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.

German President Christian Wulff has announced his resignation, after prosecutors called for his immunity to be lifted. An ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mr Wulff, 52, stepped down over corruption claims involving a dubious home loan. German media say the crisis is unprecedented in post-war Germany. The president's role is largely ceremonial, to serve as a moral authority for the nation. "The developments of the past few days and weeks have shown that [the German people's] trust and thus my effectiveness have been seriously damaged," Mr Wulff said in a brief statement. "For this reason it is no longer possible for me to exercise the office of president at home and abroad as required." At the centre of the row is the story - first published by the Bild newspaper - that Mr Wulff received a low interest 500,000 euro loan (Ł417,000; $649,000) from the wife of a wealthy businessman in October 2008. Mr Wulff, who previously was premier of Lower Saxony, was later asked in the state's parliament if he had had business relations with the businessman, Egon Geerkens, and said he had not, making no mention of his dealings with Mr Geerkens's wife. The president was also heavily criticised for trying to force Bild not to break the story in the first place. It has emerged that he left an angry message on Bild chief editor Kai Diekmann's phone, saying the story must not be published. There were also corruption allegations against Mr Wulff, involving receiving political favours and free holidays from business executives.

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

The invasion of Afghanistan is ... a late colonial adventure. Afghanistan [is] indispensable to the regional control and transport of oil in central Asia. Its northern neighbours ... contain reserves which could be critical to future global supply. In 1998, Dick Cheney, now US vice-president but then chief executive of a major oil services company, remarked: "I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian." But the oil and gas there is worthless until it is moved. The only route which makes both political and economic sense is through Afghanistan. Pipelines through Afghanistan would allow the US both to pursue its aim of "diversifying energy supply" and to penetrate the world's most lucrative markets. Growth in European oil consumption is slow and competition is intense. In south Asia, by contrast, demand is booming and competitors are scarce. Pumping oil south and selling it in Pakistan and India, in other words, is far more profitable than pumping it west and selling it in Europe. As the author Ahmed Rashid has documented, in 1995 the US oil company Unocal started negotiating to build oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan and into Pakistani ports on the Arabian sea. The company's scheme required a single administration in Afghanistan, which would guarantee safe passage for its goods.

Note: Is it unusual that the president installed by the U.S. in Afghanistan once worked for Unocal? Many details of the attempts by the US government to pressure the Taliban into going along with Unocal's pipeline dream are revealed in Ahmed Rashid's book Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia.

88 million. That's how many working-age Americans don't have a job and aren't trying to find one. The increase in people dropping out of the labor market altogether skews the otherwise-positive unemployment numbers released last week. While the jobless rate fell to 8.3 percent in January - a three-year low - it doesn't [take into account] this army of nonworking Americans. The percentage of people participating in the labor market dropped to 63.7 percent last month, the lowest level since May 1983.

Note: This one small article reveals an astounding statistic the media and government are all but ignoring. The actual rate of jobless Americans is well over 30%. The U.S. government definition of unemployed covers only those who "do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work."

A book by a former mistress of President John F Kennedy has revealed new details of their relationship. Extracts in the US media of Once Upon A Secret by Mimi Alford recount the affair she had with the president whilst an intern at the White House. The previewed parts of the book contain graphic details of the president's milieu, including tales of drug use. Excerpts published in the New York Post also describe how Ms Alford - then 19-year-old Mimi Beardsley - lost her virginity to the president in 1962, after she had been invited to swim at the White House pool. The affair went on to last 18 months. The relationship apparently continued even after Ms Alford left Washington, and she claims to have slept with Mr Kennedy just days before he was assassinated. Ms Alford, now 69, also recalls consoling Mr Kennedy after the death of his baby son Patrick. "There was a stack of condolence letters on the floor next to his chair, and he picked each one up and read it aloud to me. Occasionally, tears rolling down his cheeks, he would write something on one of the letters, probably notes for a reply. But mostly he just read them and cried. I did, too," Ms Alford writes. Ms Alford's decision to write the memoir came after being exposed in "a tabloid frenzy" in 2003 when a Kennedy biographer had referred to "a 19-year-old... White House intern" as one his affairs, according to her publisher, Random House.

Note: If you want to understand how sex and power can corrupt even great men, read the full New York Post article at this link.

