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.

It's a perfect storm. I'm talking about the dangers facing our democracy. First, income in America is now more concentrated in fewer hands than it has been in 80 years. Almost a quarter of total income generated in the United States is going to the top 1 percent of Americans. The top one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans now earn as much as the bottom 120 million of us. Who are these people? They're top executives of big corporations and Wall Street, hedge-fund managers and private equity managers. Hundreds of millions of dollars are pouring into advertisements for and against candidates - without a trace of where the dollars are coming from. They're laundered through a handful of groups. Most Americans are in trouble. Their jobs, incomes, savings and even homes are on the line. They need a government that's working for them, not for the privileged and the powerful. Yet their state and local taxes are rising. And their services are being cut. There's no jobs bill to speak of. Washington says nothing can be done. There's no money left. No money? The marginal income tax rate on the very rich is the lowest it has been in more than 80 years. Under President Dwight Eisenhower ... it was 91 percent. Now it's 36 percent. We're losing our democracy to a different system. It's called plutocracy.

Note: As the Democrats and Republicans duke it out, the ultra-rich laugh all the way to the bank. What if instead of fighting each other, we worked together to expose the manipulations of the ultra-rich? Whether you are on the left or right of the political spectrum, this incisive article by former US Sect. of Labor Robert Reich is well worth reading in its entirety. For more in income inequality, click here.

"Inside Job," as the movie title implies, sees the 2008 financial meltdown, its causes and ongoing catastrophic consequences, as the work of crooks. Crooks as in members of the financial services industry. Aided and abetted by ... administrations of both political stripes, ratings agencies and regulators, all of whom were committed to an ideology that enabled larceny on a grand scale. The documentary, written, produced and directed by Bay Area high-tech entrepreneur turned filmmaker Charles Ferguson, opened in Bay Area cinemas [on October 22]. Even if you've read through the growing pile of books, congressional hearings and material generated by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, it has plenty to remind you why you are furious, all over again. If further proof is needed, the film effectively demolishes the "who knew?" argument proffered by Goldman Sachs Group CEO Lloyd Blankfein and his peers. And it makes a convincing case that much of the obscenely compensated financial services industry has been rotten to the core for decades, but is yet to be held truly accountable for activities, both immoral and illegal.

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on the criminal practices of the largest financial corporations and regulatory agencies which led to the current economic crisis, click here.

Randy Quaid, the American actor famous for playing characters as diverse as the trailer-trash scrounger in the "National Lampoon" series to his nation's saviour in "Independence Day", is at the centre of a real-life drama more bizarre than anything the movies ever cooked up for him. He and his wife are claiming asylum in Canada because, in her words, they fear they are on a Hollywood "death list". The couple were arrested in Vancouver after police responded to a call and found there were warrants out for them in California. The couple told the immigration adjudicator that they are being persecuted in the United States. Evi Quaid begged a Canadian immigration adjudicator not to force them to return, saying that friends, such as the actors David Carradine and Heath Ledger, had been "murdered" under mysterious circumstances and she was worried something would happen to her husband next. "We feel our lives are in danger," she said. "Randy has known eight close friends murdered in odd, strange manners... We feel that we're next." During a break in the proceedings, the Quaids' lawyer, Brian Tsuji, approached the media to read a single-sentence statement from the Quaids. "We are requesting asylum from Hollywood star-whackers," he read, declining further comment on the mental state of his clients. Randy Quaid, 60, complained he had been persecuted for 20 years.

A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes. Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian ... via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. The new logs detail how: A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender. More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. The logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities. The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent death. The whistleblowing activists say they have deleted all names from the documents that might result in reprisals.

Note: For an analysis by the Ad Hoc Committee for Justice for Iraq of the still very one-sided picture of the devastation of Iraq provided by this leak of Iraq war logs, click here. For an interview of the leader of Wikileaks on CNN in which he walks out after being asked about his personal life rather than Iraqi deaths, click here.

Every email, phone call and website visit is to be recorded and stored after the Coalition Government revived controversial Big Brother snooping plans. It will allow security services and the police to spy on the activities of every Briton who uses a phone or the internet. Moves to make every communications provider store details for at least a year will be unveiled later this year sparking fresh fears over a return of the surveillance state. It comes despite the Coalition Agreement promised to "end the storage of internet and email records without good reason". The plans are expected to involve service providers storing all users details for a set period of time. That will allow the security and police authorities to track every phone call, email, text message and website visit made by the public if they argue it is needed to tackle crime or terrorism. The information will include who is contacting whom, when and where and which websites are visited, but not the content of the conversations or messages. The move was buried in the Government's Strategic Defence and Security Review.

