Government Corruption News Stories

Excerpts of Key Government Corruption News Stories in Major Media

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

The Air Force overpaid for soap dispensers used in the bathrooms of C-17 military aircraft by 7,943% – or more than 80 times the price of similar commercially available dispensers – according to a Defense Department inspector general report released Tuesday. The dispensers were one of about a dozen spare parts for which Boeing overcharged the Air Force, according to the report, resulting in nearly $1 million in additional and unnecessary costs. The costs of the soap dispenser from Boeing, the similar soap dispenser and the number of dispensers purchased by the Air Force were redacted in the report, but in total, the Air Force overpaid $149,072 for the soap dispensers. An anonymous tip about the dispensers launched the inspector general's audit into the spare parts. "The Air Force needs to establish and implement more effective internal controls to help prevent overpaying for spare parts for the remainder of this contract, which continues through 2031," Defense Department Inspector General Robert Storch said in a statement. Boeing has a contract with the Air Force that lets Boeing purchase needed spare parts for the C17, and the Air Force reimburses Boeing for the spare parts purchased, according to the report. "Significant overpayments for spare parts may reduce the number of spare parts that Boeing can purchase on the contract, potentially reducing C-17 readiness worldwide," Storch said.

Note: Learn more about unaccountable military spending in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

Industry advocates have established a "private social network" to counter resistance to pesticides and genetically modified (GM) crops in Africa, Europe and other parts of the world, while also denigrating organic and other alternative farming methods. In 2017, two United Nations experts called for a treaty to strictly regulate dangerous pesticides, which they said were a "global human rights concern", citing scientific research showing pesticides can cause cancers, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's and other health problems. Derogatory profiles of the two UN experts, Hilal Elver and Baskut Tuncak, are hosted on an online private portal for pesticide company employees and a range of influential allies. [These] efforts were spearheaded by a "reputation management" firm ... called v-Fluence. The company then launched a platform called Bonus Eventus, named after the Roman god of agriculture whose name translates to "good outcome". Bonus Eventus is invite-only and counts more than 1,000 members. They include executives from the world's largest agrochemical companies and their lobbyists, as well as academics, government officials and high-profile policymakers. The individuals profiled in the portal include more than 500 environmental advocates, scientists, politicians and others seen as opponents of pesticides and GM crops. Many profiles include personal details such as the names of family members, phone numbers, home addresses and even house values. The profiling is part of an effort – that was financed, in part, by US taxpayer dollars – to downplay pesticide dangers, discredit opponents and undermine international policymaking. More than 30 current government officials are on the membership list, most of whom are from the US Department of Agriculture.

Note: Read about how pesticide companies dominate Google News searches. For more along these lines, explore summaries of news articles on toxic chemicals from reliable major media sources.

Toxic PFAS "forever chemicals" are widely added to pesticides, and are increasingly used in the products in recent years, new research finds, a practice that creates a health threat by spreading the dangerous compounds directly into the US's food and water supply. The analysis of active and inert ingredients that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved for use in pesticides proves recent agency claims that the chemicals aren't used in pesticides are false. The researchers also obtained documents that suggest the EPA hid some findings that show PFAS in pesticides. About 14% of all active ingredients in the country's pesticides are PFAS, a figure that has doubled to more than 30% ... during the last 10 years. PFAS are a class of about 15,000 compounds typically used to make products that resist water, stains and heat. They are called "forever chemicals" because they do not naturally break down and accumulate, and are linked to cancer, kidney disease, liver problems, immune disorders, birth defects and other serious health problems. PFAS are added to a range of pesticides, including those used on crops, to kill mosquitoes, or to kill fleas. About two years ago, an EPA research fellow identified PFOS in pesticides and raised the alarm. In a Freedom of Information Act request that was part of the new study, researchers found documents showing the EPA had in fact found PFOS in pesticides but omitted those findings from the final study.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and toxic chemicals from reliable major media sources.

