Government Corruption News ArticlesExcerpts of key news articles on
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It is worse in Afghanistan now than ... ever. The conflict, begun initially to oust the Taliban that sheltered al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., has cost the lives of more than 3,500 Coalition service members and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians. The war ... moved back into focus three weeks ago with the death of Wasil Ahmad. Wasil learned firearms and commanded a unit of anti-Taliban fighters briefly, before Taliban gunmen on a motorbike mowed him down as he bought food for his mother and siblings. Wasil was just 11 years old. Dissent in the ranks of the Taliban has led to ISIS becoming a radical, brutal and attractive alternative to the country's disenfranchised youth, for whom the old insurgency isn't moving fast enough. The Taliban hold more territory now than at any time since 2001. There are about 10,000 U.S. troops left, who can hunt extremists, but not hold territory. In terms of Western goals - things are right back where they started: needing to keep Afghanistan free of extremists and a viable country for its people. Without that the result is thousands of refugees in Europe, and ISIS gets a new safe haven. What is left is a country where the West is discredited; ... where most fighters are meaner, better armed, and more chaotic than they were in 2001; and whose name causes opinion-formers in the West to try and change the subject.
Note: The underlying reason for this war and most wars is the huge profits that are made, as clearly revealed by a top US general in his highly revealing book "War is a Racket." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.
Tests that showed elevated levels of lead and copper in water flowing from an Ohio town’s taps has led officials to close schools Monday and order another round of inspections. The city manager of Sebring, a small town of some 4,000 people ... issued an advisory Thursday night warning children and pregnant women to avoid drinking the village system’s tap water after seven of 20 homes showed levels of copper and lead beyond US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. The warning comes as neighboring Michigan grapples with a lead-poisoning crisis in Flint – a disaster that experts say underscores the growing need for investment and innovation in the nation’s aging infrastructure. A weakened economy and the passage of time have made repair and replacement of old pipes a challenge, and have led to higher costs and a decline in water quality, especially in many older cities. Poor asset management, shrinking federal and state budgets, and a lack of political will to address the issue over decades has left the US with deteriorating water and wastewater systems – some dating back to the Civil War era – in urgent need of repair and replacement. The cost of restoring and expanding them to serve a growing population could cost up to $1 trillion over the next 25 years, the American Water Works Association (AWWA) estimates. The EPA’s forecasts are more conservative – an investment of just over $330 billion over 20 years.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
The father of the billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch helped construct a major oil refinery in Nazi Germany that was personally approved by Adolf Hitler, according to a new history of the Kochs and other wealthy families. The book, “Dark Money,” by Jane Mayer, traces the rise of the modern conservative movement through the activism and money of a handful of rich donors. The book is largely focused on the Koch family, stretching back to its involvement in the far-right John Birch Society and the political and business activities of the father, Fred C. Koch, who found some of his earliest business success overseas in the years leading up to World War II. One venture was a partnership with the American Nazi sympathizer William Rhodes Davis, who, according to Ms. Mayer, hired Mr. Koch to help build the third-largest oil refinery in the Third Reich, a critical industrial cog in Hitler’s war machine. The Kochs’ vast political network, a major force in Republican politics today, was “originally designed as a means of off-loading the costs of the Koch Industries environmental and regulatory fights onto others” by persuading other rich business owners to contribute to Koch-controlled political groups. In Ms. Mayer’s telling, the Kochs helped bankroll - through a skein of nonprofit organizations with minimal public disclosure - decades of victories in state capitals and in Washington, often leaving no fingerprints.
Note: Coincidentally, George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was also in business with the Nazis. The conservative political network overseen by the Koch brothers plans to spend $889 million on US elections in 2016. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
Cologne’s police chief has been removed from his post amid criticism of his force’s handling of a string of sexual assaults and robberies carried out by groups of men in the German city on New Year’s Eve. His enforced departure came as a witness to the violence told the Guardian the events appeared to have been coordinated. Lieli Shabani, 35, said she saw three Arabic speaking males who were “clearly giving instructions”. A leaked police report [describes] how officers were initially overwhelmed by events outside the city’s train station, after which more than 100 women filed criminal complaints of sexual assault and robbery, including two accounts of rape. Cologne mayor Henriette Reker suggested on Friday that police had held back information from her, and said in a statement that her “trust in the Cologne police leadership is significantly shaken”. The leaked police report, obtained by the German newspaper Bild, said women were forced to “run a gauntlet ... beyond description” to reach or leave the station. The incidents in and around the square in front of the main train station have led to accusations of a police and media cover-up. Evidence has emerged that similar attacks had taken place in seven other German cities.