Note: For lots more from major media sources on increasing government and corporate threats to privacy, click here.

A CIA lawsuit threatens to turn a little-known two-year-old tell-all by a disgruntled former spy into a bestseller. Within hours of the lawsuit's filing [on October 19], The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture, had rocketed up the Amazon rankings. The Human Factor, written by an ex-agent using the pseudonym Ishmael Jones, went largely unnoticed when it was first published in July 2008. In the book, "Jones" charges the CIA with waste, fraud and abuse as he details his career over two decades working under non-official cover, or NOC, mainly in Europe. The agency is seeking any money Jones received for the publication or sales of the book. The suit, which does not allege that Jones revealed any classified information, raises questions about why the agency would bring a case two years after publication and where both sides agree no sensitive secrets were revealed. Steven Aftergood, an expert on government secrecy, said "This is a bone-headed move. You'll make an obscure book by an unknown author into a national news story." But Aftergood said the agency's real aim is internal discipline. "The government is not simply concerned about protecting secrets. It is also concerned about Jones' overt defiance of established security rules." Jones and other former CIA officers have complained in the past that the CIA's publication review consistently favors former spies who tell stories flattering to the agency. Jones suggested that the antipathy towards the book focused on his message, a sharp critique of the CIA.

Note: For a highly informative documentary on the secrets of the CIA, click here.

Anwar Al-Awlaki may be the first American on the CIA's kill or capture list, but he was also a lunch guest of military brass at the Pentagon within months of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Documents exclusively obtained by Fox News ... state that Awlaki was taken to the Pentagon ... in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. A current Defense Department employee ... came forward and told investigators she helped arrange the meeting after she saw Awlaki speak in Alexandria, Va. The employee "attended this talk and ... she recalls being impressed by this imam. He condemned Al Qaeda and the terrorist attacks," reads one document. "After her vetting, Aulaqi (Awlaki) was invited to and attended a luncheon at the Pentagon in the secretary of the Army's Office of Government Counsel." Awlaki, a Yemeni-American who was born in Las Cruces, N.M., was interviewed at least four times by the FBI in the first week after the attacks because of his ties to the three [alleged] hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Hani Hanjour. The three ... were all onboard Flight 77 that [allegedly] slammed into the Pentagon.

Note: This article certainly raises suspicions that the amazing connections of Awlaki to so many recent terror incidents may not be unrelated to his now-established connections to the Pentagon shortly after 9/11.

As George H. Painter was preparing to retire recently as one of two administrative law judges presiding over investor complaints at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, he issued an extraordinary request: Please don't assign my pending cases to the other judge. [The CFTC oversees trading of the nation's most important commodities, including oil, gold and cotton.] Painter said Judge Bruce Levine ... had a secret agreement with a former Republican chairwoman of the agency to stand in the way of investors filing complaints with the agency. "On Judge Levine's first week on the job, nearly twenty years ago, he came into my office and stated that he had promised Wendy Gramm, then Chairwoman of the Commission, that we would never rule in a complainant's favor," Painter wrote. "A review of his rulings will confirm that he fulfilled his vow. Judge Levine ... forces pro se complainants to run a hostile procedural gauntlet until they lose hope, and either withdraw their complaint or settle for a pittance, regardless of the merits of the case." Levine was the subject of a story 10 years ago in the Wall Street Journal, which said that except in a handful of cases in which defunct firms failed to defend themselves, Levine had never ruled in favor of an investor. Gramm [wife of former senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.)], was head of the CFTC just before president Bill Clinton took office. She has been criticized by Democrats for helping firms such as Goldman Sachs and Enron gain influence over the commodity markets. After leaving the CFTC, she joined Enron's board.

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on government corruption, click here.

