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Government Corruption Media Articles
Excerpts of Key Government Corruption Media Articles 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: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing 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.


Mexican journalists, activists targeted with spyware
2017-06-19, ABC News/Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/report-mexican-journalists-activis...

Mexican journalists, lawyers and activists were targeted by spyware produced by Israel’s NSO Group that is sold exclusively to governments. [A] report by Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said the targets included people, such as prominent journalists Carmen Aristegui and Carlos Loret de Mola, who were investigating alleged government corruption and purported human rights abuses by security forces. The people targeted received messages with links that, if clicked on, opened up their devices to being exploited and spied upon. NSO’s Pegasus spyware allows hackers access to phone calls, messages, cameras and personal data. Other targets included members of the Centro Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez, a prominent human rights group that has investigated cases such as the disappearance of 43 students whom police allegedly detained and turned over to drug gang killers; the anti-graft group Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity; and the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a civil society group working on economic policy and combatting corruption. Aristegui, who exposed a case of possible conflict of interest involving a luxury home acquired from a government contractor ... was aggressively targeted. She received more than two-dozen messages with NSO links claiming to be from “the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, Amber Alerts, colleagues, people in her personal life, her bank, phone company and notifications of kidnappings,” the report said.

Note: If the above link is not working, this Associated Press article is also available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and the erosion of civil liberties.


'Full Measure': Quitting Congress
2017-06-18, ABC News (Washington DC affiliate)
http://wjla.com/news/nation-world/full-measure-quitting-congress

Just a couple of months ago, we profiled Congressman Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the powerful House Oversight Committee which was poised to dig deep on wide-ranging investigations into government mischief, waste, fraud and abuse. A few weeks later, Chaffetz abruptly resigned from Congress. We asked the "Oversight Man" what changed his mind. "The reality is, sadly, I don't see much difference between the Trump administration and the Obama administration," [Chaffetz said]. "I thought ... these floodgates would open up with all the documents we wanted from the Department of State, the Department of Justice, the Pentagon. "We have everything from the Hillary Clinton email investigation, which is really one of the critical things. There was the investigation into the IRS. And one that was more than seven years old is Fast and Furious. We have been in court trying to pry those documents out of the Department of Justice and still to this day, they will not give us those documents. And at the State Department, nothing. Stone-cold silence."

Note: Watch this very important interview which shows why neither Obama nor Trump are able to get to the bottom of what is really going on in the US government.


'Staggering' loss of civilian life from US-led airstrikes in Raqqa, says UN
2017-06-14, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/14/staggering-civilian-deaths-from...

UN war crimes investigators have denounced a “staggering loss of civilian life” caused by the US-backed campaign to reclaim Raqqa, the de facto capital of Islamic State. The independent commission of inquiry tasked with investigating violations of international law, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria said the intensification of airstrikes by the US-led coalition had led to the deaths of at least 300 civilians in the city. The Raqqa operation began last week with a ground assault by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an umbrella group comprising Kurdish and Arab militiamen armed by the US and supported by coalition airstrikes. “The intensification of airstrikes ... has resulted not only in staggering loss of civilian life, but has also led to 160,000 civilians fleeing their homes and becoming internally displaced,” Paulo Pinheiro, the chairman of the UN commission of inquiry, told the human rights council in Geneva. The civilian cost of the campaign was highlighted last week when footage emerged of coalition planes deploying white phosphorus in the city, which is home to tens of thousands of civilians, prisoners of war, enslaved Yazidi women, and a few thousand Isis militants. Human Rights Watch urged the coalition separately on Wednesday to exercise great caution when using white phosphorus, saying it could cause “horrific and long-lasting harm” in crowded cities such as Raqqa.

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


Russian Cyber Hacks on U.S. Electoral System Far Wider Than Previously Known
2017-06-13, Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-13/russian-breach-of-39-s...

Russia’s cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before [the recent] election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported. In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states. The scope and sophistication so concerned Obama administration officials that they took an unprecedented step -- complaining directly to Moscow over a modern-day “red phone.” In October, two of the people said, the White House contacted the Kremlin on the back channel to offer detailed documents of what it said was Russia’s role in election meddling and to warn that the attacks risked setting off a broader conflict. The new details, buttressed by a classified National Security Agency document recently disclosed by the Intercept ... paint a worrisome picture for future elections: [This is] the newest portrayal of potentially deep vulnerabilities in the U.S.’s patchwork of voting technologies.