Note: It's entirely possible that these attacks were coordinated in order to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and the manipulation of public perception.
United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping personnel must lose their status as “a privileged class,” according to a former senior U.N. official, after fresh allegations of sexual abuse of minors by peacekeepers in Central African Republic (CAR) emerged. The U.N. peacekeeping mission in CAR - known as MINUSCA - said on Tuesday that it was investigating allegations concerning sexual exploitation and abuse of minors, as well as other misconduct, by peacekeepers and international forces. The peacekeepers came from Gabon, Egypt and Morocco, and AFP reported that the allegations brings the total number of sexual abuse cases against U.N. peacekeepers in CAR to 26. According to Paula Donovan, who served as a senior advisor to the U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa from 2003 to 2006, the latest allegations mean that the U.N.’s “sex abuse crisis is now more exposed than ever before, but there’s no evidence that the U.N. has changed the way it’s dealing with the problem. The U.N. treats reports of sexual abuse by its personnel as administrative matters to be handled internally and in secret, rather than as serious violent crimes,” says Donovan.
Note: A personal friend of WantToKnow.info manager Fred Burks served with the Peace Corps in Africa where she saw learned of horrendous sexual abuse, but was told by all of her superiors in Peace Corps not to touch that one. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The Transportation Security Administration’s new rules for screening passengers with its controversial full-body scanners - which were quietly changed just before the busy holiday travel season - represent a significant policy reversal that could affect your next flight. Getting checked by the TSA’s advanced-imaging technology used to be entirely optional, allowing those who refused a scan to be subjected to a pat-down. In fact, many observers thought the agency installed the 740 body scanners in 160 airports with an understanding that no one would be forced to use them, ever. But on a Friday in late December, the TSA revised its rules, saying an “opt out” is no longer an option for certain passengers. “The TSA is going back on its word,” says Fred Cate, a law professor at Indiana University and prominent TSA-watcher. “The scanners were sold to Congress and the public on the promise that they were optional, but for at least some people, that is no longer the case.” In previous court filings, the agency offered written assurance that the scanners were optional. Based on the agency’s statements, a federal appeals court affirmed the legality of using the full-body scanners as long as fliers were given a choice.
Note: Read more on the controversy surrounding TSA's costly but technically questionable scanners. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
A high-ranking member of Thailand’s police force charged with investigating human trafficking has fled to Australia and requested asylum. Major General Paween Pongsirin said he ... believed his life was in danger after the investigation uncovered evidence that members of Thailand’s military and police force were participating in human trafficking operations. “I worked in the trafficking area to help human beings who were in trouble,” he said. “But now it is me who is in trouble. Paween began leading the investigation in May, after more than 30 bodies were found buried in graves near Thailand’s southern border with Malaysia. Paween’s investigation has led to allegations of trafficking against 153 people, including at least one senior military official, though he said other government officials would be implicated. The suspected traffickers are accused of starving refugees and denying health treatment, among other offenses. Thailand’s military has held leadership in the country since a coup d'état last year. Paween told the Guardian he resigned in November after the five-month investigations was halted. Despite his protests, Paween was transferred to southern Thailand, where he said "senior police" officials were linked to the human trafficking trade. “Human trafficking is a big network that involves lots of the military, politicians and police,” he told the Guardian. “Unfortunately, those bad police and bad military are the ones that have power.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about government corruption and the violation of civil liberties.
Two kinds of genetically modified pigs are on their way to becoming ... dinner. But consumers are wary and lack confidence in governments' readiness to regulate this new class of food product. The African swine fever resistant pig has an immune gene that is slightly more like a warthog's. The double-muscle pig has a mutation similar to one produced by normal breeding in a muscly cow breed called the Belgian blue. Lucy Sharratt, co-ordinator for the Canadian Biotechnology Network, said a major reason why consumers are wary is because of the way genetically modified foods are regulated in Canada. Health Canada doesn't do its own testing of the foods, relying instead on data generated by the companies trying to put the foods on the market, which is kept secret. It doesn't disclose what it's assessing. Nor does it consult with farmers or consumers, or require labelling of genetically modified foods after the fact. In the U.S., safety information about genetically modified foods is also kept secret.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing GMO news articles from reliable major media sources.