On a chilly, early morning in January 2019, a group of animal rights activists descended upon a poultry farm in central Texas. Activists with Meat the Victims, a decentralized, global movement to abolish animal exploitation, later uploaded gruesome photos of injured and dead chicks to social media platforms. The police identified [Sarah Weldon] and issued a warrant for her arrest, along with 14 other activists. She was charged with criminal trespassing. The local police weren't the only ones paying attention. An FBI agent in Texas had been secretly monitoring the demonstration. His focus? Weapons of mass destruction. The FBI has been collaborating with the meat industry to gather information on animal rights activism, including Meat the Victims, under its directive to counter weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, according to agency records. The records also show that the bureau has explored charging activists who break into factory farms under federal criminal statutes that carry a possible sentence of up to life in prison – including for the "attempted use" of WMD – while urging meat producers to report encounters with activists to its WMD program. "This ... is textbook escalation by government actors against successful efforts by social movements that they disagree with or find subversive," said Justin Marceau, a law professor. "Framing of civil disobedience against factory farms as terrorism is a form of government repression."

Note: Animal rights activists are relentlessly prosecuted while the evidence of animal cruelty they uncover is ruthlessly suppressed. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in law enforcement and in the food system from reliable major media sources.

Two decades ago, Shahawar Matin Siraj started to feel uneasy about a plan to bomb a subway station in Manhattan. Osama Eldawoody, a New York City Police Department informant recruited after 9/11, had established himself as a father figure to Siraj, who was 21 when they met. But as it started to feel real, Siraj tried to back out – insisting about 18 times that he was not willing to place bombs in the station. "I have to, you know, ask my mom's permission," he had said. Siraj [was] arrested a week later ... and was sentenced in 2007 to 30 years in prison after three years of pretrial detention. Siraj is one of almost 1,000 terrorism defendants prosecuted by the U.S. since 9/11. More than 350 defendants' cases involved FBI stings with an informant or undercover agent. The fear of this kind of surveillance transformed the social fabric of Muslim communities and made them more insular. "You didn't know if the person you're talking to was an informant or undercover," says Fahd Ahmed, executive director of Desis Rising Up and Moving, or DRUM. (Siraj's family are members.) A 2014 Human Rights Watch report closely reviewed 27 federal prosecutions involving 77 defendants and found that in some instances, "the FBI may have created terrorists out of law-abiding individuals by suggesting the idea of taking terrorist action or encouraging the target to act." The report also described a pattern of targeting people with mental or intellectual disabilities in these stings.

Note: Read more about the FBI's manufacture of terrorist plots. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on law enforcement corruption and terrorism from reliable major media sources.

Stanford University hosted the first major university-sponsored conference where different viewpoints on the appropriate management of pandemics were aired and debated. For much of 2020-2022, critical debate about the wisdom and effectiveness of mandatory Covid policies ... was treated with deep hesitation at best and outright hostility at worst. Professors and students who publicly questioned the mainstream consensus were censored on social media, vilified by their colleagues, and, in the case of Covid vaccine mandates, fired by administrators. Universities failed in their mission to promote academic debate and freedom during the most significant domestic policy issue of this century. During these years, colleagues and students with critical, sceptical viewpoints and countless members of the public [asked] why institutions of higher education were not hosting reasoned debate. The pandemic taught us a valuable lesson for those interested to hear. We need more freedom of expression and academic debate during crises and emergencies, not less. Many are tired of the vapid arguments of ideologues and hungry for a return to the ... academic tradition of debate. By that standard, the Stanford Covid conference was a huge success. The panels addressed key issues regarding the evidence for Covid lockdowns, the management of information and censorship, the impact of lockdowns on the world's poor, and the contentious question of the origin of the virus. Experts who supported early school closures reasoned together with those who did not. Those who support the lab leak hypothesis argued their case with those who disagree. And they disagreed about the wisdom of social media censorship in a pandemic. In the end, the conference achieved its stated purpose: to bring serious thinkers and scientists into constructive dialogue with one another.