Note: Many who follow elections closely have known and spread the word for years about serious vulnerabilities in US electronic voting, yet only now that Russia is involved is it getting widespread coverage. Do you really think the Russians are the only ones who have hacked US elections? Read an enlightening analysis of elections hacking in the US which raises many serious questions. And don't miss the critically important information provided in our Elections Information Center.


Television reporters told to stop recording in Senate hallways, prompting outcry
2017-06-13, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/television-reporters-told-to-stop-fi...

Television reporters covering the Capitol were told midday Tuesday to stop recording interviews in Senate hallways, a dramatic and unexplained break with tradition that was soon reversed amid a wide rebuke from journalists, Democratic lawmakers and free-speech advocates. The episode heightened concerns about reporters’ access to Washington leaders in an era when hostility toward the political media has increasingly become the norm. For some, the move to protect senators from impromptu on-camera interviews fell into a wider Trump-era pattern of efforts to roll back press freedoms, whether by barring reporters from interviewing officials or denying them access to briefings, trips and events. “These are actions that are without precedent in the history of the White House and Congress,” said Ben Wizner, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union and director of the group’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. “Even if some of the violations are of norms rather than rights, the effect is to make the government less transparent at precisely the moment when congressional oversight has been at its weakest,” Wizner said.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about government corruption and mass media.


As Standing Rock Camps Cleared Out, TigerSwan Expanded Surveillance to Array of Progressive Causes
2017-06-12, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2017/06/21/as-standing-rock-camps-cleared-out-tigers...

Leaked documents and public records reveal a troubling fusion of private security, public law enforcement, and corporate money in the fight over the Dakota Access Pipeline. By the time law enforcement officers began evicting residents of the ... resistance camp near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation on February 22, the brutal North Dakota winter had already driven away most of the pipeline opponents. It would have been a natural time for the private security company in charge of monitoring the pipeline to head home. But internal communications between TigerSwan and its client, pipeline parent company Energy Transfer Partners, show that the security firm instead reached for ways to stay in business. Indeed, TigerSwan appeared to be looking for new causes, too. The ... firm’s sweeping surveillance of anti-Dakota Access protesters had already spanned five months and expanded into Iowa, South Dakota, and Illinois. TigerSwan became particularly interested in Chicago. [Leaked] documents dated between February 19 and February 21 describe TigerSwan’s efforts to monitor an anti-Trump protest organized by the local chapter of the Answer Coalition, an anti-war, anti-racism group. Answer Coalition’s ... John Beacham, who organized the protest TigerSwan described, said that [the NoDAPL movement] was not the event’s primary focus. “They’re trying to make connections where they aren’t. It’s almost like they’re trying to cast conspiracy theories across the entire progressive movement,” he told The Intercept.

Note: The above article is part of an in-depth series, and includes many original source documents. Standing Rock activists were also targeted for investigation by the FBI’s joint terrorism taskforce. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy.


Mr. Trump Goes After the Inspectors
2017-06-12, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/opinion/mr-trump-goes-after-the-inspectors...

Michael Horowitz, chairman of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, was at a hockey game when he began getting calls from other inspectors general in federal agencies. The inspectors ... were furious. Trump aides had let them know they might be replaced; for the first time ever, a president might fire them en masse. The administration later backed down. But it has continued to undermine the inspectors’ role by failing to hire for open positions and planning to slash the offices’ budgets. Every major federal agency and program has an inspector general ... whose staff investigates cases of wasteful spending, criminal activity, employee misconduct and plain bad management. These are watchdogs with real teeth. Today nearly one-quarter of inspector general offices have either an acting director or no director at all, including the offices at the C.I.A., the National Security Agency, the Department of Defense and the Social Security Administration. Acting directors can be reluctant to make extensive changes ... particularly if they hope to be nominated for a permanent appointment. The inspectors’ offices are deeply affected by the current federal hiring freeze and would be further harmed by the administration’s proposed budget cuts. The budget takes unexplained specific aim at the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, created in part to monitor the $700 billion taxpayer bailout for big banks.

Note: A New York Times article from 2015 states that, "at least 20 investigations across the government that have been slowed, stymied or sometimes closed because of a long-simmering dispute between the Obama administration and its own watchdogs." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Now let's fight back against the politics of fear
2017-06-10, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jun/10/naomi-klein-now-fight-back-agai...

