations is thorough, open and transparent,” the company said.

Moonves, one of the most powerful executives in media, has led CBS for two decades, including the 12 years since it split from Viacom.

He revived the company, which operates the CBS network, Showtime and other entities, with hit shows like “NCIS” and “The Big Bang Theory.”

He also introduced separate streaming CBS and Showtime services as more people “cut the cord” and watch TV online. The network consistently tops in prime-time ratings.

While CBS’s stock took a hit, Viacom’s rose sharply as investors anticipated that a combination of CBS and Viacom could become more likely should Moonves be forced out. Viacom closed up 4.6 percent.

Moonves was the No. 2 highest paid CEO of a major public company in 2017, according to an analysis by The Associated Press and Equilar, an executive data firm. He made $68.4 million last year, behind only chip maker Broadcom’s CEO.

Before joining CBS, he was president of Warner Bros. Television, where he oversaw the development of hit TV shows “Friends” and “ER.”

Moonves, who is married to TV personality and CBS producer Julie Chen, was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2013. He also won the Milestone Award from the Producers Guild of America that year.

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Associated Press Technology Writer Mae Anderson contributed to this report.

Second-Quarter Economic Growth Is a Strong 4.1 Percent

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy accelerated last quarter at an annual rate of 4.1 percent, the government estimated Friday, as consumers spent tax-cut money, businesses stepped up investment and exporters rushed to ship their goods ahead of retaliatory tariffs.

President Donald Trump said he was thrilled with what he called an “amazing” growth rate — the strongest quarterly figure since 2014 — and said it wasn’t “a one-time shot.” But most economists took issue with that forecast, saying the pace of growth in the April-June quarter won’t likely last in the months ahead.

The Commerce Department said the gross domestic product — the total output of goods and services produced in the United States — posted its best showing since a 4.9 percent annual increase in the third quarter of 2014.

Trump, who has repeatedly attacked the Obama administration’s economic record, had pledged during the 2016 presidential race to double annual economic growth to 4 percent or more. And at a White House appearance Friday with his top economic advisers and Vice President Mike Pence, the president boasted that “we’ve accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions.”

He predicted that the economy would fare “extraordinarily well” in the current July-September quarter and that growth for 2018 as a whole would be the best in 13 years.

But forecasters cautioned that the April-June pace was due mainly, though not entirely, to temporary factors. Most analysts are forecasting that growth this year could reach 3 percent, which would be the best since a 3.5 percent gain in 2005. But many think the annual 4.1 percent growth rate last quarter is likely the high point for any one quarter. Many think annual growth in the second half of this year will be 2.5 percent to 3 percent.

“We believe quarter two will represent a growth peak as the boost from tax cuts fades, global growth moderates, inflation rises, the Fed tightens monetary policy and trade protectionism looms over the economy,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.

The latest GDP figure was nearly double the 2.2 percent growth rate in the first quarter, which was revised up from a previous estimate of 2 percent annual growth.

Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of economic activity, reached a 4 percent annual growth rate after a lackluster 0.5 percent rate in the first quarter. Consumers began spending their higher take-home pay on autos and other big-ticket items, spurred by the $1.5 trillion tax cut Trump pushed through Congress in December.

Another key factor that bolstered growth was a rush by exporters of soybeans and other products to move their shipments to other countries before retaliatory tariffs in response to Trump’s tariffs on imports took effect. Exports surged at a 9.3 percent annual rate in the second quarter, while imports grew at a scant 0.5 percent rate.

Trump called the narrowing of the trade deficit “one of the biggest wins in the report.”

The narrowing trade deficit added a full percentage point to growth last quarter, though economists have expressed concern that a full-blown trade war between the United States and China, the world’ s two biggest economies, will hurt growth in both countries.

Business investment grew at a solid 7.3 percent annual rate. Government spending also posted a solid gain, rising at a 2.1 percent annual rate. The result was boosted by a budget deal at the start of the year that added billions to defense and domestic spending. But housing, which has struggled this year, shrank at a 1.1 percent annual rate after an even sharper 3.4 percent annual decline in the first quarter.

“The second quarter was a strong quarter, but it was juiced up by the tax cuts and higher government spending,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist Moody’s Analytics.

Zandi forecast that growth for 2018 will reach 3 percent, which would be the best rate since before the Great Recession. In 2019, he expects solid 2.6 percent growth. But in 2020 — a presidential election year — Zandi is forecasting growth of just 0.9 percent, a pace so slow it will raise the threat of a recession.

“We will come pretty close to stalling out in 2020 because the growth we are seeing now is not sustainable,” Zandi said.

The GDP report released Friday included a revision of previous years’ figures. The revisions showed that growth in 2017 came in at 2.2 percent, slightly below the 2.3 percent previously reported.

The current economic expansion, which began in June 2009, is now the second-longest on record but also the weakest. The GDP revisions didn’t change that narrative. Annual growth has averaged just 2.2 percent since mid-2009 through the end of last year, the same as previously reported.

Second-Quarter Economic Growth Is a Strong 4.1%

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy accelerated last quarter at an annual rate of 4.1 percent, the government estimated Friday, as consumers spent tax-cut money, businesses stepped up investment and exporters rushed to ship their goods ahead of retaliatory tariffs.

President Donald Trump said he was thrilled with what he called an “amazing” growth rate — the strongest quarterly figure since 2014 — and said it wasn’t “a one-time shot.” But most economists took issue with that forecast, saying the pace of growth in the April-June quarter won’t likely last in the months ahead.

The Commerce Department said the gross domestic product — the total output of goods and services produced in the United States — posted its best showing since a 4.9 percent annual increase in the third quarter of 2014.

Trump, who has repeatedly attacked the Obama administration’s economic record, had pledged during the 2016 presidential race to double annual economic growth to 4 percent or more. And at a White House appearance Friday with his top economic advisers and Vice President Mike Pence, the president boasted that “we’ve accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions.”