Note: Learn more about the Stanford conference that inspired this article. An article by The Nation about this Stanford conference is a significant example of how dissenting views get spun into divisive partisan rhetoric, contributing to the larger culture wars poisoning public discourse.

Lockdowns were instituted, they failed to stop the dying, they failed to stop the spread - that's the data: Bjornskov, 2021; Bendavid, 2021; Agarwal, 2021; Herby, 2022; Kerpen, 2023; Ioannidis, 2024. And yes, lockdowns also inflicted massive damage on children and literally killed people. Lockdowns were not caused by the virus. Human beings decided to do lockdowns. I was the ONLY health policy scholar on the White House Task Force. My interviews as Advisor to the President were pulled down: by YouTube on September 11, 2020, by Twitter blocking me on October 18, 2020. You might think the public – in a free society - should know what the Advisor to the President was saying? When you censor health policy, it's not simply ... a less-than-ideal environment for diverse views. People die. And people died from the censorship of correct health policy. Why is Censorship used? To shut someone up, yes; but more importantly, to deceive the public – to stop others from hearing, to convince a public there is a "consensus". Truth is not determined by consensus, or by numbers of people who agree, or by titles. It is discovered by debate, proven by critical analysis of evidence. Arguments are won by data and logic, not by personal attack or censoring others. THAT is why lockdowners - at Stanford and elsewhere - needed censorship and propaganda; they couldn't win on the data; they needed to delegitimize and demonize opposing views as highly dangerous, to convince the public.

Note: This was written by Scott W. Atlas, MD, who served as Advisor to the President and on the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Read an insightful article by New York Magazine about the harmful effects of COVID lockdowns, highlighting how some countries achieved low death rates without resorting to lockdown measures. Former chief economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers published a study last year showing how non-COVID excess deaths soared as a result of lockdown policies. Prominent economists from John Hopkins University and Lund University concluded that lockdowns reduced mortalities by 0.2%. For more, explore our COVID Information Center.

In late April, students at universities across the United States set up tent encampments and occupied buildings, protesting their campuses' complicity in the Israeli war in Gaza. Wouldn't it have been nice if protesters had extended their critique of U.S. foreign policy to include Ukraine? The Biden White House has extended massive new military aid packages to Ukraine that include long range weapons designed to strike into Russia. Ukraine is the graveyard for the post-Cold War neo-conservative dream of establishing American unipolar power. The late Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's former National Security Adviser, argued that, "if Moscow regains control over Ukraine with its 52 million people and major resources as well as its access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state." To help advance this strategy, the George W. Bush administration supported a 2004 color revolution that brought to power pro-Western leader Viktor Yushchenko who pursued North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership against the will of the vast majority of Ukrainians and ended his term with a 2.7% approval rating. When Russia-friendly Viktor Yanukovych won 2010 elections and sought to strengthen Ukraine's economy by keeping Ukraine's access to the Russian market, the Obama administration backed the February 2014 Maidan coup. The coup resulted in the replacement of Yanukovych with a regime that compromised Ukraine's economic and political sovereignty, terrorized the political opposition, and deliberately provoked a war with Russia as Ukraine was turned into a de facto CIA base whose ports were upgraded to fit U.S. warships. The U.S. calculatingly sabotaged the Minsk peace agreements, which provided a way to resolve the conflict between western and eastern Ukraine that resulted from the 2014 coup.