The term “shock doctrine” describes the quite brutal tactic of systematically using the public’s disorientation following a collective shock – wars, coups, terrorist attacks, market crashes or natural disasters – to push through radical pro-corporate measures, often called “shock therapy”. From the evidence so far, it’s clear that Trump and his top advisers are ... trying to pull off a domestic shock doctrine. The goal is all-out war on the public sphere and the public interest, whether in the form of antipollution regulations or programmes for the hungry. In their place will be unfettered power and freedom for corporations. It’s a programme so defiantly unjust and ... corrupt that it can only be pulled off with the assistance of divide-and-conquer racial and sexual politics, as well as a nonstop spectacle of media distractions. And, of course, it is being backed up with a massive increase in war spending. Trump’s cabinet of billionaires and multimillionaires tells us a great deal about the administration’s underlying goals. ExxonMobil for secretary of state; General Dynamics and Boeing to head the department of defence; and the Goldman Sachs guys for pretty much everything that’s left. This is ... a naked corporate takeover, one many decades in the making. We have to tell a different story from the one the shock doctors are peddling, a vision of the world compelling enough to compete head to head with theirs. Most of all, that vision needs to offer those who are hurting – for lack of jobs, lack of healthcare, lack of peace, lack of hope – a tangibly better life.

Note: The above was written by Naomi Klein, bestselling author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in government and in the corporate world.


Fast and Furious hearing rips Holder, DOJ for deception in gun-running scandal
2017-06-07, Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06/07/fast-and-furious-report-slams-hold...

Members of a congressional committee at a public hearing Wednesday blasted former President Barack Obama and his attorney general for allegedly covering up an investigation into the death of a Border Patrol agent killed as a result of a botched government gun-running project known as Operation Fast and Furious. The House Oversight Committee also Wednesday released a scathing, nearly 300-page report that found Holder’s Justice Department tried to hide the facts. Terry died in a gunfight. [His] death exposed Operation Fast and Furious, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) operation in which the federal government allowed criminals to buy guns in Phoenix-area shops with the intention of tracking them as they were transported into Mexico. But the agency lost track of more than 1,400 of the 2,000 guns they allowed smugglers to buy. Two of those guns were found at the scene of Terry's killing. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, testified Wednesday in front of the committee, accusing DOJ and ATF officials of obstructing the investigation and working to silence ATF agents who informed the Senate of Fast and Furious. One of those silenced ATF agents, John Dodson, testified Wednesday that he remains “in a state of purgatory” since objecting to Fast and Furious and has been the subject of reprisals. Grassley's and Dodson's testimony reinforced findings of the report, which states that the Justice Department knew before Terry’s death that the ATF was “walking” firearms to Mexico and knew the day after the agent’s death that Fast and Furious guns were involved in the shootout -- despite denying these facts.

Note: The Obama administration invoked executive privilege in an unsuccessful attempt to cover this story up. Whistleblower John Dodson published a book on this scandal in 2013. The ATF tried and failed to silence him, then lied about the whole thing. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Who Won the Election? NSA Report Suggests Russia Might Have Hacked Voting System
2017-06-05, Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/who-won-election-nsa-report-suggests-russia-might-hav...

Russian military intelligence attempted to cyber-attack a U.S. voting software supplier and more than 100 local election officials in the days leading up to the 2016 presidential election, The Intercept reported Monday. According to an NSA document ... Russian military intelligence cyber-attacked a U.S. voting software supplier, using information gained in that attack to “launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations. Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions,” the document states. The operation gave the hackers “persistent access” to the targeted computers, allowing them to “survey the victims for items of interest.” But Pamela Smith, president of election integrity watchdog Verified Voting, said the hacking might have kept some Americans from voting. “If someone has access to a state voter database, they can take malicious action by modifying or removing information,” she told The Intercept. “This could affect whether someone has the ability to cast a regular ballot or be required to cast a ‘provisional’ ballot — which ... may mean the voter has to jump through certain hoops such as proving their information to the election official before their eligibility is affirmed.”

Note: Why have those who set up our elections allowed private companies to develop software which can be hacked? For undeniable evidence our voting systems have not been safe for years, read summaries of these major media news articles.