He predicted that the economy would fare “extraordinarily well” in the current July-September quarter and that growth for 2018 as a whole would be the best in 13 years.

But forecasters cautioned that the April-June pace was due mainly, though not entirely, to temporary factors. Most analysts are forecasting that growth this year could reach 3 percent, which would be the best since a 3.5 percent gain in 2005. But many think the annual 4.1 percent growth rate last quarter is likely the high point for any one quarter. Many think annual growth in the second half of this year will be 2.5 percent to 3 percent.

“We believe quarter two will represent a growth peak as the boost from tax cuts fades, global growth moderates, inflation rises, the Fed tightens monetary policy and trade protectionism looms over the economy,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.

The latest GDP figure was nearly double the 2.2 percent growth rate in the first quarter, which was revised up from a previous estimate of 2 percent annual growth.

Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of economic activity, reached a 4 percent annual growth rate after a lackluster 0.5 percent rate in the first quarter. Consumers began spending their higher take-home pay on autos and other big-ticket items, spurred by the $1.5 trillion tax cut Trump pushed through Congress in December.

Another key factor that bolstered growth was a rush by exporters of soybeans and other products to move their shipments to other countries before retaliatory tariffs in response to Trump’s tariffs on imports took effect. Exports surged at a 9.3 percent annual rate in the second quarter, while imports grew at a scant 0.5 percent rate.

Trump called the narrowing of the trade deficit “one of the biggest wins in the report.”

The narrowing trade deficit added a full percentage point to growth last quarter, though economists have expressed concern that a full-blown trade war between the United States and China, the world’ s two biggest economies, will hurt growth in both countries.

Business investment grew at a solid 7.3 percent annual rate. Government spending also posted a solid gain, rising at a 2.1 percent annual rate. The result was boosted by a budget deal at the start of the year that added billions to defense and domestic spending. But housing, which has struggled this year, shrank at a 1.1 percent annual rate after an even sharper 3.4 percent annual decline in the first quarter.

“The second quarter was a strong quarter, but it was juiced up by the tax cuts and higher government spending,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist Moody’s Analytics.

Zandi forecast that growth for 2018 will reach 3 percent, which would be the best rate since before the Great Recession. In 2019, he expects solid 2.6 percent growth. But in 2020 — a presidential election year — Zandi is forecasting growth of just 0.9 percent, a pace so slow it will raise the threat of a recession.

“We will come pretty close to stalling out in 2020 because the growth we are seeing now is not sustainable,” Zandi said.

The GDP report released Friday included a revision of previous years’ figures. The revisions showed that growth in 2017 came in at 2.2 percent, slightly below the 2.3 percent previously reported.

The current economic expansion, which began in June 2009, is now the second-longest on record but also the weakest. The GDP revisions didn’t change that narrative. Annual growth has averaged just 2.2 percent since mid-2009 through the end of last year, the same as previously reported.

Putin Says He’s Ready to Invite Trump to Russia

MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he’s ready to invite President Donald Trump to Moscow and is ready to visit Washington himself if conditions are right.

Putin’s comments at a briefing at the summit of BRICS countries’ leaders in Johannesburg, South Africa, followed the White House backing away from Trump’s suggestions that Putin could visit Washington this autumn, following their meeting at this month’s summit in Helsinki. Trump was widely criticized at home for appearing to have accepted Putin’s claim in Helsinki that Russia did not meddle in the 2016 US elections.

National security adviser John Bolton later said that no Putin-Trump meeting would take place until the special prosecutor’s investigation into possible collusion between Trump and Russia was concluded, which would push the meeting back to 2019.

“I understand very well what President Trump said: He has the wish to conduct further meetings. I am ready for this,” Putin said, according to the state news agency RIA-Novosti.

“We are ready to invite President Trump to Moscow. By the way, he has such an invitation, I told him of this,” Putin said, without clarifying if it was a verbal invitation to be followed up by a formal one.

“I am prepared to go to Washington, but, I repeat, if the appropriate conditions for work are created,” the Russian leader said.

Tornadoes of Flame Burn Northern California City; 2 Dead

REDDING, Calif.—A wildfire that roared with little warning into a Northern California city claimed two lives as thousands of people scrambled to escape before the walls of flames descended from forested hills onto their neighborhoods, officials said Friday.

Residents who gathered their belongings in haste described a chaotic and congested getaway as the embers blew up to a mile ahead of flames and the fire leaped across the wide Sacramento River and torched subdivisions in Redding, a city of 92,000 about 100 miles south of the Oregon border.

“I’ve never experienced something so terrifying in my life,” said Liz Williams, who loaded up two kids in her car and then found herself locked in bumper-to-bumper traffic with neighbors trying to retreat from Lake Redding Estates. She eventually jumped the curb onto the sidewalk and “booked it.”

“I didn’t know if the fire was just going to jump out behind a bush and grab me and suck me in,” Williams said. “I wanted out of here.”

The blaze leveled at least 125 homes, leaving neighborhoods smoldering and 37,000 people under evacuation orders.

The flames moved so fast that firefighters working in oven-like temperatures and bone-dry conditions had to drop efforts to battle the blaze at one point to help people escape.

The fire, which created at least two flaming tornados that toppled trees, shook firefighting equipment and busted truck windows, took “down everything in its path,” said Scott McLean, a spokesman for Cal Fire, the state agency responsible for fighting wildfires.

Fire officials warned that the blaze would probably burn deeper into urban areas before there was any hope of containing it, though it either changed direction or was stopped before it could burn into the core of the city.

The fire was likely to regain strength later in the day when temperatures were forecast to spike around 110 degrees (43 Celsius) and winds were expected to kick up.

Redding sits at the northern end of the agricultural Central Valley, surrounded by a scenic landscape. Rivers channel abundant winter rainfall into massive reservoirs used for boating and fishing. The area’s stunning mountains, including snow-capped Mount Shasta, topping 14,000 feet (4,265 meters), are a playground for outdoor enthusiasts.