British police arrested four current and former staff of Rupert Murdoch's best-selling Sun tabloid plus a policeman ... as part of an investigation into suspected payments by journalists to officers. Police also searched the paper's London offices at publisher News International, News Corp.'s British arm, in a corruption probe linked to a continuing investigation into phone hacking at its now closed News of the World weekly tabloid. The arrests included The Sun's crime editor Mike Sullivan, its head of news Chris Pharo, and former deputy editor Fergus Shanahan Also arrested was the paper's former managing editor Graham Dudman, now a columnist and media writer. Thirteen people have now been arrested over allegations that journalists paid police in return for information. Last week, News International settled a string of legal claims after it admitted that people working for the tabloid had hacked in to the private phones of celebrities and others to find stories. The phone hacking scandal drew attention to the level of political influence held by editors and executives at News International, and other newspapers in Britain. It embarrassed British politicians for their close ties with newspaper executives and also the police, who repeatedly failed to investigate allegations of illegal phone hacking.

Note: If researcher David Wilcock is right, this may be the beginning of mass arrests of key people involved in major corruption in our world. For lots more, see David's very well researched article at this link.

Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis ... returned [from Afghanistan] in October of last year with a fervent conviction that the war was going disastrously and that senior military leaders had not leveled with the American public. Late last month, Colonel Davis, 48, began an unusual one-man campaign of military truth-telling. He wrote two reports, one unclassified and the other classified, summarizing his observations on the candor gap with respect to Afghanistan. He briefed four members of Congress and a dozen staff members, spoke with a reporter for The New York Times, sent his reports to the Defense Department’s inspector general — and only then informed his chain of command that he had done so. “How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding?“ Colonel Davis asks in an article summarizing his views titled "Truth, Lies and Afghanistan: How Military Leaders Have Let Us Down." Colonel Davis says his experience has caused him to doubt reports of progress in the war from numerous military leaders, including David H. Petraeus, who commanded the troops in Afghanistan before becoming the director of the Central Intelligence Agency in June.

Note: For lots more from major media sources on the realities of the various wars, click here.

A two-year-old Food and Drug Administration appointment is stirring up online protests once more. In 2009, President Obama appointed Michael Taylor as a senior adviser for the FDA. Consumer groups protested the appointment because Taylor had formerly served as a vice president for Monsanto, the controversial agricultural multinational at the forefront of genetically modified food. In recent days, a petition calling for the former Monsanto VP’s ouster is gaining steam. “President Obama, I oppose your appointment of Michael Taylor,” the petition on Signon.org reads. “Taylor is the same person who was Food Safety Czar at the FDA when genetically modified organisms were allowed into the U.S. food supply without undergoing a single test to determine their safety or risks. This is a travesty.” Signers of the petition argue that Monsanto should not have influence at the FDA because it will hurt farmers and threaten plants and animals. They cite scientific research that has found genetically modified foods could be a cause for chronic illnesses or cancer in the U.S. The petition calls Taylor’s appointment an example of a “fox watching the hen house.”

Note: To sign the petition, click here. For lots more on this danger to public health, click here. For how WantToKnow.info founder Fred Burks found himself blacklisted by Monsanto, click here.

Latin American leaders have joined together to condemn the U.S. government for soaring drug violence in their countries, blaming the United States for the transnational cartels that have grown rich and powerful smuggling dope north and guns south. “Our region is seriously threatened by organized crime, but there is very little responsibility taken by the drug-consuming countries,” Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom said at a December meeting of Latin leaders in Caracas. Colom said the hemisphere was paying the price for drug consumption in the United States with “our blood, our fear and our human sacrifice.” With transit countries facing some of the highest homicide rates in the world, so great is the frustration that the leaders are demanding that the United States and Europe consider steps toward legalization if they do not curb their appetite for drugs. At a regional summit this month in Mexico, attended by the leaders of 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries, officials declared that “the authorities in consumer countries should explore all possible alternatives to eliminate exorbitant profits of criminals, including regulatory or market options.” “Market options” is diplomatic code for decriminalization. The critique comes from sitting presidents left to right, from persistent U.S. antagonists such as President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and from close U.S. allies such as President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, which has received almost $9 billion in aid to fight the cartels.

Note: Have you noticed that whenever the government declares a war on something (drugs, terrorism, etc.), it usually leads to an increase of whatever is being targeted?