Note: This isn't about defending Russia, but highlighting how US foreign policy has exploited Ukraine for strategic interests–undermining its sovereignty and fueling ongoing conflict rather than promoting peace. Meanwhile, the Russia-Ukraine war has led to half a million war casualties and the Pentagon is unable to account for the billions of US weaponry and financial aid flowing into Ukraine. Read a former CIA's agent sobering view on US involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Over the past several years, the US Defense Department has been gradually integrating what appear to be variants of the Freedom of Movement Control Unit (FMCU) handsets as the primary control units for a variety of advanced weapons systems. Produced since 2008 by Measurement Systems Inc. (MSI), a subsidiary of British defense contractor Ultra that specializes in human-machine interfaces, the FMCU offers a similar form factor to the standard Xbox or PlayStation controller but with a ruggedized design intended to safeguard its sensitive electronics against whatever hostile environs American service members may find themselves in. A longtime developer of joysticks used on various US naval systems and aircraft, MSI has served as a subcontractor to major defense "primes" like General Atomics, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and BAE Systems to provide the handheld control units for "various aircraft and vehicle programs," according to information compiled by federal contracting software GovTribe. At the moment, it's unclear how exactly many US military systems use the FMCU. When reached for comment, the Pentagon confirmed the use of the system on the NMESIS, M-SHORAD, and RADBO weapons platforms and referred WIRED to the individual service branches for additional details. The Marine Corps confirmed the handset's use with the GBOSS, while the Air Force again confirmed the same for the RADBO.

Note: The latest US Air Force recruitment tool is a video game that allows players to receive in-game medals and achievements for drone bombing Iraqis and Afghans. Learn more about emerging warfare technology in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

Pentagon-funded research is once again on the rise. In 2022, the most recent year for which full data is available, 14 universities received at least – and brace yourself for this – $100 million in Pentagon funding, from Johns Hopkins's astonishing $1.4 billion (no, that is not a typo!) to Colorado State's impressive $100 million. The social sciences also have a long, conflicted history of ties to the Pentagon and the military services. Two prominent examples from earlier in this century were the Pentagon's Human Terrain Program (HTS) and the role of psychologists in crafting torture programs associated with the Global War on Terror. The HTS was initially intended to reduce the "cultural knowledge gap" suffered by U.S. troops involved in counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq early in this century. The program sparked intense protests in the academic community, with a particularly acrimonious debate within the American Anthropological Association. An even more controversial use of social scientists in the service of the war machine was the role of psychologists as advisors to the CIA's torture programs at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba, and other of that agency's "black sites." James E. Mitchell, a psychologist under contract to U.S. intelligence, helped develop the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by the U.S during its post-9/11 "war on terror," even sitting in on a session in which a prisoner was waterboarded.

Note: Read more about the the American Psychological Association's complicity in US government torture. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

The Pentagon is in the midst of a massive $2 trillion, multiyear plan to build a new generation of nuclear-armed missiles, bombers, and submarines. A large chunk of that funding will go to major nuclear weapons contractors like Bechtel, General Dynamics, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. And they will do everything in their power to keep that money flowing. This January, a review of the Sentinel Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) program under the Nunn-McCurdy Act ... found that the missile, the crown jewel of the nuclear overhaul plan involving 450 missile-holding silos spread across five states, is already 81 percent over its original budget. It is now estimated that it will cost a total of nearly $141 billion to develop and purchase, a figure only likely to rise in the future. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' "Doomsday Clock" – an estimate of how close the world may be at any moment to a nuclear conflict – is now set at ninety seconds to midnight, the closest it's been since that tracker was first created in 1947. Considering the rising tide of nuclear escalation globally, is it really the right time for this country to invest a fortune of taxpayer dollars in a new generation of devastating "use them or lose them" weapons? The American public has long said no, according to a 2020 poll by the University of Maryland's Program for Public Consultation, which showed that 61 percent of us actually support phasing out ICBM systems like the Sentinel.