Lightning and even a lawn mower have sparked devastating fires in the forests that ring the peaks and lakes. The blaze that broke out Monday was caused by a mechanical issue involving a vehicle, officials said.

The fire rapidly expanded Thursday when erratic flames swept through the historic Gold Rush town of Shasta and nearby Keswick, then cast the Sacramento River in an orange glow as they jumped the banks into Redding.

Steve Hobson, a former firefighter, said flames on the distant hillside looked like solar flares on the sun.

He had planned to stay behind to save his house on Lake Redding Drive. But the heat burned his skin, and smoke made it hard to breathe. He could feel the fire sucking the air from around him, whipping up swirling embers in a “fire tornado,” he said.

He had to drive through walls of flaming embers on both sides of the street when he finally fled. A tree fell right in front of him.

“I didn’t know if I’d make it so I just got in the middle of the street, went down the middle of the street through the embers and the smoke and made it past,” Hobson said.

When he returned Friday, his fence had burned along with a backyard shed and everything inside it — Christmas ornaments, china and old televisions. But his house made it through the harrowing night.

Others homes in the haphazard path of destruction were not so lucky. Where some houses stood unscathed, single walls or chimneys were all that remained of others. Burned-out skeletons of pickup trucks and VW beetles sat on tireless rims in the ash.

An Associated Press survey found 66 homes destroyed in Hobson’s neighborhood and another 60 gone in Keswick Lake Estates. About 5,000 other buildings were threatened, fire officials said.

Redding fire inspector Jeremy Stoke was killed in the blaze, though no details were offered on what happened to him. Another firefighter hired to try to contain the flames with a bulldozer was killed Thursday, authorities said.

Fire crews in Redding for a time abandoned any hope of containing the flames and instead focused on saving lives.

“We’re not fighting a fire,” said Jonathan Cox, battalion chief with Cal Fire. “We’re trying to move people out of the path of it because it is now deadly, and it is now moving at speeds and in ways we have not seen before in this area.”

Late Thursday, crews found the body of the bulldozer operator who had been hired privately to clear vegetation in the blaze’s path. He was the second bulldozer operator killed in a California blaze in less than two weeks.

Elsewhere in the state, large fires continued to burn outside Yosemite National Park and in the San Jacinto Mountains east of Los Angeles near Palm Springs.

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Melley reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Noah Berger in Redding; Olga Rodriguez, Janie Har and Lorin Eleni Gill in San Francisco; Don Thompson in Sacramento; John Antczak in Los Angeles; and Alina Hartounian in Phoenix also contributed to this report.

Opioid Distribution Data Can’t Be Made Public, Judge Rules

A federal judge has ruled that state and local governments cannot publicize federal government data about where prescription opioids were distributed, a blow to news organizations seeking to report more deeply on the nation’s overdose and addiction crisis.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is providing the information to state and local governments to use in their lawsuits against companies that make, distribute and sell the drugs. Sharing the data even with them came with a long list of conditions, including that it could be used only for law enforcement and litigation.

Cleveland-based Judge Dan Polster, who is overseeing more than 800 of the lawsuits in federal court, ruled Thursday that the data cannot be made public. He said that doing so would reveal trade secrets and “eviscerate” the terms under which the information was shared.

The federal government collects information on the distribution of all controlled dangerous substances.

The judge has scheduled the first trials in the matter to start in March 2019. He has been pushing in the meantime for a national settlement.

The drug industry and government entities, including states that have not filed lawsuits, have been negotiating for months even as the cases are prepared for trial. The drug industry is asking the judge to dismiss the lawsuits, arguing that the local governments do not have legal standing to sue over the matter and disputing that they caused the crisis, which involves drugs the federal government approved and doctors prescribed.

News organizations, including The Associated Press, had asked for the data through public records requests made to local governments.

The Washington Post and HD Media, owner of The Charleston Gazette-Mail of West Virginia, went to court for the records. The newspapers said they’re considering whether to appeal Thursday’s decision.

“We are disappointed, but we remain committed to fighting for records that shed light on the causes and costs of the opioid epidemic — records that the drug companies and federal government want to keep secret from the public,” Gazette-Mail Executive Editor Greg Moore said in an email on Friday.

A West Virginia judge made some of the data public in 2016. The Gazette-Mail used it to report that 780 million pills flowed into the state, which has just 1.8 million residents, over a six-year period. During that time, more than 1,700 West Virginians died from overdoses of opioids, a category of drugs that includes prescription drugs such as OxyContin and Vicodin and illegal ones such as heroin and illicitly made fentanyl.

A lead lawyer for local governments suing over the drugs, Paul Farrell, said the data also would show the public which pharmacies sold huge amounts of the drugs.

Washington Post lawyer Karen Lefton said that “keeping the specifics secret does nothing to give victims’ families faith that this deadly crisis is being adequately addressed.”

Opioids killed more than 42,000 Americans in 2016, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Minus the Macho Hero

“The Mere Wife”

A book by Maria Dahvana Headley

Listen! We have heard scores of satires

By spear-penned Dames in the old days

the glory they cut from fatuous families.

But we have never heard anything like “The Mere Wife,” by Maria Dahvana Headley. Her modern-day reimagining of “Beowulf” is the most surprising novel I’ve read this year. It’s a bloody parody of suburban sanctimony and a feminist revision of macho heroism. In this brash appropriation of the Anglo-Saxon epic, Headley swoops from comedy to tragedy, from the drama of brunch to the horrors of war.

You don’t need to be a Tolkien-level expert in Old English to enjoy “The Mere Wife,” but it helps if you enjoyed Seamus Heaney’s glorious translation of “Beowulf” or endured that bizarre animated version written by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, starring Angelina Jolie as the least convincing (and most naked) incarnation of Grendel’s mother. Headley borrows, twists and repurposes everything from her source text, sometimes riding parallel to the original and sometimes abandoning it altogether.