It’s no secret that many members of the U.S. House and Senate are millionaires — 47 percent of them — their salaries paid in part by the American taxpayers. The Center for Responsive Politics has crunched the numbers and released the results on its Open Secrets blog: “About 47 percent of Congress, or 249 current members are millionaires. In 2010, the estimated median net worth of a current U.S. senator stood at an average of $2.56 million. Despite the global economic meltdown in 2008 and the sluggish recovery that followed, that’s up about 7.6 percent from an estimated median net worth of $2.38 million in 2009 … and up 13 percent from a median net worth of $2.27 million in 2008. Fully 36 Senate Democrats, and 30 Senate Republicans reported an average net worth in excess of $1 million in 2010. The same was true for 110 House Republicans and 73 House Democrats.” “The vast majority of members of Congress are quite comfortable, financially, while many of their own constituents suffer from economic hardships,” said Sheila Krumholz at the Center For Responsive Politics. “Few Americans enjoy the same financial cushions maintained by most members of Congress — or the same access to market-altering information that could yield personal, financial gains.”

Note: For key reports on major media control of information and cover-ups, click here.

The OCC’s quarterly report on trading revenues and bank derivatives activities is based on Call Report information provided by all insured U.S. commercial banks and trust companies, reports filed by U.S. financial holding companies, and other published data. The notional amount of derivatives held by insured U.S. commercial banks decreased $1.4 trillion, or 0.6%, from the second quarter of 2011 to $248 trillion. Notional derivatives are 5.7% higher than at the same time last year. Derivatives activity in the U.S. banking system continues to be dominated by a small group of large financial institutions. The five banks with the most derivatives activity hold 96% of all derivatives. Insured commercial banks have more limited legal authorities than do their holding companies.

Note: Graphs in this OCC report (pg. 25 & 26) show that five U.S. banks, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, BofA, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, hold $235 of the $248 trillion above, while their holding companies control an additional $311 of the $326 trillion in derivatives held by holding companies. So these five banks and their holding companies combined hold $546 trillion in derivatives, 95% of the U.S. derivatives market, nearly 80% of the global market, and equivalent to over $75,000 for every person on the planet. If the above link fails, click here. For quarterly derivative reports by the OCC going back to 1995, click here.

After an increase of only 3% in the second half of 2010, total notional amounts outstanding of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives rose by 18% in the first half of 2011, reaching $708 trillion by the end of June 2011.

Note: The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is an intergovernmental organization of central banks which "fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for central banks." It is not accountable to any national government. Their accounting shows a total global derivatives market controlled by the banks of over $700 trillion. That's $100,000 for every man, woman, and child on the planet. As reported in Reuters, the derivatives market is largely unregulated. Do you think there is any manipulation going on here? BIS helps the bankers to work together to keep their hidden power.

A growing number of states are seeking shiny new currencies made of silver and gold. Worried that the Federal Reserve and the U.S. dollar are on the brink of collapse, lawmakers from 13 states, including Minnesota, Tennessee, Iowa, South Carolina and Georgia, are seeking approval from their state governments to either issue their own alternative currency or explore it as an option. Just three years ago, only three states had similar proposals in place. Unlike individual communities, which are allowed to create their own currency -- as long as it is easily distinguishable from U.S. dollars -- the Constitution bans states from printing their own paper money or issuing their own currency. But it allows the states to make "gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts." And since gold has grown exponentially more valuable, while the U.S. dollar continues to lose ground, the notion has become increasingly appealing to state lawmakers, he said. The states' proposals have been gaining steam among Tea Partyers and Republicans, many of whom also endorse a nationwide return to the gold standard, which would require the U.S. dollar to be backed by gold reserves.

The Muslim community in Des Moines, Iowa ... is diverse. The members of the four mosques here are from Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, among other nations. [But] the community is a tight-knit group. That’s why what happened at their mosques here is alarming to so many of its members. “That was really surprising, very sad that ... the FBI or Homeland Security would send somebody here to pretend to be Muslim and try to find out what goes on here. I feel there is no need for that,” said Dr. Hamed Baig, president of the Islamic Center of Des Moines. Baig is talking about 42 year-old Arvinder Singh. Baid says he saw Singh a couple of times at his mosque. But it wasn’t until recently that members of the community discovered that Singh, who was raised a Sikh, was allegedly sent into their mosques to spy for the FBI. Singh told CNN that the FBI told him, "'You look Middle Eastern, and we need your help for the war against terror.'" Singh says the FBI came to him with a simple tradeoff: We’ll help you get your citizenship if you help us get some terrorists. Singh says he assumed a Muslim identity -– Rafik Alvi -- and went into the mosques pretending to be interested in converting. He says he frequented mosques all over the state but attended the four in Des Moines regularly for seven years. He says sometimes the FBI gave him pictures of persons of interest and he would confirm that they were at the mosque. On a few occasions, Singh says he taped his conversations with congregants.