Survivors of CIA torture have sued the contractor psychologists who designed one of the most infamous programs of the post-9/11 era. In an extraordinary step, psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen now face a federal lawsuit for their role in convincing the CIA to subject terror suspects to mock drowning, painful bodily contortions, sleep and dietary deprivation and other methods long rejected by much of the world as torture. In practice, CIA torture meant disappearances, mock executions, anal penetration ... and at least one man who froze to death, according to a landmark Senate report last year. On behalf of torture survivors ... as well as a representative of the estate of Gul Rahman – who froze to death in a CIA black site in Afghanistan – the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the suit against Mitchell and Jessen on Tuesday in a federal court in Washington state. The suit calls the torture program a “joint criminal enterprise” and a “war crime” in which the CIA, Mitchell and Jessen colluded and from which Mitchell and Jessen financially profited. Although numerous US government investigations have pierced the veneer of secrecy around the torture program, the program’s government architects have faced no legal reprisal. A Justice Department inquiry ended in 2012 without prosecutions. The new lawsuit, aimed not at government officials but the contractors Mitchell and Jessen, aims to break the trend.
Note: For more along these lines, read about how the torture program fits in with a long history of human experimentation by corrupt intelligence agencies working alongside unethical scientists. For more, see this list of programs that treated humans as guinea pigs.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says some Wall Street executives should have gone to jail for their roles in the financial crisis that gripped the country in 2008 and triggered the Great Recession. Billions of dollars in fines have been levied against major banks and brokerage firms in the wake of the economic meltdown that was in large part triggered by reckless lending and shady securities dealings that blew up a housing bubble. But in an interview with USA Today published Sunday, Bernanke said he thinks that in addition to the corporations, individuals should have been held more accountable. "It would have been my preference to have more investigations of individual actions because obviously everything that went wrong or was illegal was done by some individual, not by an abstract firm," Bernanke said. Asked if someone should have gone to jail, the former Fed chairman replied, "Yeah, I think so." He did not, however, name any individual he thought should have been prosecuted and noted that the Federal Reserve is not a law-enforcement agency. Bernanke is promoting his new 600-page memoir, "The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about the US government's massive bank bailout of the corrupt financial industry.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, stepping up her crusade against the power of wealthy interests, accused a Brookings Institution scholar of writing a research paper to benefit his corporate patrons. Warren’s charge prompted a swift response, with Brookings seeking and receiving the resignation of the economist, Robert Litan, whose report criticized a Warren-backed consumer-protection rule targeting the financial services industry. Warren leveled her criticisms in letters sent Tuesday to Brookings leaders and the Obama administration, citing the $85,000 combined fee that Litan and a co-author received from [Capital Group, a leading mutual fund manager]. Warren called the report “highly compensated and editorially compromised work on behalf of an industry player seeking a specific conclusion.” Her complaint pointed to a relatively new form of influence peddling in the nation’s capital, with industry groups and even foreign governments paying think tanks and scholars for research papers that support lobbying goals. Brookings over the past decade has embarked on aggressive fundraising drives to pay for major expansions. Investigations last year by The Washington Post, the New York Times and others found that donors had gained the ability to influence Brookings’s events and research agenda.
Note: Read about how big money buys off institutions democracy depends on. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing corporate corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
You often hear inequality has widened because globalization and technological change have made most people less competitive, while making the best educated more competitive. There’s some truth to this. The tasks most people used to do can now be done more cheaply by lower-paid workers abroad or by computer-driven machines. But this common explanation overlooks ... the increasing concentration of political power in a corporate and financial elite that has been able to influence the rules by which the economy runs. As I argue in my new book, Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few, this transformation has ... resulted in higher corporate profits, higher returns for shareholders and higher pay for top corporate executives and Wall Street bankers – and lower pay and higher prices for most other Americans. [These changes] amount to a giant pre-distribution upward to the rich. The underlying problem ... is that the market itself has become tilted ever more in the direction of moneyed interests that have exerted disproportionate influence over it, while average workers have steadily lost bargaining power. The most important political competition over the next decades will not be between the right and left, or between Republicans and Democrats. It will be between a majority of Americans who have been losing ground, and an economic elite that refuses to recognize or respond to its growing distress.
Note: This essay was written by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing income inequality news articles from reliable major media sources.
Rich western countries and the world’s leading developing nations are spending up to $200bn (Ł130bn) a year subsidising fossil fuels, according to a report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The ... thinktank said its 34 members plus six of the biggest emerging economies – China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia and South Africa – were spending money supporting the consumption and production of coal, oil and gas that should be used to tackle climate change. The OECD secretary general, Angel Gurría, [said] that governments were spending almost twice as much money subsidising fossil fuels as was needed to meet the climate-finance objectives set by the international community at climate change summits, which have set a target of mobilising $100bn a year by 2020. Although ... fossil fuel subsidies were on a downward trend since peaking in 2011-12, the thinktank said they remained high. “By distorting costs and prices, fossil-fuel subsidies create inefficiencies in the way we generate and use energy,” Gurría said. “But most importantly, fossil-fuel subsidies undermine efforts to make our economies less carbon-intensive while exacerbating the damage to human health caused by air pollution.”