The dexterity of Headley’s wit is evident right there in her title, “The Mere Wife.” That’s a sly pun on the ancient and modern meanings of “mere,” denoting both “lake” and “insignificant.” But there’s more than one wife drowning in insignificance in this novel. From start to finish, this is a story about where women take refuge and how they wield power. Chapter by chapter, we hear about them in different voices: first person and third person, along with a chorus of older women that sounds closer to a Greek tragedy than an Anglo-Saxon poem.

Click here to read long excerpts from “The Mere Wife” at Google Books.

The novel is set in Herot Hall, a ritzy planned community “with its own grocery and pharmacy, each house with a fireplace, and each fireplace burning gas, a clean blue flame flicked on with a switch, lapping at logs made of stone.” Every aspect of this gated neighborhood has been designed for faux nostalgia and strict control; even the common areas are landscaped “to look as though wildflowers had seeded themselves in neat rows.”

The reigning figures of this community are Roger and Willa, a wealthy plastic surgeon and his ferociously dieting wife. “Other wives look at her and wonder,” the narrator writes, “and she wants it that way. She photographs and posts. She dresses for dinner. It is a competition, even though it pretends not to be.” This is a wickedly acerbic vision of modern life, and Willa, 32, is a well-toned, cellulite-free queen of rage, trapped in a domestic life she loves and loathes. With her irritating son finally in school, she’s free to do Pilates and wander through the grocery store appraising “cageless chickens, free-range beef, vegetables untouched by progress.”

One of the great pleasures of this novel is how cleverly and unpredictably Headley translates the actions of upper-class life into the sweep and gore of “Beowulf.” As the hereditary rulers of Herot Hall and its social kingdom, Roger and Willa host wine-soaked get-togethers, only we know what terror awaits them. Coming into the kitchen early Christmas morning, Willa sees the carnage from the night before: “Each gingerbread man is missing its head, neatly bitten off.”

But this is no mock heroic—or not merely a mock heroic. In her own destabilizing way, Headley vacillates between a wicked parody of privileged families and a tragic tale of their forgotten counterparts. Far from the antiseptic glamour of Roger and Willa’s palatial house hides a traumatized army vet named Dana Mills. Captured in battle and possibly raped, she was presumed dead after a video of her supposed beheading went viral, but she managed to escape and return to her hometown, only to find it replaced by the Herot Hall development. Now Dana lives in a mountain cave, rearing her son, Gren, away from the myriad dangers of the world, eating stray pets and berries.

Listen how the narrative shifts into a different register, mystical and ancient, with its own rough-hewed poetry:

“Long after the end of everything is supposed to have occurred, long after apocalypses have been calculated by cults and calendared by computers, long after the world has ceased believing in miracles, there’s a baby born inside a mountain. Earth’s a thieved place. Everything living needs somewhere to be. There’s a howl and then a whistle and then a roar.”

Gren’s mother thinks she can cradle that roar within the mountain forever, but her son grows into a curious, agile wild child. Peering down at the forbidden people in Herot Hall, Gren spies Willa’s son, a boy about his own age, and that fascination draws their worlds into violent collision. How else, after all, can the pampered and anxious folk of Herot Hall perceive Gren and Gren’s mother except as monsters that threaten everything they’ve conquered, everything they’ve built? “We are each other’s nightmares,” Dana says.

But where’s our epic hero?

Just as Headley removes him from the title of her version of “Beowulf,” she also greatly diminishes his role in the story. In this reimagining, he’s a former Marine on the local police force named Ben Woolf, “a Viking-looking man in uniform, very tall and very blond.” A former swimming star who almost made the Olympics, Ben feels bored and underused. “Nobody needs to be killed,” he laments. “He misses the war. What kind of heroics are possible” in this gated community? For him, the crisis sparked by the intrusion of Gren and Gren’s mother is an answer to prayer, a chance to get the TV newscasters to sing his praises.

Headley is the most fearsome warrior here, lunging and pivoting between ancient and modern realms, skewering class prejudices, defending the helpless and venturing into the dark crevices of our shameful fears. Someday “The Mere Wife” may take its place alongside such feminist classics as “The Wide Sargasso Sea” because in its own wicked and wickedly funny way it’s just as insightful about how we make and kill our monsters.

Ron Charles  writes about books for The Washington Post.

©2018 Washington Post Book World

Nick Goldberg on the L.A. Times’ Reboot: Good News for the News Business?

For years now, if not decades, much of the news about the American news business has not been good, putting it mildly. This year is no exception, as headlines still in circulation blare bad tidings about the ongoing gutting of major newsrooms, and journalists around the country—whether in local or national, digital or legacy, broadcast or print—brace for more potential shake-ups and layoffs as more owners emphasize the bottom line over the public good.

All this, right at the moment when we could really use a robust free press—or at least a rough approximation of that ideal.

But at least one news source with a sprawling market and a storied legacy appears to be catching a break. Those who have been following along as the Los Angeles Times hit a series of precarious challenges, some unique and others in keeping with industrywide trends, know that the company recently underwent yet another shift that put the reins back in the hands of a local owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong.

Longtime journalist Nick Goldberg, currently serving as editorial page editor of the Los Angeles Times, is sanguine about the billionaire doctor-entrepeneur now running the business. “His goal is not to squeeze the company for profit … but to do great journalism,” Goldberg tells Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer in this week’s episode of “Scheer Intelligence.”

Still, Goldberg is waiting to see how early signs of promise play out and doesn’t play down the toll that so much upheaval has taken on the Times. Scheer, who served as a national correspondent and op-ed and local columnist over the course of some three decades at the paper, points out that the number of foreign bureaus under the Times’ auspices has shrunk considerably, for one thing.

Goldberg emphasizes the strengths of the organization that remains, telling Scheer that the story of the journalists who have been doing their jobs while rolling with the changes around them is nothing short of “heroic.” He notes that although, so far, Soon-Shiong apparently “understands that he has to leave reporters and their editors alone … we’ll have to see what he does.”