Note: Learn more about arms industry corruption in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

On Sept. 24, 2007, a red, white, and blue Gulfstream II fell from the sky over the Yucatán Peninsula. From the wreckage, [Mexican commandos] removed 132 industrial trash bags, weighing around 4 tons. The bags were filled with cocaine. The Gulfstream ... had flown for the CIA's rendition program. When it went down, it belonged to a newly-formed company near Boca Raton, Florida, called Donna Blue Aircraft ... an "undercover company" of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A Rolling Stone investigation into thousands of pages of government documents, flight logs, court filings, and local news reports ... confirmed there was a secret ICE operation called Mayan Jaguar. According to classified reports, ICE bought private planes from 2004 to 2007, intending to tag them with hidden tracking beacons and, through front companies like Donna Blue, sell them to drug traffickers. ICE agents would draw "approximately 20 planes" into Operation Mayan Jaguar. ICE stopped none of them, while other governments thwarted some, without ICE. The Drug Enforcement Administration, convinced that traffickers controlled Mayan Jaguar, ordered ICE to shut it down. "ICE Headquarters advised the agents … to continue working," according to another agent's IG testimony. Operation Mayan Jaguar would be "a coordinated interagency task force developed by the intelligence community," according to an internal ICE memo. The narcotics trade was largely legal until global prohibition began in the early 20th century. Waves of drug planes and state-sponsored trafficking weren't far behind. From the 1950s to the 1970s, CIA proprietary airlines flew arms into the Golden Triangle for anti-communist guerillas, and were suspected of flying out with the guerillas' opium. It was allegedly the same deal in the Eighties, but in Central America, with cocaine. In Asia, the CIA paid Afghan heroin lords to fight the Soviets, and later to fight the Taliban. In 1998, the CIA's marquee aviation front, Southern Air Transport, declared bankruptcy a week before the CIA's inspector general implicated the company in cocaine trafficking.

Note: Our investigative Substack article explores the dark truths behind the US war on drugs that the mainstream media ignores. For more, watch our Mindful News Brief on who's really behind the war on drugs. Check out our database of concise and revealing news summaries on the war on drugs from reliable media sources.

Two years after former President Richard M. Nixon launched a war on drugs in 1971, calling substance use the nation's "public enemy No. 1," he made a startling admission during a meeting in the Oval Office. Speaking to a small group of aides and advisers at the White House in March 1973, Nixon said he knew that marijuana was "not particularly dangerous." Nixon, who had publicly argued that curbing drug use globally warranted an "all-out offensive," also privately expressed unease about the harsh punishments Americans were facing for marijuana crimes. The remarks were captured on the president's secret recording system amid a set of tapes that were only recently made widely available. The comments, on scratchy, sometimes hard-to-hear recordings, provide a surprising glimpse into the thinking of the president who implemented the federal government's drug classification system and decided that marijuana belonged in a category of substances deemed most prone to abuse and of no proven medical value. Over five decades, that designation has led to millions of arrests, which disproportionately affected Black people and hobbled efforts to rigorously study the therapeutic potential of cannabis. Experts on the Nixon years said that they were previously unaware of the recordings of Nixon speaking about marijuana and that the remarks were significant in light of the policies he had championed, which remain the backbone of today's drug laws.

Note: Our investigative Substack article explores the dark truths behind the US war on drugs that the mainstream media ignores. For more, watch our Mindful News Brief on who's really behind the war on drugs. Check out our database of concise and revealing news summaries on the war on drugs from reliable media sources.

A Department of Homeland Security inspector general's report from August reveals more than $7 billion remain in emergency funding that could be used for natural disasters – even though DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last week none was available after Hurricane Helene. Mayorkas, 64, told reporters following the devastation of Helene in North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Florida that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) "does not have the funds" to endure more hurricanes this fall. "We are expecting another hurricane hitting," the DHS chief said. "FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season." But DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari found in his Aug. 14 report that as of October 2022, FEMA had $8.3 billion in unliquidated funds meant to relieve declared disasters from 2012 or earlier. More than $7 billion of that "could potentially be returned to the Disaster Relief Fund," the report notes. So far, the feds have paid just $4 million to Americans hit by Helene. "It took one week for some of the county mayors in my home state to even get a phone call from FEMA, and Kamala Harris has the nerve to announce ‘a dire humanitarian situation' in another country," Sen. Marsha Blackburn [said], referencing the VP's announcement of $157 million in US aid to Lebanon. The Biden-Harris administration has shelled out $1.4 billion [to] groups helping migrants settle in the US.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.