Note: For lots more from major media sources on the clandestine operations of the FBI and other intelligence agencies, click here.

A federal appeals court on [February 2] sanctioned lawyers behind a lawsuit accusing former officials in the Bush administration of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ordered two California lawyers to pay $15,000 in addition to double what the government spent defending the case. Three attorneys -- Dennis Cunningham, William Veale and Mustapha Ndanusa -- filed the lawsuit in 2008 on behalf of April Gallop, a member of the U.S. Army injured in the Pentagon attack on Sept. 11, 2001. The lawyers accused then-Vice President Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld of causing the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in order to create a political atmosphere that would allow the U.S. government to pursue domestic and international policy objectives. The suit alleged conspiracy to cause death and bodily harm and a violation of the Antiterrorism Act. U.S. District Judge Denny Chin dismissed the case in 2010, ruling that the complaint was frivolous and a product of "cynical delusion and fantasy." A three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit upheld that decision, imposing $15,000 in sanctions on the three lawyers for filing the suit. "We are not delusional by any means. We have the facts, and they cannot be explained," said Veale, a former chief assistant public defender for Contra Costa County, California. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment on the litigation. The case is Gallop v. Cheney et al, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, No. 10-1241.

Note: Unmentioned in this article is the fact that the appeals panel which sanctioned the lawyers was presided over by a cousin of former Pres. George W. Bush, who had refused to recuse himself from the case as requested by the lawyers. For more information on this important court case brought by US soldier April Gallop, who was in the Pentagon where it was struck on 9/11, and whose account was suppressed by the FBI but has been brought to light by, among others, Jesse Ventura on his recent television program on the Pentagon, click here and here.

More and more US schools have police patrolling the corridors. Pupils are being arrested for throwing paper planes and failing to pick up crumbs from the canteen floor. Why is the state criminalising normal childhood behaviour? Like hundreds of schools in the state, and across large parts of the rest of the US, Fulmore Middle [school] has its own police force with officers in uniform who carry guns to keep order in the canteens, playgrounds and lessons. Each day, hundreds of schoolchildren appear before courts in Texas charged with offences such as swearing, misbehaving on the school bus or getting in to a punch-up in the playground. Children have been arrested for possessing cigarettes, wearing "inappropriate" clothes and being late for school. In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 "Class C misdemeanour" tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time. What was once handled with a telling-off by the teacher or a call to parents can now result in arrest and a record that may cost a young person a place in college or a job years later. "We've taken childhood behaviour and made it criminal," said Kady Simpkins, a lawyer. "They're kids." The very young are not spared. Texas records show more than 1,000 tickets were issued to primary schoolchildren over the past six years .

Note: For a long list of bizarre arrests of children, for behavior not at all unusual, that have been reported in the mainstream media, click here.

An influential Democrat in Congress, California's Jane Harman, is at the center of a national security scandal that's threatening her political career. Harman is fighting mad after reports that her phone conversation was intercepted by a national security agency wiretap ... in 2005 and 2006. Sources say Harman was overheard talking to an investigative target whose conversations were being legally intercepted. Congressional Quarterly and The New York Times report that Harman discussed using her influence to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. In return, the person with whom she was speaking would lobby then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to appoint Harman chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Harman reportedly ended the conversation by saying, "This conversation doesn't exist." [Congressional Quarterly] also reports that after the intercept, the FBI tried to open an investigation of Harman. But Attorney General Alberto Gonzales pulled the plug because he wanted Harman's help defending the controversial domestic warrantless wiretapping program. The former attorney general had no comment.

Note: For lots more from major media sources on the clandestine operations of the FBI and other intelligence agencies, click here.