Still, Scheer wonders, can a major-market paper owned by even a benevolent, deep-pocketed sponsor continue to cover potentially controversial stories about, say, the economy? “They are people that have benefited from a certain kind of capitalism,” Scheer says of the billionaire class.

Listen to Golberg’s reply in the full interview below:

All the President’s Lies (and How to Counter Them)

“What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” said President Donald Trump on Tuesday to a crowd of his supporters at a campaign-style rally in Kansas City, Mo. His Orwellian-sounding remarks urging Americans to not trust their own eyes and ears highlight Trump’s ongoing project of maintaining his supporters’ allegiance via a relentless barrage of mistruths, exaggerations and distractions.

The Washington Post has kept a record of Trump’s lies and found that as of the end of May 2018, the president had made 3,251 false claims. That figure is extraordinary. In just the last couple of weeks, he has contradicted himself so overtly on the intelligence community’s findings of Russian interference in the 2016 election that it is hard not to laugh. Cornered by members of both major parties after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, he explained last week, “I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t,’ ” and that, “The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.’ ”

One day this week, Trump sounded as if he woke up thinking it was “opposite day” when he tweeted, “I’m very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election. Based on the fact that no President has been tougher on Russia than me, they will be pushing very hard for the Democrats. They definitely don’t want Trump!” One might think Trump imagines the entire nation forgets what has happened the day before.

Two days after Trump was inaugurated, Psychology Today published a telling list of the hallmarks of what is known in mental health circles as “gaslighting.” The article made no mention of Trump, but it is impossible to miss the relevance of the list to our president.

“Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. … It is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders,” wrote author Stephanie A. Sarkis. People who engage in such destructive behavior spew blatant lies in the face of evidence suggesting otherwise. “Gaslighters are masters at manipulating and finding the people they know will stand by them no matter what,” Sarkis adds in the article, which of course invokes Trump’s ardent supporters, for whom it seems as though no amount of lying and blatant manipulation constitutes a deal-breaker.

The celebrated author and historian James Loewen has published a timely new edition of his bestselling book “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” which sold 2 million copies worldwide since it was first published in 1995. In this new edition, Loewen has a new foreword that perhaps ought to be titled “Lies My President Told Me,” as it takes on the Trump presidency and the constant accusations of “fake news” alongside his actual lies.

In an interview about the new edition of his book, Loewen explained to me that “history and social studies are mistaught in our schools,” and that “what becomes important is a kind of numbing boosterism—we might call it nationalism,” of the sort seen from the president and his supporters. Loewen’s book has debunked the many historical myths taught in school textbooks that persist today and upon which Trump’s “Make America Great Again” claim is built.

All presidents lie, but the difference with Trump is that his lies are an integral part of his governing style. Simply exposing the lies seems to not matter. His approval ratings remain stuck stubbornly at from 40 percent to 49 percent—far too high considering his blatant flouting of so many ethical standards. Worse, some of his lies may be actually working.

For example, there is some indication that Trump’s constant drumbeat of words like “witch hunt” and “hoax” to describe the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 election may be having an impact. Polls show that the public’s opinion of how Robert Mueller is handling the investigation hovers at about the same as the president’s approval rating—from 41 percent to  48 percent—far lower than it should be.

Rather than simply pointing out Trump’s lies, as many in the media do quite well, it may be more effective to understand why Trump lies and frame his behavior in familiar terms. He lies because he can, and his supporters continue to back him (even though they would deeply disapprove of other presidents’ dishonesty) in large part because Trump is blowing up the established world order. The lies are not an attempt to cover up his misdeeds—they are part of his deeds. Trump’s version of the world is one his supporters want to make real through sheer force of will (and lies), in which American might on the world stage is feared and reigns supreme, and white America retains a monopoly on power within the nation.

The word “propaganda” is defined as “ideas, facts or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause.” If we cast Trump’s lies as propaganda, it becomes clearer what his end is. Propaganda can and should be exposed for what it is. But it is not enough to simply point out the president’s lies. They need to be countered—before we become so numb to his dishonesty that we accept it.

Recall that Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway offered the explanation of “alternative facts” to explain away the president’s lies about his inauguration attendance in January 2017. A year and a half later, administration officials and Trump supporters don’t even bother trying to justify Trump’s lies, no matter how obvious they are. “There still are such things as real facts,” said Loewen, adding, “our current administration being damned about this, and we have to make sure that people recognize that there are facts.” Factual countering of Trump’s propaganda may sound like a staid response, but it is a bare minimum of what is required of us.

We can, and should, go even further than presenting facts and into the realm of counterpropaganda. This can take the form of rapid-response messaging against Trump’s policies. Sarkis writes in Psychology Today, “When dealing with a person or entity that gaslights, look at what they are doing rather than what they are saying. What they are saying means nothing; it is just talk. What they are doing is the issue.”

That is precisely what recent protests against Trump’s immigration policies did. In using the phrase “Keep Families Together,” rather than something like “No to Zero Tolerance,” activists clearly identified the government was separating families and used an effective term to counter what Trump was doing rather than try to oppose what he said.

Counterpropaganda can also take more creative forms, such as comedian Sacha Baron Cohen‘s baiting of racist extremist right-wing lawmakers in segments of his new show, “Who Is America?” In shaming lawmakers for their ridiculous ideas, Cohen may be doing much to reverse the horrifying trend of overt racism upon which Trump campaigned. It is this type of cultural shift that can more effectively erode Trump’s support than simply pointing out his lies and racism.

Alluding to such a need for changing American culture as a whole, Loewen reminded me that, ultimately, “the most important thing we can do is to become less ethnocentric as a people—and it ties in with nationalism—this idea that ‘we’re always right.’ ”

Trump is both the cause of white nationalism and a symptom of it. When Trump lies, he does so to further the cause of white nationalism. Exposing his lies and countering them with facts and counterpropaganda is the bare minimum required of us in these dark times.