More than 17,000 doctors and other health care providers have taken money from seven major drug companies to talk to other doctors about their products, a joint investigation by news organizations and non-profit groups found. More than 380 of the doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other professionals took in more than $100,000 in 2009 and 2010, according to the investigation. The report said far more doctors are likely to have taken such payments, but it documented these based on information from seven drugmakers. The investigation by journalism group ProPublica, Consumer Reports magazine, NPR radio and [other] publications showed doctors were sometimes urged to recommend "off-label" prescriptions of drugs, meaning using them for conditions they are not approved for. "Tens of thousands of U.S. physicians are paid to spread the word about pharma's favored pills and to advise the companies about research and marketing," the group says in its report. "This investigation begins to pull back the shroud on these activities," Dr. John Santa, director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center, said in a statement. "The amount of money involved is astounding, and the ProPublica report's account of the background of some of the physicians is disturbing."

Note: This important report is available here. For more on corporate corruption, click here.

If WikiLeaks had been around in 2001, could the events of 9/11 have been prevented? The idea is worth considering. There were a lot of us in the run-up to Sept. 11 who had seen warning signs that something devastating might be in the planning stages. One of us, Coleen Rowley, was a special agent/legal counsel at the FBI's Minneapolis division and worked closely with those who arrested would-be terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui on an immigration violation less than a month before the World Trade Center was destroyed. Following up on a tip from flight school instructors who had become suspicious of the French Moroccan who claimed to want to fly a jet as an "ego boost," Special Agent Harry Samit and an INS colleague had detained Moussaoui. A foreign intelligence service promptly reported that he had connections with a foreign terrorist group, but FBI officials in Washington inexplicably turned down Samit's request for authority to search Moussaoui's laptop computer and personal effects. Later, testifying at Moussaoui's trial, Samit testified that he believed the behavior of his FBI superiors in Washington constituted "criminal negligence." WikiLeaks might have provided a pressure valve for those agents who were terribly worried about what might happen and frustrated by their superiors' seeming indifference.

Note: For questions raised about the official account of 9/11 by many courageous professionals, click here and here.

Doctors and patients are being misled about the effectiveness of some drugs because negative trial results are not published, experts have warned. Writing in the British Medical Journal, they say that pharmaceutical companies should be forced to publish all data, not just positive findings. The German team give the example of the antidepressant reboxetine, saying publications have failed to show the drug in a true light. Reboxetine (Edronax), made by Pfizer, is used in many European countries, including the UK. But its rejection by US drug regulators raised doubts about its effectiveness, and led some to hunt for missing data. This is not the first time a large drug company has come under fire about its published drug trial data. Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was criticised for failing to raise the alarm on the risk of suicidal behaviour associated with its antidepressant Seroxat. GSK has also been forced to defend itself over allegations about hiding negative data regarding another of its drugs, Avandia, which is used to treat diabetes. "Our findings underline the urgent need for mandatory publication of trial data," [the researchers] say in the BMJ. They warn that the lack of all information means policy makers are unable to make informed decisions. In the US, it is already a requirement that all data - both positive and negative - is published.

Note: For a powerful summary of government/corporate corruption in the pharmaceutical industry by a respected former editor of a major medical journal, click here.

After more than five years of delay that have angered and frustrated the victims’ families, an inquest opened on [October 11] into the [attacks] on the London transit system on July 7, 2005, that killed 52 people and the four bombers, and wounded more than 700 others. The inquest ... began with the presiding judge, Lady Heather Hallett, ... pledging in her opening remarks that she would undertake to keep the inquest as open as possible while protecting Britain’s national security. Lady Hallett said she would go as far as she could to meet the demand of the victims’ families to know why the country’s security and intelligence services did not act to prevent the bombings on the basis of what they knew about the attackers beforehand. The families’ demands have echoed those of victims’ relatives after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, but they have been amplified by the lengthy delay in holding the London inquest, which is the first comprehensive public inquiry into what have become known in Britain as the 7/7 attacks. The delay in opening the inquest has been officially explained as necessary to allow the police and other security agencies to complete their own investigations. As with the last inquest in Britain to become a focus of attention on a similar scale, the long-delayed investigation into the 1997 death in a Paris car crash of Diana, Princess of Wales, top officials of Britain’s major police and security agencies, Scotland Yard, MI5 and MI6, are expected to be called as witnesses.

Note: For powerful, reliable information that the 7/7 bombing was manipulated, click here. For analysis of the many unanswered questions surrounding the London bombing on 7/7, click here.