At $75,560, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard
2017-06-04, Los Angeles Times/Associated Press
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-prison-costs-20170604-htmlstory.html

The cost of imprisoning each of California’s 130,000 inmates is expected to reach a record $75,560 in the next year. That’s enough to cover the annual cost of attending Harvard University and still have plenty left over. [The] spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1 includes a record $11.4 billion for the corrections department while also predicting that there will be 11,500 fewer inmates in four years because voters in November approved earlier releases for many inmates. The price for each inmate has doubled since 2005, even as court orders related to overcrowding have reduced the population by about one-quarter. Salaries and benefits for prison guards and medical providers drove much of the increase. The result is a per-inmate cost that is the nation’s highest — and $2,000 above tuition, fees, room and board, and other expenses to attend Harvard. Since 2015, California’s per-inmate costs have surged nearly $10,000, or about 13%. Critics say with fewer inmates, the costs should be falling. New York is ... second in overall costs at about $69,000.

Note: Could it be that the privatization of prisons is driving up prison costs? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing prison system corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


A girl's horrifying journey through foster care
2017-06-04, AZ Central
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-investigations/2017/06/04/...

Two weeks before Devani's second birthday, she was taken away from her parents in Tucson by a state child-welfare caseworker. The little curly-haired girl seemed to be well-fed and cared for, but the caseworker cited drugs in the home and alleged domestic violence in deciding that Devani would be safer, at least temporarily, in foster care. Instead, over the next four years – as her mother fought to get her back – Devani suffered an odyssey of mistreatment in a succession of foster homes. She was physically abused. She was placed with David Frodsham, a man subsequently convicted of child molestation, who investigators suspect repeatedly sexually assaulted her and other foster children while he ran a pedophilia ring. And that would not be the worst that Devani would face. Foster parents who harm children the state leaves in their care are tracked in only the broadest terms. The state handles verified allegations of neglect or abuse in foster families much as it does those in other families. But officials admit they don't really analyze the data for patterns of foster-care problems that could be prevented. And data shows caseworkers often don't talk privately with children to identify what happens to them in foster care. Those children's families say the problem is real. Of 42 families interviewed for this story who had children removed, 11 alleged that their children were physically or sexually abused, exposed to drugs or harmed in some other way while in foster care.

Note: More in this case available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.


Bilderberg: the world’s most secretive conference is as out of touch as ever
2017-06-02, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/02/bilderberg-secretive-conference...

Say what you like about Bilderberg, but they’ve got a sense of humour. The agenda for this year’s secretive summit of the global elite [gets] big laughs straight off the bat by describing themselves as “a diverse group of political leaders and experts”. They’re trumpeting the diversity of a conference where less than 25% of the participants are female. And as for racial diversity, there are more senior executives of Goldman Sachs at this year’s Bilderberg than there are people of colour. Perhaps by “diverse” they mean that some of the participants own hedge funds, whereas others own vast industrial conglomerates. Some are on the board of HSBC, others are on the board of BP. That sort of thing. But my favourite joke by far from this year’s agenda is this item: “The war on information”. Bilderberg is concerned about fake news? The world’s most secretive conference, which is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars keeping the press away from its sacred discussions, which has spent decades lying and obfuscating about itself, wants to ensure the spread of truth? Many times before I’ve been detained by armed police for trying to report on this conference. If Bilderberg wants an answer to “Why is populism growing?” – another question on the agenda – they might take a look in the mirror. People aren’t all that comfortable with unaccountable technocratic elites and billionaire globalists lobbying their ministers and party leaders behind closed doors.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Bilderberg and other influential secret societies.


Republicans and Democrats Continue to Block Drug Reimportation – After Publicly Endorsing It
2017-06-02, Rolling Stone
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-on-republicans-and-democ...

The entire pharmaceutical industry is floated by a protectionist racket. Drugs that are in fact very cheap to make are kept artificially expensive – we have drugs that cost $1,000 a pill here in America that sell for $4 in India, for instance. The means of keeping prices high vary, but include lengthy patents to push production of generics into the future, the barring of foreign competition, and the prohibition of negotiations to lower prices for bulk purchases by both the federal and state governments. Without government intervention, the pharmaceutical industry would be profitable, but it wouldn't be the massive cash factory it is now. In 2015, for instance, the 20 largest drug companies made a collective $124 billion in profits. All the industry needs to protect those sums is the continued cooperation of Congress. So naturally it spends money ... to make sure they always have just enough dependable people in office to block change. Which brings us ... to drug importation. Trump announced early in the race that he was in favor of bringing in cheaper drugs from Canada and made it a big stump theme. The Democrats, meanwhile, put allowing importation of drugs from countries like Canada in their platform last summer. The seeming synergy of the two candidates' positions led to the hope that something might actually be done about the problem, no matter who won. No such luck. Trump's support for drug importation basically went up in smoke from the moment he started filling out his executive appointees.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in government and throughout Big Pharma.