 

Hundreds of Immigrant Youths Housed in Chicago-Area Shelters

One shelter, in Bronzeville on Chicago’s South Side, still bears an awning with the name of a nursing home, though no senior citizens have lived there in years.

Another is a two-story, brick home next to a storefront Zumba studio in Rogers Park.

At a third, a converted convent on a busy residential street in Beverly, neighbors sometimes glimpse teenage boys playing volleyball and soccer in a gated yard but have no idea who they are.

These buildings and others in Illinois anonymously house migrant children detained after crossing the border to the United States — some who came on their own and, more recently, those forcibly separated from their parents.

As the Trump administration has come under fire in recent weeks for its zero tolerance immigration crackdown, much attention has focused on the children and conditions at shelters along the country’s southern border and in major metropolitan areas on the coasts.

But here in Illinois, an opaque web of 11 shelters houses thousands of children each year, including more than 100 in recent months who were separated from their parents. By Thursday, in a rush to meet a court-ordered deadline, all but 17 of those children had been reunited with their families, according to the organizations that house them.

ProPublica Illinois reporters identified the shelter locations in Chicago and the suburbs and then obtained police reports, state inspection records and other documents, as well as conducted interviews with children, parents, lawyers and current and former employees to learn more about where the children are detained and the care they receive.

The nonprofit that runs most of the facilities, Heartland Human Care Services, is part of Heartland Alliance, a large, Chicago-based anti-poverty institution that works on health services, homelessness prevention and other social issues and is generally well-regarded. But troubling incidents have also occurred behind the iron fences that surround many of these shelters, our investigation found.

Heartland has received little public scrutiny until now, although, of the more than 100 federally contracted sites around the country, it has received the fourth-highest amount of federal dollars for housing unaccompanied minors since fiscal year 2015 — more money than any other organization outside Texas.

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services cited Heartland for a supervision violation after an employee was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a minor at the International Children’s Crisis Center in Bronzeville in 2015. The state agency concluded the inappropriate relationship allegation was unfounded and Heartland fired the employee, records show.

Heartland received another supervision citation in 2016 after DCFS found that children had engaged in sexual activity at its facility in Des Plaines, called Specialized Care for Immigrant Children or Casa Guadalupe. In addition, at least five children have run away from Heartland shelters between 2015 and 2017, according to reports from DCFS and the police.

There also has been at least one allegation of battery, though DCFS said the allegation could not be corroborated. Requests are still pending for other records that could shed more light on conditions.

Heartland declined to comment on any specific incidents but said it takes immediate action if “policies, practices and/or standards of care are not being followed.”

In recent weeks, Heartland was named in a lawsuit alleging negligence after an 11-year-old boy was injured by an older boy at Casa Guadalupe. It also was sued at least twice last month by lawyers working to reunite parents with their children. After recent media reports detailed several children’s serious allegations of mistreatment, including claims that staff injected a young boy with a sedative, local, state and federal authorities began asking questions of an agency unaccustomed to public criticism.

DCFS last week opened two investigations. Chicago aldermen, some angry they weren’t told shelters housing separated children were in their wards, passed an ordinance Wednesday that requires Heartland to disclose to city officials the addresses of its facilities and other information about them.

Five of the shelters are spread throughout Chicago. Two are in Rogers Park, the brick home called the International Youth Center that can house 15 children, and a larger site that can hold 70 children, known as the International Children’s Center. About 40 children can live in the former convent in Beverly, also called the International Children’s Center. A home in Englewood, named Casa Heartland at Princeton, has space for 19 children, while the largest site — the converted nursing home in Bronzeville — can hold as many as 250.

Immigrant children who crossed the border alone or were separated from their parents are held in nondescript buildings in Chicago neighborhoods, including these in Rogers Park, Beverly and Englewood. (Joshua Lott for ProPublica Illinois)

In addition to the Chicago sites, Heartland houses up to 116 children at its four cottages in Des Plaines on the campus of Maryville Academy, a Catholic child welfare agency.

Maryville also operates two of its own shelters, in Des Plaines and Bartlett, where 55 children are currently placed. Four children separated from their families were housed in the Maryville shelters, but they have since been reunited with their families.

Heartland has received more than $180 million in federal funds since the 2013 fiscal year for services for unaccompanied minors. The federal government has paid Heartland about $40 million so far this fiscal year, roughly the same amount awarded for all of last year, which was up from $25 million in 2016. Heartland attributed the jump to a change in the federal government’s staffing requirements, among other factors.

To hear the social service agency describe it, living at one of its shelters can be like a combination of school, day care and summer camp. Children spend six hours a day in class, play games and sports, and go on field trips to the zoo, museums and the beach, Heartland officials said. Most children will stay for a few weeks or months, until they are united with a family member or sponsor. Others may live at a shelter for more than a year.

But the facilities are, in effect, detention centers. Children are not free to leave. Most of the Chicago locations have little outdoor space. Former employees describe feeling at times like prison guards, as the children follow strict schedules and use bathrooms without locks.

Heartland answered many of ProPublica Illinois’ questions about its shelters but also said the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that takes custody of unaccompanied minors, has restricted how much information it can provide.

“But we also stand with children who are alone or cross the border alone,” David Sinski, the executive director of Heartland Human Care Services, said in an interview. “I’m sure you can appreciate as a human rights organization … there are conversations all the time about how to ensure we stay focused on our mission of human rights and carrying out the work for vulnerable children.”

Heartland officials acknowledge that their mission has become more complicated this summer as they cared for children sent to them as part of a policy of separation they oppose because it causes “additional trauma” to already troubled families.

“We believe children and families seeking safety and refuge here in the U.S. should be treated with dignity,” Heartland said in a written statement. “We will continue to do all that it takes to provide for their safety and well-being while we work to reunify them with their parents.”

At a City Council hearing earlier this week, Sinski and an attorney for the organization said repeatedly that the federal government prohibited them from providing even the most basic information about how many children the agency is currently sheltering or how much money it receives to do the work.