If you want to understand the way prescription drugs are marketed today, have a look at the 1928 book, Propaganda, by Edward Bernays, the father of public relations in America. For Bernays, the public relations business was less about selling things than about creating the conditions for things to sell themselves. When Bernays was working as a salesman for Mozart pianos, for example, he did not simply place advertisements for pianos in newspapers. That would have been too obvious. Instead, Bernays persuaded reporters to write about a new trend: Sophisticated people were putting aside a special room in the home for playing music. Once a person had a music room, Bernays believed, he would naturally think of buying a piano. As Bernays wrote, "It will come to him as his own idea." Just as Bernays sold pianos by selling the music room, pharmaceutical marketers now sell drugs by selling the diseases that they treat. The buzzword is "disease branding." To brand a disease is to shape its public perception in order to make it more palatable to potential patients. Once a branded disease has achieved a degree of cultural legitimacy, there is no need to convince anyone that a drug to treat it is necessary. It will come to him as his own idea. It is hard to brand a disease without the help of physicians, of course. So drug companies typically recruit academic "thought leaders" to write and speak about any new conditions they are trying to introduce.

Note: This key topic is discussed in great depth in the BBC's documentary "Century of the Self" available here. And for a top doctor's analysis that the cholesterol scare was largely manufactured for profit, click here.

Compensation on Wall Street is on pace to break a record high for a second consecutive year, as more than three dozen top banks and securities firms will pay $144 billion in salary and benefits ... a 4% increase from the $139 billion paid out in 2009. Compensation was expected to rise at 26 of the 35 firms. Overall, Wall Street is expected to pay 32.1% of its revenue to employees, the same as last year, but below the 36% in 2007. Profits, which were depressed by losses in the past two years, have bounced back from the 2008 crisis. But the estimated 2010 profit of $61.3 billion for the firms surveyed still falls about 20% short from the record $82 billion in 2006. Over that same period, compensation across the firms in the survey increased 23%. "Until focus of these institutions changes from revenue generation to long-term shareholder value, we will see these outrageous pay packages and compensation levels," said Charles Elson, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance.

Note: For many key reports from reliable sources on Wall Street's profiteering, click here.

Chris Miller nearly doubled his $3,500 stock investment in a renewable-energy firm in 2008. It was a perfectly legal bet, but he's no ordinary investor. Mr. Miller is the top energy-policy adviser to Nevada Democrat and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who helped pass legislation that wound up benefiting the firm. Mr. Miller isn't the only Congressional staffer making such stock bets. At least 72 aides on both sides of the aisle traded shares of companies that their bosses help oversee, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of more than 3,000 disclosure forms covering trading activity by Capitol Hill staffers for 2008 and 2009. The Journal analysis showed that an aide to a Republican member of the Senate Banking Committee bought Bank of America Corp. stock before results of last year's government stress tests eased investor concerns about the health of the banking industry. A top aide to the House Speaker profited by trading shares of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in a brokerage account with her husband two days before the government authorized emergency funding for the companies. The aides identified by the Journal say they didn't profit by making trades based on any information gathered in the halls of Congress. Even if they had done so, it would be legal, because insider-trading laws don't apply to Congress. Unlike many Executive Branch employees, lawmakers and aides don't have restrictions on their stock holdings and ownership interests in companies they oversee.

Note: Why is Congress exempt from so many of its own laws? Who is willing to start a movement to stop this? For lots more on government corruption from major media sources, click here.

Americans die sooner than citizens of a dozen other developed nations and the usual suspects -- obesity, traffic accidents and a high murder rate -- are not to blame. Instead, poor healthcare may be to blame, the team at Columbia University in New York reported. They found that 15-year survival rates for men and women aged 45 to 65 have fallen in the United States relative to the other 12 countries over the past 30 years. In June, the Commonwealth Fund, which advocates on and does research focusing on healthcare reform, reported that Americans spend twice as much on healthcare as residents of other developed countries -- $7,290 per person -- but get lower quality and less efficiency. Between 1975 and 2005, medical costs went up in all the countries, as did life expectancy. But costs went up far more in the United States and life expectancy increased to a far lower degree. "In 1950, the United States was fifth among the leading industrialized nations with respect to female life expectancy at birth, surpassed only by Sweden, Norway, Australia, and the Netherlands," [the report authors] wrote. At last count, the United States was 46th in female life expectancy; 49th for both sexes.