Their names were flashed around the world as suicide hijackers who carried out the attacks on America. But yesterday four innocent men told how their identities had been stolen by Osama bin Laden's teams to cover their tracks. The men - all from Saudi Arabia - spoke of their shock at being mistakenly named by the FBI as suicide terrorists. None of the four was in the United States on September 11 and all are alive in their home country. The FBI released the list of 19 suicide terrorists three days after the attacks. The Saudi Airlines pilot, Saeed Al-Ghamdi, 25, and Abdulaziz Al-Omari, an engineer from Riyadh, are furious that the hijackers' "personal details" - including name, place, date of birth and occupation - matched their own. The other two men accused of being terrorists are Salem Al-Hamzi and Ahmed Al-Nami. Mr Al-Hamzi is 26 and had just returned to work at a petrochemical complex in the industrial eastern city of Yanbou ... when the hijackers struck. Mr Al-Nami, 33, from Riyadh, an administrative supervisor with Saudi Arabian Airlines, said that he was in Riyadh when the terrorists struck. The FBI admitted that there was some doubt about the identities of some of the suspects. A spokesman said: "The identification process has been complicated by the fact that many Arabic family names are similar. It is also possible that the hijackers used false identities." The spokesman declined to say whether the FBI would apologise but added: "If we have made mistakes then obviously that would be regrettable."

Note: The deceptions in the official story of 9/11 are nowhere more clearly shown than in this important story. The FBI never revised its list of alleged hijackers, and these four are all later listed in the official 9/11 Commission report as the hijackers. Click here and scroll down a little over half way to see their photos in the official report. For more on this, click here. For an abundance of reliable information suggesting a major 9/11 cover-up, click here. For other revealing news articles on 9/11, click here.

When sites like Wikipedia and Reddit banded together for a major blackout January 18th, the impact was felt all the way to Washington D.C. The blackout had lawmakers running from the controversial anti-piracy legislation, SOPA and PIPA, which critics said threatened freedom of speech online. Unfortunately for free-speech advocates, these pieces of legislation are not the only laws which threaten an open internet. Few people have heard of ACTA, or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, but the provisions in the agreement appear quite similar to – and more expansive than – anything we saw in SOPA. Worse, the agreement spans virtually all of the countries in the developed world, including all of the EU, the United States, Switzerland and Japan. Many of these countries have already signed or ratified it, and the cogs are still turning, with the final real fight playing out in the EU parliament. The treaty has been secretly negotiated behind the scenes between governments with little or no public input. The Bush administration started the process, but the Obama administration has aggressively pursued it. Indeed, we signed ACTA in 2011. According to critics, ACTA bypasses the sovereign laws of participating nations, forcing ISP’s across the globe to act as internet police. Worse, it appears to go much further than the internet, cracking down on generic drugs and making food patents even more radical than they are by enforcing a global standard on seed patents that threatens local farmers and food independence across the developed world.

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

A court case against a translator who leaked US government secrets was conducted in secret because it centred on the revelation that the FBI had eavesdropped on Israeli embassy phone calls, it was revealed yesterday. The extraordinary limitations in place for the prosecution of Shamai Leibowitz, who was sentenced to 20 months in prison for disseminating classified information, meant that even the judge sentencing him did not know what he was supposed to have leaked. "All I know is that it's a serious case," Judge Alexander Williams said last year. "I don't know what was divulged other than some documents, and how it compromised things, I have no idea." But now Richard Silverstein, the blogger to whom Leibowitz passed his information, has come forward to defend his source. Leibowitz passed him about 200 pages of verbatim records of phone calls and conversations between embassy officials, saying that he believed the documents revealed Israeli officials trying unlawfully to influence US policy and edging towards military action against Iran. There has been dismay among civil liberties and open government advocates who point to pledges made by Mr Obama before his election to seek new transparency in Washington. Instead, his administration has launched a record number of prosecutions under the Espionage Act – five including the Leibowitz case. Previously, there had been only four such prosecutions opened by all previous administrations.

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

The corporate barbarians are through the gate of American democracy. Not satisfied with their all-pervasive influence on our culture, economy and legislative processes, they want more. They want it all. Two years ago, the United States supreme court betrayed our Constitution. In its now infamous decision in the Citizens United case, five justices declared that corporations must be treated as if they are actual people under the Constitution when it comes to spending money to influence our elections, allowing them for the first time to draw on the corporate checkbook – in any amount and at any time – to run ads explicitly for or against specific candidates. What's next … a corporate right to vote? When the supreme court says ... that corporations are people, that writing checks from the company's bank account is constitutionally-protected speech and that attempts by the federal government and states to impose reasonable restrictions on campaign ads are unconstitutional, our democracy is in grave danger. Corporations are not people with constitutional rights equal to flesh-and-blood human beings. Corporations are subject to regulation by the people.

Note: For key reports on the overpowering influence of corporate money on the US political system, click here and here.

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.