“To have a partner who so willingly works against the very nature of what this city stands for, of being a sanctuary city, that cares for its children and is trying to do the right thing, I think it’s outrageous and disgusting,” Ald. Raymond Lopez, of the 15th Ward on Chicago’s Southwest Side, told Heartland officials during the hearing. “While your original goals may have been good, where you have wound up has put you in a bad place.”

At another meeting, Ald. Ameya Pawar, of the 47th Ward on the city’s North Side, argued that Heartland was taking a public beating as a stand-in for the Trump administration.

“These children should have never been separated. They shouldn’t be in Chicago. They should be with their parents,” said Pawar, who worked on refugee resettlement at Heartland as an intern nine years ago. “But they’re here and if any agency should be taking care of them, it should be Heartland Alliance. They do God’s work.”

New Scrutiny

The Trump administration’s controversial policy of removing children from their parents when they were caught illegally crossing into the United States thrust into the national spotlight a decades-old system designed with another set of children in mind.

Heartland Alliance began providing shelter for unaccompanied minors coming to the United States without their parents in 1995. The shelters operate under a contract with ORR but Heartland declined to provide its agreement, saying it was not allowed to do so. ORR has not yet responded to a request for those records or to questions about how it monitors facilities for unaccompanied minors. According to Heartland, the federal agency conducts weekly meetings with Heartland staffers to discuss the children, daylong visits to each site at least once a month and a weeklong visit at least once every two years.

Shelter locations are supposed to be kept secret, ostensibly to protect children who may be vulnerable to traffickers, smugglers or gangs. This also has meant the shelters operate with little public attention, raising questions about who, if anyone, is providing sufficient oversight.

DCFS’ oversight function is primarily technical, checking for compliance with minimum program standards during scheduled licensing inspections once a year.

“We’re very clear about what our role is,” said Neil Skene, DCFS special assistant to the director. “We are a state licensing agency. It’s a federal program. These are federal kids.”

The federal government, Skene said, holds the “first responsibility for the safety and well-being of these children.”

DCFS is charged with investigating allegations of abuse or neglect against any child in the state, but that typically occurs only after a call is made to report suspected harm.

Some aldermen, as well as Mayor Rahm Emanuel, said they were skeptical of DCFS’ ability to provide oversight, given the agency’s own decades-long history of botched investigations and child deaths.

A ProPublica Illinois review of DCFS inspection reports found that the shelters have typically complied with state rules, though there have been some troubles over the years. Among them:

An inspection at the Englewood shelter referenced an “incident” in July 2014 related to supervision of children. “The facility made adjustments and installed egress doors,” the report states. “There have been no further incidents.”
At the 15-bed home in Rogers Park, a substantiated complaint cited “improper and inadequate supervision” last year, as well as fire code violations.
At the Casa Guadalupe campus in Des Plaines, an employee lacked the training to properly discipline children. “She cannot participate in restraints without the training,” according to a 2017 report. She resigned. The facility had been cited for the same issue at least twice before.
Soon after the facility in Bronzeville opened in 2012, a complaint alleged a staff member abused a child, according to a 2013 report. “It was investigated and unsubstantiated,” the report states.

In addition, state fire marshal inspection reports revealed violations ranging from not having enough exits in the case of a fire to doors not having adequate fire ratings.

As part of its annual inspections, DCFS also reviews a sample of children’s files to ensure they receive required health care services. In several cases, the agency noted that children were not screened for communicable diseases within 72 hours of arrival, as required. DCFS denied a request for additional reports about incidents of medical emergencies, abuse or neglect and other serious events.

Aldermen Demand Answers

ProPublica Illinois has requested police reports for incidents at every Heartland address but so far has received only reports about the shelter in Beverly.

There, a 17-year-old boy ran away in November 2016 after about a year in detention. The teen, who may have fled to join family in Houston, had not been found four months later and police suspended their investigation, records show. It’s unclear if he was ever located.

Serious allegations against Heartland, first reported by the New York Times and Washington Post, came earlier this month from two children who said they witnessed a Casa Guadalupe employee give a child an injection that made him fall asleep. Another boy said he had been dragged by two adult male shelter employees after lingering on a soccer field.

Heartland said its own investigation has turned up “no evidence” so far that confirms what the boys said about the injection.

In a separate case, a Guatemalan mother filed a lawsuit last week accusing Heartland staff of negligent supervision after her 11-year-old son was allegedly bullied and injured by an older boy while he stayed at the Des Plaines shelter.

According to the lawsuit, the boy’s complaints about bullying were ignored by staff, who told him to “stop complaining.” In late May, according to the lawsuit, the older boy pushed the 11-year-old in a bedroom, causing him to hit his head against a metal bed frame. The boy was taken to the hospital and required three staples in his head, according to the complaint.

Heartland said it is looking into the allegations but does not believe they are valid.

Heartland officials said detained children are encouraged to report any problems to staff, or use a designated phone to call DCFS or federal authorities. But the 11-year-old told ProPublica Illinois he didn’t know there was a phone available to report abuse and never saw signs indicating he could use a phone.

“Some workers treated me badly. Some treated me well,” he said.

He said older boys who’d been at the shelter for several months discouraged him and others from getting into fights with each other, or complaining about bullying, “because then the staff would have to file a report, and then you would have to stay [at the shelter] longer.”

The boy’s mother, Otilia Asig-Putul, said she spoke to her son twice by phone while they were separately detained. He’d never been hospitalized before the incident at Heartland, she said. They are now reunited and plan to live in Virginia.

“I called him. I asked him how he was. He said he had had a problem. He did not tell me he had gone to the hospital. I cried and cried without getting any answers about what was happening,” she said. “I was desperate. He told me he was fine. … They tried to calm me down. They never told me anything.”

Prompted by these allegations, Chicago aldermen voted this week to have city officials periodically inspect the facilities, saying they are concerned state and federal officials are not doing enough.