Fifteen-year-old Tiara Channer was 13 when she was diagnosed with prediabetes – a condition 1 in 5 American kids faces that causes an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes, chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease. She and her mother, Crystal Cauley, blame her diagnosis on a poor diet. By transitioning from a diet of ultra-processed foods to healthier whole foods and getting more active, Tiara overcame or shed her prediabetes diagnosis – and lost 50 pounds in the process. But it wasn't an easy journey for her, given the challenge of understanding what's healthy and what's not. Ultra-processed food ... comprise over half of an average American adult's diet and two-thirds of an American child's. Lawmakers like Sen. Bernie Sanders say the FDA, the agency that regulates 80% of the country's food, hasn't done enough to protect consumers. Almost half of the approved food additives in the U.S. fall under a category known as GRAS – Generally Recognized As Safe. The nonprofit Environmental Working Group found 99% of the 766 food chemicals introduced between 2000 and 2021 avoided FDA scrutiny using the GRAS designation. Experts like Emily Broad Leib, the director of Harvard's Food Law and Policy Clinic, say GRAS has become a loophole that gives companies a provisional green light to put new additives in food. "Thousands of substances have entered the food supply using that mechanism," explained Broad Leib.

Note: Read our latest Substack article on how the US government turns a blind eye to the corporate cartels fueling America's health crisis. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and food system corruption from reliable major media sources.

On June 28, 2009, democratically elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was ousted by a military coup. The coup led to nearly 13 years of right-wing rule, marked by collusion with drug trafficking organizations, widespread privatization, violence, repression, and a significant migrant exodus. "During these 13 years that the right wing was in power, they were fully supported by the U.S. government," [said Zelaya]. "There was a lot of repression. There were killings of activists and land defenders throughout the country. Also, a lot of right-wing neoliberal policies that were put in place. We have no preference in [US] elections, between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. In the end, they act the same. They act in the interest of Wall Street, the military industrial complex, the interest of a global elite that, through capitalism, has already taken over all the assets of wealth: the rivers, the seas, the forests, oil – the world elite manages it all through the speculative financial system. The planet's main resources, of raw economic goods, are those that influence the United States' government. Here, the coup plotters don't even get a traffic ticket – not even a slap on the wrist. Instead, they are offered political parties as if they are a democratic option. It is so absurd: the Honduran right, which put the generals in office who carried out the coup, proclaim themselves to be a democratic alternative. Those who murdered, those who looted, are democratic alternatives – totally absurd."

Note: Read more about the narco-state that the US supported in Honduras. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption from reliable major media sources.

Following Iran's missile barrage into Israel last week, carried out in retaliation for Israel's assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris called Iran a "destabilizing, dangerous force" in the Middle East, opening a new chapter in a long history of US hawkishness against Iran. This past Monday, she went even further, calling Iran the United States' "greatest adversary." It's hard to hear such statements without hearkening back to New Year's Eve, 1977, a year before the Iranian Revolution broke out. In the heat of growing civil unrest in Iran, US president Jimmy Carter attended a lavish state dinner with the shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Twenty-four years earlier, during "Operation Ajax," the CIA, in collaboration with the British MI6, had orchestrated a coup that ousted the democratically elected Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh, who had won on a platform of nationalizing Iranian oil and taking it back from Western control. The coup set into motion the destruction of the country's budding democracy and would haunt Iranians for decades. The United States has worked to destabilize Iran for nearly a century. With the Democratic presidential nominee once again trotting out hawkish tirades against Iran while backing Israel's new assault on Lebanon, American officials seem to have learned nothing from history.

Note: Read more about the CIA-backed 1953 coup in Iran. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption from reliable major media sources.

