The Twilight of the Secret Government is a new book by ex CIA Kevin Shipp and Kent Heckenlively. Here is the description as per the website at the publisher, Skyhorse publishing.
 

Columbus City Schools (CCS) are facing their greatest challenge in years. Not only does the district have a “D” rating for quality, but now must cut over 50 million dollars from their budget (thanks to the state Republicans and their hatred of public education).

As a former teacher (both public and private schools) I’ve been following the steps that CCS has, and has not, been taking. Most important:

1. The excessive number of administrators in the Central Office, and
2. How those Central Office administrators have their STRS pension payments not deducted from their paychecks (like every teacher), but instead paid for by CCS.

I care about the future of Columbus and a strong CCS is vital for our success. Therefore, I took it upon myself to email every member of the CCS Board of Education; twice. Everyone, except one person ignored my questions.

So thank you to Jennifer Anne Adair for not only reading my email but even responding. Part of her reply included:

This week, every state insurance commissioner including Ohio’s Judith French will meet in Hollywood, Florida, for their quarterly national gathering. If a corporate insurance lobbyist is a shark, this meeting is a feeding frenzy. And the sharks have been eating well.

Insurance commissioners across the country are abdicating their public duty by giving in to corporate lobbyists that want to profit from insuring fossil fuel projects and investing in fossil fuel companies – while leaving ratepayers holding the climate crisis bag.

In Ohio, insurance premiums have climbed 36.1% over the last six years, while nonrenewal rates went up 31% from 2022 to 2023. Big insurance companies blame the climate crisis – yet they insure and invest in the very fossil fuel companies that are driving the climate crisis – including in companies fracking Ohio’s state parks and public lands.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand seized more than $300 million in a new crackdown against international criminals allegedly laundering money through two banks in Bangkok from online scam centers in neighboring Cambodia and Myanmar, but the top suspects are still at large.

"The individuals involved are all scammers. Three or four who have been arrested are major players," Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul announced on December 3 after a nationwide investigation.

"The seized or frozen assets amount to more than 10 billion baht ($312.5 million)," Mr. Anutin said without naming the arrested people.

They were charged with "conspiracy, running a criminal association, public fraud, and money laundering," a summary of the police report said.

More than a dozen top suspects are still at large including "Yim Leak chairman of BIC Group, a major financial network in Cambodia, who was suspected of bringing criminal proceeds into Thailand for money laundering or business investment," it said.

Cash was allegedly laundered through fake "mule accounts" before reaching two of Thailand's biggest banks.

If you want to understand how the Supreme Court’s MAGA majority has undermined democracy, you need to understand the “shadow docket.”

The shadow docket — as the court’s emergency docket has come to be known — is one of the more dramatic and corrupt ways that MAGA-aligned justices are enabling President Trump to take away our freedoms.

Normally, the justices don’t hear a case until after lower courts have considered it fully and made a final decision. But a party to a case may describe it as so urgent that quick “relief” is needed from the Supreme Court, claiming that “irreparable harm” may occur while lower courts consider it.

That puts it on the emergency docket.

Since time is supposedly of the essence, the justices don’t hold oral arguments. And if they grant the “relief” and undo the lower court’s order, they often give us little if any explanation why. Lower court judges are left without much guidance on whether or how to use the decision to guide their own decisions.

With so little sunlight, no wonder the term “shadow docket” has stuck.