Note: The International Monetary Fund recently estimated that fossil fuel companies globally receive $5.3 trillion in yearly subsidies. In the US, these subsidies are granted by politicians that receive significant campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry.
Fourteen years later, thanks a heap, Osama bin Laden. With a small number of supporters, $400,000-$500,000, and 19 suicidal hijackers, most of them Saudis, you ... goaded us into doing what you had neither the resources nor the ability to do. George W. Bush and company used those murderous acts and the nearly 3,000 resulting deaths as an excuse to try to make the world theirs. It took them no time at all to decide to launch a “Global War on Terror” in up to 60 countries. Don’t you find it strange, looking back, just how quickly 9/11 set their brains aflame? Don’t you still find it eerie that, amid the wreckage of the Pentagon, the initial orders our secretary of defense gave his aides were to come up with plans for striking Iraq, even though he was already convinced that Al Qaeda had launched the attack? Washington’s post-9/11 policies in the Middle East helped lead to the establishment of the Islamic State’s “caliphate” in parts of fractured Iraq and Syria. The United States has gone into the business of robotic assassination big time, [and] Washington has regularly knocked off women and children while searching for militant leaders. Fourteen years later, don’t you find it improbable that our “war on terror” has so regularly devolved into a war of and for terror; that our methods ... have visibly promoted, not blunted, the spread of Islamic extremism; and that, despite this, Washington has generally not recalibrated its actions in any meaningful way? Fourteen years later, how improbable is that?
Note: A carefully researched report on the covert origins of ISIS suggests the creation of terrorists is useful for Washington's elite. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing terrorism news articles from reliable major media sources.
A US government-appointed agricultural body tried to crush a Silicon Valley food startup after concluding the company represented a “major threat” and “crisis” for the $5.5bn-a-year egg industry, according to documents obtained by the Guardian. In potential conflict with rules that govern how it can spend its funds, the American Egg Board (AEB) lobbied for a concerted attack on Hampton Creek, a food company that has created a low-cost plant-based egg replacement and the maker of Just Mayo, a mayonnaise alternative. The AEB attempted to have Just Mayo blocked from Whole Foods, asking Anthony Zolezzi, a partner at private equity firm Pegasus Capital Advisors ... to use his influence with Whole Foods to drop the product. (Whole Foods still sells Just Mayo.) More than one member of the AEB made joking threats of violence against Hampton Creek’s founder, Josh Tetrick. “Can we pool our money and put a hit on him?” asked Mike Sencer, executive vice-president of AEB member organization Hidden Villa Ranch. The AEB represents egg farmers across the US and its board is selected by the secretary of agriculture. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) ... suggested [additional] ways to put pressure on Hampton Creek. In January 2014, Roger Glasshoff, then the USDA’s head of shell eggs, told [Outgoing AEB head Joanne] Ivy to contact the FDA about Just Mayo directly. Last month the FDA ruled that Just Mayo could not be called mayonnaise because it does not contain eggs.
Note: Read another news article about Hampton's inspiring success. The USDA allows foods with non-organic ingredients to be labelled "USDA organic". The FDA has no problem allowing cloned animals into the food supply. When government corruption is the standard, anything is possible. But not egg-free mayo.
Local police around the country are increasingly using high-tech mass surveillance gear that can vacuum up private information on entire neighborhoods. Many cops are ... purposefully hiding their spying from courts to avoid any scrutiny from judges. Two important news reports from the last week have shed light on the disturbing practices. The first investigation, done by USA Today’s Brad Heath, found: “In one case after another ... police in Baltimore and other cities used the phone tracker, commonly known as a stingray, to locate the perpetrators of routine street crimes and frequently concealed that fact from the suspects, their lawyers and even judges.” Stingrays are so controversial that some state legislatures have already passed laws restricting their use – which is exactly why police want to keep [their use] secret. The Wall Street Journal also reported last week about newer devices costing as little as a few hundred dollars [that] the police supposedly don’t think ... require a court order at all to use against potential suspects. These devices are handheld or can be attached to clothing. Not only are these cops violating the constitutional rights of defendants by spying on them without court orders, but, in some cases, they’re also allegedly dismissing felony cases involving potentially dangerous criminals, so they can prevent judges from ruling on whether their surveillance tactics are legal ... all to continue their blanket surveillance practices with minimal scrutiny.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about the erosion of privacy rights.