Trump Administration Starts Returning Copies of C.I.A. Torture Report to Congress
2017-06-02, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/us/politics/cia-torture-report-trump.html?...

Senators, spies and a president spent years in a pitched battle over how the history is told of one of the most controversial chapters of America’s campaign against terrorism, the detention and interrogation of prisoners in secret C.I.A. jails. Congressional officials said on Friday that the [Trump] administration had begun returning to Congress copies of a 6,700-page Senate report from 2014 about the C.I.A. program. The move raises the possibility that most of the copies could be locked in Senate vaults indefinitely or even destroyed. The classified report [tells] the story of how ... the C.I.A. began capturing terrorism suspects and interrogating them ... beyond the reach of the American judicial and military legal systems. The central conclusion of the report is that the spy agency’s interrogation methods - including waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other kinds of torture - were far more brutal and less effective than the C.I.A. described to policy makers, Congress and the public. The Senate Intelligence Committee, which was run by Democrats when the executive summary was released, sent copies of the entire report to at least eight federal agencies, asking that they incorporate it into their records — a move that would have made the documents subject to requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The agencies all refused to add the report to their records, and instead kept their copies locked up, prompting the American Civil Liberties Union to sue the C.I.A. for access to the full report.

Note: See a revealing New York Times article listing seven key points from this torture report. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in government and in the intelligence community.


Secretive Bilderberg group meetings begin in Virginia
2017-06-01, BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40125253

A secretive group of elite power brokers is meeting in the US state of Virginia for closed-door discussions over four days. The Bilderberg Meetings have 131 participants from 21 countries in Europe and North America, the group said in a press release. A couple of top advisers to President Donald Trump are to attend the forum, 30 miles (48km) from the White House. The shadowy group is a lightning rod for conspiracy theorists. This year's group includes Mr Trump's Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, his National Security Adviser HR McMaster and Peter Thiel, the billionaire Paypal creator who has been a vocal supporter of the president. The forum - at a Westfields Marriott hotel in Chantilly - is also being attended by Trump critic Eric Schmidt, head of Google's parent company. "There is no desired outcome, no minutes are taken and no report is written," the group's rules state. "Furthermore, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued." Other guests include Dutch King Willem-Alexander; David Rubenstein, head of private equity juggernaut the Carlyle Group; and former CIA director John Brennan. Several journalists are joining this year's forum, including London Evening Standard editor George Osborne. A full list of participants is here. Some critics have accused the group - which has met every year since 1954 - of plotting to impose a one-world government.

Note: An article in the U.K.'s Guardian mentions that Chantilly, VA, is the headquarters to the highly secretive National Reconnaissance Office, which has a budget of $10.3 billion. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the Bilderberg Group and other secret societies.


Donald Trump exempts 17 senior White House staff including Steve Bannon from ethics rules
2017-06-01, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-white-house-sta...

The White House disclosed Wednesday evening that it has granted ethics waivers to 17 specific appointees who work for President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, including four former lobbyists. The waivers exempt the appointees from certain portions of ethics rules aimed at barring potential conflicts of interest. In addition, a blanket waiver was given to all executive office appointees to interact with news organisations. Three of the former lobbyists given waivers to work in the White House serve as staffers to the National Economic Council, headed by former Goldman Sachs executive Gary Cohn. (Cohn himself did not need a waiver because he recuses himself from participating in matters specific to Goldman Sachs, according to a White House official.) His aides that received ethics exemptions include Michael Catanzaro, a domestic energy and environmental policy adviser. Catanzaro was granted permission to work on ... matters of interest to his former energy sector clients, including emissions regulations, clear air standards and renewable fuel standards. Shahira Knight, a White House adviser on tax and retirement policy, received a waiver to participate in a range of tax and financial policy matters. Knight, a former tax lobbyist, served as vice president of Fidelity Investments' public affairs and policy group. Trump's predecessors also issued ethics waivers to appointees who had potential conflicts of interest. The Obama administration handed out at least 66 such exemptions.