Note: For key reports from reliable sources on important health issues, click here.

The commander of Canada's largest air force base is to plead guilty to the murder of two women and the sexual assault of two others, his lawyer says. Col Russell Williams once acted as pilot for Queen Elizabeth II and was in charge of Base Trenton in Ontario - Canada's busiest air force hub. His lawyer told an Ontario court he would plead guilty to all charges. He is also charged with 82 counts of breaking and entering. Prosecutors said he had stolen women's underwear. One woman was found dead in her house in November 2009. The other went missing in January this year. The murder victims were Marie Comeau, a 38-year-old corporal, who lived in Brighton, Ontario, and Jessica Lloyd, 27, a resident of Belleville, Ontario. The Ottawa Citizen newspaper reported that police had seized 500 items of women's underwear from Col Williams's home in Ottawa. "He was able to lead an elaborate double life and was able to keep it successfully concealed," said a senior officer who once promoted Col Williams, retired Lt-Gen Angus Watt.

Note: This kind of behavior in the top levels of the military may be much more common than you would expect. To understand more, learn about Kay Griggs, whose Marine colonel husband was deeply involved in this kind of thing at a high level. To watch a 10-minute video clip of Kay, click here. For more, click here.

For months, companies have been sitting on the sidelines with record piles of cash. Now they're starting to deploy some of that money - not to hire workers or build factories, but to prop up their share prices. Sitting on these unprecedented levels of cash, U.S. companies are buying back their own stock in droves. So far this year, firms have announced they will purchase $273 billion of their own shares, more than five times as much compared with this time last year, according to Birinyi Associates, a stock market research firm. But the rise in buybacks signals that many companies [do not plan to] spend their cash on the job-generating activities that could produce economic growth. "They don't know what they want to do with all the cash they're sitting on," said Zachary Karabell, president of RiverTwice Research. Historically low interest rates are also prompting some companies to borrow to repurchase shares. Microsoft, for instance, borrowed $4.75 billion last month by issuing new bonds at rock-bottom interest rates and announced it would use some of that money to buy back shares. The company already has nearly $37 billion in cash. A share buyback is a quick way to make a stock more attractive to Wall Street. It improves a closely watched metric known as earnings per share, which divides a company's profit by the total number of shares on the market. Such a move can produce a sudden burst of interest in a stock, improving its price.

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on the massive profiteering by corporate recipients of government financial largesse, click here.

A US terror alert issued this week about al-Qaida plots to attack targets in western Europe was politically motivated and not based on credible new information, senior Pakistani diplomats and European intelligence officials have told the Guardian. The non-specific US warning ... was an attempt to justify a recent escalation in US drone and helicopter attacks inside Pakistan that have "set the country on fire", said Wajid Shamsul Hasan, the high commissioner to Britain. Hasan ... suggested the Obama administration was playing politics with the terror threat before next month's midterm congressional elections. "I will not deny the fact that there may be internal political dynamics, including the forthcoming midterm American elections," Hasan said. European intelligence officials also pointed the finger at the US, and specifically at the White House. "To stitch together [the terror plot claims] in a seamless narrative is nonsensical," said one well-placed official. By making it clear that the US drone strikes were pre-emptive, and were not in any way combating an imminent threat, European officials raised fresh questions ... about the legality of the attacks, which could be viewed as assassinations. They said Washington was the "driver" behind claims about a series of "commando-style" plots and that the CIA – perhaps because it was worried about provoking unwelcome attention to its drone strikes – was also extremely annoyed by the publicity given to them.

Note: For highly revealing reports from major media sources on the hidden realities of the "Global War on Terror," click here.

Nearly a million workers won't get a consumer protection in the U.S. health reform law meant to cap insurance costs because the government exempted their employers. Thirty companies and organizations, including McDonald's and Jack in the Box, won't be required to raise the minimum annual benefit included in low-cost health plans, which are often used to cover part-time or low-wage employees. The Department of Health and Human Services, which provided a list of exemptions, said it granted waivers in late September so workers with such plans wouldn't lose coverage from employers who might choose instead to drop health insurance altogether. Without waivers, companies would have had to provide a minimum of $750,000 in coverage next year, increasing to $1.25 million in 2012, $2 million in 2013 and unlimited in 2014.

Note: For lots more on corporate and government corruption from reliable sources, click here and here.

Important 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.