A disturbing trend of undercover federal agents engaging minors online to plan acts related to terrorism abroad, then arresting them shortly after they turn 18, ought to raise eyebrows as well as outrage, given that many of these targets are teens who have significant cognitive and intellectual disabilities. The most recent case in Colorado involves Humzah Mashkoor, an 18-year-old from Westminster charged with "attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization," according to a U.S. Department of Justice December 2023 press release. Months earlier, in July last year, FBI agents arrested Davin Daniel Meyer, 18, of Castle Rock, charged with the same crime, which can carry a stiff penalty of decades in prison. And in June, 18-year-old Mateo Ventura of Massachusetts was charged with a similar crime of intention after being in contact not with terrorists but with undercover FBI agents. A fourth case occurred last year in Philadelphia. When you look at the striking similarities of these cases, it's not unreasonable to conclude that federal agents are failing morally and ethically by seemingly coaxing and cajoling minors – including two Colorado children with limited intellectual capacity and no history of harming anyone – to cross a line. The FBI agents then "get their man" – even before these individuals are in fact men. Enough time has gone by to show the human element to this story, but no reporters seem to be interested.

Note: Read more about the FBI's manufacture of terrorist plots. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on law enforcement corruption and terrorism from reliable major media sources.

A flurry of reports picked up on the arrest of Mateo Ventura, an 18-year-old resident of the sleepy town of Wakefield, echoing government claims that an international terrorist financier and ISIS supporter had just been busted. The Department of Justice's own press release on the case likewise trumpeted Ventura's arrest for "knowingly concealing the source of material support or resources that he intended to go to a foreign terrorist organization." Ventura had never actually funded any terrorist group. The only "terrorist" he is accused of ever being in contact with was an undercover FBI agent who befriended him online as a 16-year-old, solicited small cash donations in the form of gift cards, and directed him not to tell anyone else. Ventura's father, Paul Ventura, told The Intercept that Mateo suffered from childhood developmental issues. "He was born prematurely, he had brain development issues. I had the school do a neurosurgery evaluation on him and they said his brain was underdeveloped," Ventura said. "He was suffering endless bullying at school with other kids taking food off his plate, tripping him in the hallway, humiliating him, laughing at him.". His case is less a serious terrorism bust than one of the many instances in which a troubled or mentally unfit young man was groomed by undercover FBI agents to commit a crime that would not have otherwise happened. This law enforcement tactic has been criticized by national security researchers who have scrutinized the FBI's role in manufacturing terrorism cases using vulnerable people who would have been unable to commit crimes without prolonged government assistance and encouragement. A 2014 Human Rights Watch report ... said, "In this way, the FBI may have created terrorists out of law-abiding individuals."

Note: Read more about the FBI's manufacture of terrorist plots. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on law enforcement corruption and terrorism from reliable major media sources.

Humzah Mashkoor had just cleared security at Denver International Airport when the FBI showed up. The agents had come to arrest the 18-year-old, who is diagnosed with a developmental disability, and charge him with terror-related crimes. Mashkoor had gone to the airport ... as part of his alleged plot to join the Islamic State. The trip had been spurred by over a year of online exchanges starting when Mashkoor was 16 years old with four people he believed were members of ISIS. According to the Justice Department's criminal complaint, the four were actually undercover FBI agents. As a result of his conversations with the FBI, Mashkoor could face a lengthy sentence for attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization. Law enforcement agents first became aware of Mashkoor's online activities in support of ISIS in November 2021. But instead of alerting his family ... FBI agents posing as ISIS members befriended him a year later and strung him along until he became a legal adult. Almost all of the conduct he is alleged to have committed took place when he was a juvenile. "This case appears consistent with a common fact pattern seen in tens, if not hundreds, of terrorism-related cases in which the FBI has effectively manufactured terrorist prosecutions," said Sahar Aziz, a national security expert. "If there was a serious terrorist threat in America, the FBI would not be spending its time entrapping a mentally ill minor."

Note: Read more about the FBI's manufacture of terrorist plots. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on law enforcement corruption and terrorism from reliable major media sources.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.