A police officer in Alabama proposed murdering a black resident and creating bogus evidence to suggest the killing was in self-defence, the Guardian has learned. Officer Troy Middlebrooks kept his job and continues to patrol Alexander City after authorities there paid [Vincent Bias] $35,000 to avoid being publicly sued over the incident. Middlebrooks, a veteran of the US marines, said the man “needs a god damn bullet” and allegedly referred to him as “that nigger”, after becoming frustrated that the man was not punished more harshly over a prior run-in. The payment was made ... after a secret recording of Middlebrooks’s remarks was played to the city’s police chiefs and the mayor. Elected city councillors said they were not consulted. A copy of the recording was obtained by the Guardian. Middlebrooks, 33, made the threatening comments to Bias’s brother-in-law during a May 2013 encounter at his home, which Bias was visiting. Police came to the home after they discovered an unleashed dog. A lawsuit from Bias that the city paid to settle before it reached court stated that ... the officer remarked to Bias’s brother-in-law, who is white, that he was tired of “that nigger” being released from jail. Middlebrooks allegedly said “the police were going to pull [Bias] aside on a routine traffic stop and [Bias] would get killed”.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
In some juvenile court systems around the country, young people regularly appear at hearings in handcuffs, leg irons, or both. But 21 states – five this year alone – have reformed such shackling practices. Skye Gosselin was 12 the first time court officers shackled her. She had been charged with disorderly conduct. At 14, she spent several hours handcuffed to another girl as she awaited her hearing, this time for skipping school. Then she was taken into court with metal bands wrapped around both her wrists and ankles, said the now-16-year-old. "The dehumanizing experience shaped not only how others saw me, but how I saw myself for many years. (It) made me think of myself as a criminal,” [she said]. Children as young as 9 have been shackled, as have children who have been abused by their parents. Up to 100,000 youths are shackled each year. [Reformers] say the automatic use of restraints is not in line with the rehabilitative purpose of juvenile court, limits youths’ ability to participate in their defense, tends to hurt and humiliate them, and, in some cases, traumatizes them. It makes little sense that adult courts typically have to follow guidelines to determine if shackling is really needed, but juvenile courts in many states don’t, says Shakyra Diaz, policy manager for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. The US Supreme Court has ruled that routine shackling of adults in court is unconstitutional because it can undermine the presumption of innocence.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing civil liberties news articles from reliable major media sources.
The frustrated politicians who called for a federal investigation into Chicago’s off-the-books police warehouse have renewed calls for the first official inquiry into the facility. Danny Davis, the US congressman who represents the home district of Homan Square, said he would personally seek ... to learn the “rationale” for a practice of holding Americans without a public record of their whereabouts or access to a lawyer while interrogating them at the police site, known as Homan Square. On Wednesday, the Guardian revealed the initial results of a transparency lawsuit it filed to uncover the extent of Homan Square’s emergence as what ex-detainees, lawyers and activists describe as the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site. The lawsuit compelled the Chicago police to disclose that over 3,500 people – 82% of whom a Guardian independent investigation found to be black – have been subject to detention at Homan Square, with only three documented visits from lawyers to the building since September 2004. Long-time Chicago civil rights lawyers [responded to the lawsuit] as the “extremely troubled” results of a city with a “fundamentally racist” history of law enforcement. “Police assassination of Black Panther leaders, the torture of scores of African American suspects, the police ‘red squad’ spying indiscriminately on black citizens, and now Homan Square,” said attorney Flint Taylor, who played a major role in pushing the city to creating a reparations fund earlier this year.
Note: For more along these lines, read about the increasing militarization of police in the U.S. after 9/11, or see concise summaries of deeply revealing civil liberties news articles.
Former president Jimmy Carter said Tuesday on the nationally syndicated radio show the Thom Hartmann Program that the United States is now an “oligarchy” in which “unlimited political bribery” has created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.” Carter was responding to a question from Hartmann about recent Supreme Court decisions on campaign financing like Citizens United. HARTMANN: "Our Supreme Court has now said, 'unlimited money in politics.' It seems like a violation of principles of democracy. ... Your thoughts on that?" CARTER: "It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election’s over. ... The incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody’s who’s already in Congress has a lot more to sell to an avid contributor than somebody who’s just a challenger." Carter’s statement [has been added] to this list of politicians acknowledging that money controls politics.
Note: Read about the billionaire oligarchs that are increasingly able to purchase U.S. elections.
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.