An impromptu inspection last week by city building, health and fire department inspectors found what one official described as “run-of-the-mill” problems, including porch violations, jammed doors and too much artwork covering a wall — causing a potential fire hazard.

Several aldermen said they were unaware that shelters have existed in their wards for years. Ald. Howard Brookins Jr. said Heartland never contacted his office to notify him.

“I saw those kids playing soccer,” said Brookins, who represents the 21st Ward on Chicago’s South Side. “I had no idea who they were. I had no idea that they were unaccompanied minors to this country. Absolutely I want to know where all those shelters are.”

“Trump Took Them Right Here to 98th Street?”

Heartland’s shelters often remain a mystery even to the closest neighbors, as former staff say they were told not to identify them to anybody who asked and most of the buildings lack signs. Iron fences and security cameras surround the properties. When there’s a yard, it is often enclosed with netting material that makes it difficult to see in — or out.

Allen Dunbar, 80, who lives down the block from the Beverly shelter, said he has noticed an increase in the number of children recently, mostly Latino boys, but did not know who they were.

“Trump took them right here to 98th Street?” Dunbar asked as he sat on his porch on a recent afternoon. “That’s really messed up. What’s going to happen to the kids?”

Heartland would not confirm if children separated under the zero-tolerance policy were housed at the Beverly shelter.

The state’s sex offender registry shows a convicted child sex offender lives within 500 feet of the Beverly facility. Illinois law prohibits child sex offenders from residing within 500 feet of a facility that serves children under 18, but it is unclear if offenders or authorities would know the facility houses children because Heartland does not make public its addresses. The Illinois State Police, which maintains the registry, did not return a request for comment Thursday.

Heartland declined to address that question and instead said staff closely supervise children.

A volleyball court sits outside a shelter for unaccompanied minors in Chicago. (Joshua Lott for ProPublica Illinois)

The largest of Heartland’s shelters sits along a commercial strip in Bronzeville, also on the South Side. The building houses boys and girls, with the girls living on the first floor, records show. Red and yellow bunk beds are visible through tinted windows.

On a recent weekday morning, two boys playing by a third-floor window waved as a reporter stood on the sidewalk below. Three more children in an adjacent room then appeared at another window, smiled and waved.

Later that morning, about 60 children played volleyball and other games on a turf field outside. They were mostly teenage boys, though a few looked younger. Despite a driving rain, they laughed and cheered when they scored during the volleyball match.

Records show some children separated from their parents were housed here.

“I thought it was an orphanage,” said Nikki Moore, 30, who works at a restaurant across the street. “A lot of people ask and nobody ever knew what it is. It’s secretive.”

She looked toward a boy standing near the fence who looked about 9. He reminded her of her own son, she said.

“I’m torn apart seeing that boy,” she said. “It is not like you can catch one and talk to them and say anything.”

While Heartland shelters in Chicago are on busy streets, the organization’s complex of multi-story brick buildings in Des Plaines sits tucked away on green fields on Maryville Academy’s vast 116-acre campus.

An employee of a nearby church said this week she has seen children — some as young as 4 or 5 — play basketball, run along the stretches of grass and attend mass at the church.

“They look happy. They look well-fed,” she said. “Sometimes I see them and feel sad though, because they are so secluded from everyone.”

Troubling Stories

Rigo said he turned 17 inside Heartland’s facility in Beverly. He fondly remembers some aspects of the three months he spent there in the summer of 2012: the meals, cleanliness and order.

Other memories make him angry. Rigo — who is now 23 and asked that his full name not be used because he is living in the U.S. illegally — said some shelter employees threatened the teens who did not participate in required daily outdoor physical exercises.

“Even if you felt sick, you had to do the exercises,” said Rigo, who is from Guatemala. “The punishment was that you couldn’t go to recess that day… or they would tell you that they would notify the supervisor, and he would tell your lawyer to delay your [immigration] case.”

Another recent shelter resident also told the Washington Post that the staff threatened to delay their cases for breaking rules. Heartland told ProPublica Illinois those types of threats would be against the organization’s policies. There “is no connection between any child’s participation in programming and the status of their immigration proceedings. And staff receive ongoing training on how best to communicate with children,” Heartland wrote in an email.

Attorney Jesse Bless, who has represented families with children recently housed at Casa Guadalupe in Des Plaines, said the children shared troubling stories about their time there. He was not allowed to visit the shelter.

“I know that the children got immunizations but the children already had them,” Bless said. “… Immunizations given to children without parental consent is simply flat-out wrong … They stripped parents of their natural rights.”

He said the children were allowed to talk with their parents for 10 minutes, twice a week, while an employee stood nearby.

Bless’ clients have made some of the most serious allegations against Heartland, including that staff injected a child with a sedative. “I don’t know what happened with these children, but none of it was good,” Bless said. While acknowledging that Heartland is like the “middleman” following federal rules, he said the organization shouldn’t get a pass.

“I can sympathize with their juxtaposition of being between a rock and a hard place,” Bless said. “That doesn’t make it OK.”

Some former employees express conflicted feelings about their work at Heartland, describing being driven by the mission to help vulnerable children but also uncomfortable with an atmosphere that sometimes felt prison-like.

A former employee at the Bronzeville location said the children were well cared for within a restricted environment. He recalled taking them out for ice cream but also said the children followed strict routines and had little privacy.

“The purpose of these facilities is to remain invisible, to be no part of the community whatsoever,” said the employee, a family reunification specialist. “If we saw anybody from the community who wanted to come to the front door for anything, we had to turn them away immediately.”

Britt Hodgdon, 38, a social worker trained as a trauma therapist, interviewed for a job at the Bronzeville location several years ago. Among other concerns, Hodgdon said she was bothered that the sign on the building’s awning identified it as a nursing home.

“Why do these kids need to be hidden in plain sight?” Hodgdon said. “People have a right to know when children are being held in their community, perhaps against family wishes.”