Tayo Bero , The Guardian; The weirdest things a leak revealed about Peter Thiel’s secret club
"Given that the group’s members include some of the world’s most culturally and politically important people, one would think that this information would be far more securely guarded."
Greg Jaffe and Kate Kelly, The New York Times ; Secret Vetting and Blocked Promotions: Inside Hegseth’s War on Diversity
A Black admiral fixed one of the Navy’s worst messes. Mr. Hegseth blocked his promotion anyway.
"In books and speeches, Mr. Hegseth has maintained that the Pentagon’s push over the past decade to build a more diverse force had elevated women and minority officers to senior jobs that they had not earned.
“When I think about my career in uniform, in almost every instance where there has been poor leadership or people in positions they’re not qualified for, it was based on either the reality or the perception of a ‘diversity hire,’” Mr. Hegseth, a former major in the Army National Guard, wrote in his 2024 book “The War on Warriors.”
As defense secretary, he has promised to install a new promotion system that will be “ruthlessly meritocratic” and “focused squarely” on “warfighting ability.”
In practice, though, his approach has made it harder for Black and female officers to get promoted to senior ranks, even when their records are exemplary."
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Mattathias Schwartz, The New York Times; Sex, Lies and Secrets: A Federal Judge’s Trysts Go Public
"The ensuing investigative report is a chronicle of sex, lies and ethical breaches, much of which is cloaked in secrecy because America’s federal court system affords judges broad deference."
Azada Raha, from Rukhshana Media, The Guardian; The secret Afghan women’s book club defying the Taliban to read Orwell
"Most of the books the five women have discussed since they started the reading circle last June are classics, and most deal with issues of power, suffering, and the place of women, though they have embraced variety. The works they’ve read include George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Zoya Pirzad’s I’ll Turn Off the Lights and Symphony of the Dead, also by Abbas Maroufi.
Most of the books can be found online and downloaded free, although occasionally they borrow books from libraries.
They meet every week for an hour-and-a-half at the home of one of the members, varying the location to avoid scrutiny in a country where women’s freedoms have been severely curtailed."
Jodi Kantor, The New York Times ; How the Supreme Court Secretly Made Itself Even More Secretive
Amid calls to increase transparency and revelations about the court’s inner workings, the chief justice imposed nondisclosure agreements on clerks and employees.
"n November of 2024, two weeks after voters returned President Donald Trump to office, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. summoned employees of the U.S. Supreme Court for an unusual announcement. Facing them in a grand conference room beneath ornate chandeliers, he requested they each sign a nondisclosure agreement promising to keep the court’s inner workings secret.
The chief justice acted after a series of unusual leaks of internal court documents, most notably of the decision overturning the right to abortion, and news reports about ethical lapses by the justices. Trust in the institution was languishing at a historic low. Debate was intensifying over whether the black box institution should be more transparent.
Instead, the chief justice tightened the court’s hold on information.Its employees have long been expected to stay silent about what they witness behind the scenes. But starting that autumn, in a move that has not been previously reported, the chief justice converted what was once a norm into a formal contract, according to five people familiar with the shift."
Jordan-Marie Smith , NPR; The true story of a famed librarian and the secret she guarded closely
"The name Belle da Costa Greene might not ring a bell, but New York's historic Morgan Library and Museum is trying to change that.
A new exhibit called "A Librarian's Legacy" opened this month, just in time for the Morgan's 100th anniversary. It traces Greene's life and her lasting influence as the library's first director.
It was an unusually prominent role for a woman at the time — a Black woman who chose to pass as white to survive in a highly segregated America."
Garrett Shanley, The Independent Florida Alligator; Sasse’s spending spree: Former UF president channeled millions to GOP allies, secretive contracts
"In his 17-month stint as UF president, Ben Sasse more than tripled his office’s spending, directing millions in university funds into secretive consulting contracts and high-paying positions for his GOP allies.
Sasse ballooned spending under the president’s office to $17.3 million in his first year in office — up from $5.6 million in former UF President Kent Fuchs’ last year, according to publicly available administrative budget data.
A majority of the spending surge was driven by lucrative contracts with big-name consulting firms and high-salaried, remote positions for Sasse’s former U.S. Senate staff and Republican officials.
Sasse’s consulting contracts have been kept largely under wraps, leaving the public in the dark about what the contracted firms did to earn their fees. The university also declined to clarify specific duties carried out by Sasse’s ex-Senate staff, several of whom were salaried as presidential advisers."
"THE prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, has called an election for Oct. 19, but he doesn’t want anyone to talk about it. He has chosen not to participate in the traditional series of debates on national television, confronting his opponents in quieter, less public venues, like the scholarly Munk Debates and CPAC, Canada’s equivalent of CSPAN. His own campaign events were subject to gag orders until a public outcry forced him to rescind the forced silence of his supporters. Mr. Harper’s campaign for re-election has so far been utterly consistent with the personality trait that has defined his tenure as prime minister: his peculiar hatred for sharing information. Americans have traditionally looked to Canada as a liberal haven, with gun control, universal health care and good public education. But the nine and half years of Mr. Harper’s tenure have seen the slow-motion erosion of that reputation for open, responsible government. His stance has been a know-nothing conservatism, applied broadly and effectively. He has consistently limited the capacity of the public to understand what its government is doing, cloaking himself and his Conservative Party in an entitled secrecy, and the country in ignorance."