Note: Despite the White House's assurances to the contrary, the NEC's Gary Cohn is reportedly spearheading a plan to sell US infrastructure to large financial firms, including his former employer Goldman Sachs. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Scottish child abuse inquiry hears apologies over 'deplorable' attacks
2017-05-31, BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-40093270

The first hearing in the Scottish child abuse inquiry has heard apologies from organisations which ran children's homes around the country. More than 60 institutions, including several top private schools and church bodies, are being investigated. The inquiry, which is being chaired by Lady Smith, is looking in detail at historical abuse of children in residential care. It is expected to report in late 2019 - four years after it was set up. The opening session in Edinburgh heard apologies from groups who said they "deplored that physical sexual abuses could occur". The High Court judge revealed the number of survivors who had already spoken to the inquiry team was "very far in excess" of 200. The inquiry states its purpose as being "to investigate the nature and extent of abuse of children whilst in care in Scotland", while considering "the extent to which institutions and bodies with legal responsibility for the care of children failed in their duty", in particular seeking any "systemic failures". The inquiry has been plagued by problems since it was set up in October 2015. Around Ł6m has been spent on it during this period. Its original chairwoman, Susan O'Brien QC, resigned from her post in July 2016, citing government interference. A second panel member, Prof Michael Lamb, also resigned, claiming the inquiry was "doomed".

Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of sexual abuse scandal news articles.


How Congress dismantled federal Internet privacy rules
2017-05-30, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-congress-dismantled-federal-inter...

They wanted to kill landmark privacy regulations that would soon ban Internet providers, such as Comcast and AT&T, from storing and selling customers’ browsing histories without their express consent. While the nation was distracted by the House’s pending vote to repeal Obamacare, Senate Republicans would schedule a vote to wipe out the new privacy protections. On March 23, the measure passed on a straight party-line vote, 50 to 48. President Trump signed the bill in early April without ceremony or public comment. “While everyone was focused on the latest headline crisis coming out of the White House, Congress was able to roll back privacy,” said former Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler, who worked for nearly two years to pass the rules. The process to eliminate them took only a matter of weeks. The Internet privacy rules were adopted ... after an intense battle that pitted large Internet service providers, the advertising industry and tech giants against consumer advocates and civil rights groups. The rules required Internet service providers to get explicit consent before they gather their customers’ data - their browsing histories, the locations of businesses they physically visit and the mobile applications they use - and sell it to third parties. The requirements were modeled after a law passed decades ago by Congress that prohibited telephone companies from collecting customers’ calling histories and selling the information to third parties.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about government corruption and the disappearance of privacy.


Bigelow Aerospace founder says commercial world will lead in space
2017-05-28, CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bigelow-aerospace-founder-says-commercial-world-...

There's a new space race and it's not between the U.S. and Russia. It's between private companies and it's attracted multimillionaires and billionaires, like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. A less likely player is Las Vegas real-estate tycoon, Robert Bigelow, who, at 73, is making the biggest gamble of his life -- not on rockets -- but on expandable spacecraft, large, lightweight structures that inflate in space, a technology that could dramatically change how humans live and work in zero gravity. NASA has partnered with Robert Bigelow, who's an unconventional figure in the aerospace world. Bigelow [told us that] his grandparents had a close encounter with a UFO. Bigelow: It really sped up and came right into their face and filled up the entire windshield of the car. And it took off at a right angle and shot off into the distance. Lara Logan: Do you believe in aliens? Bigelow: I'm absolutely convinced. Logan: Do you also believe that UFOs have come to Earth? Bigelow: There has been and is an existing presence, an ET presence. And I spent millions and millions and millions ... on this subject. Logan: Is it risky for you to say in public that you believe in UFOs and aliens? Bigelow: I don't give a damn. Logan: Do you imagine that in our space travels we will encounter other forms of intelligent life? Bigelow: You don't have to go anywhere. Logan: You can find it here? Bigelow: It's just like right under people's noses. The FAA confirmed to us that for years, it referred reports of UFOs and other unexplained phenomena to a company Bigelow owns. [Bigelow] told us he's had his own close encounters, but declined to go into detail.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing UFO news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our UFO Information Center.


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