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.

David Talbot, founder of Salon.com ... believes that new evidence, including his own research encompassing more than 150 interviews, further undermines the conclusions of the Warren Commission Report. [His new book] "Brothers" ... stresses the extent to which the Kennedy administration faced political pressure from the extreme right, including elements of the CIA leadership, the national security apparatus [and] anti-Castro Cubans. JFK incurred the wrath of his enemies and incubated a desire for revenge in many of them. The author will convince many ... that the likelihood of a conspiracy to assassinate JFK (and maybe RFK) is significant. Talbot's highly readable, at times gripping book makes the case for releasing the classified documents pertaining to the JFK assassination. Declassified JFK files reveal that in 1963, [CIA agent George] Joannides was the agent in charge of one of the most powerful Cuban anti-Castro organizations in Miami, the Revolutionary Students Directorate, or DRE. A few months before JFK's assassination, the DRE had significant contact with Lee Harvey Oswald. In the course of four intensive investigations of the JFK assassination, however, the CIA failed to divulge information about this connection, or even that Joannides was the CIA officer assigned to manage the DRE, and refused to release important parts of Joannides' personnel file. In September, on grounds of national security, the CIA successfully thwarted a request for such information. Until it is released, many ... will reasonably speculate that crucial information about the JFK assassination is being concealed.

Note: For more reliable information on the Kennedy assassination and more, click here. The History Channel also has an excellent documentary showing beyond doubt there was more than one gunman. To order this highly revealing documentary, click here.

The Pentagon has placed unprecedented restrictions on who can testify before Congress, reserving the right to bar lower-ranking officers, enlisted soldiers, and career bureaucrats from appearing before oversight committees or having their remarks transcribed. The guidelines, described in an April 19 memo to the staff director of the House Armed Services Committee, adds that all field-level officers and enlisted personnel must be "deemed appropriate" by the Department of Defense before they can participate in personal briefings for members of Congress or their staffs. In addition, according to the memo, the proceedings must not be recorded. Any officers who are allowed to testify must be accompanied by an official from the administration. Veterans of the legislative process -- who say they have never heard of such guidelines before -- maintain that the Pentagon has no authority to set such ground rules. A Pentagon spokesman confirmed that the guidelines are new. The memo has fueled complaints that the Bush administration is trying to restrict access to information about the war in Iraq. [A] special House oversight panel, according to aides, has written at least 10 letters to the Pentagon since February seeking information and has received only one official reply. Nor has the Pentagon fully complied with repeated requests for all the monthly assessments of Iraqi security forces.

Note: When the military begins to control the legislative, democracy begins to shift towards dictatorship. And for reliable information how the Pentagon cannot account for hundreds of billions of dollars, click here.

In a case that critics say demonstrates a U.S. double standard on terrorism, a federal judge has dismissed all charges against Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative who has been accused of masterminding a 1976 bombing of a Cuban civilian airplane that killed 73 people and a series of 1997 bombings in Havana. Posada, 79, is expected to return soon to his home in Miami as a hero of that city's anti-Castro right wing, despite U.S. government documents made public recently that have tied him to terrorist acts. [In 1959, Posada] began a long association with the CIA, receiving training in sabotage and explosives at the U.S. School of the Americas for the 1961 invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. He also was involved in a 1965 attempt to overthrow the Guatemalan government. On Oct. 6, 1976, a Cubana jet was blown up in midair after leaving Barbados for Havana. CIA documents released in 2005 indicate that the agency had prior knowledge of the plot, and a recently declassified FBI document placed Posada at two meetings where the bombing was planned. "The CIA taught us everything," Posada said in a 1998 interview with the New York Times. "They taught us explosives, how to kill, bomb, trained us in acts of sabotage." In 1997, Posada was linked to a series of bombings of hotels, restaurants and night clubs in Havana. In August 2003 ... the Miami bureau of the FBI made the unexpected decision to close its terrorism case on Posada. Subsequently, according to FBI officials, five boxes of evidence were removed from the bureau's evidence room and destroyed.

Note: Why is the U.S. government releasing a suspected terrorist who has stacks of evidence against him? And why is the CIA training terrorists? Read this article and click here for some possible answers.

Filmmaker Michael Moore has asked the Bush administration to call off an investigation of his trip to Cuba to get treatment for ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers for a segment in his upcoming health-care expose, “Sicko.” Moore, who made the hit documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” ... said in a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Friday that the White House may have opened the investigation for political reasons. “For five and a half years, the Bush administration has ignored and neglected the heroes of the 9/11 community,” Moore said in the letter. “I understand why the Bush administration is coming after me — I have tried to help the very people they refuse to help, but until George W. Bush outlaws helping your fellow man, I have broken no laws and I have nothing to hide.” Harvey Weinstein, whose Weinstein Co. is releasing “Sicko,” told The Associated Press the movie is a “healing film” that could bring opponents together over the ills of America’s health-care system. “This time, we didn’t want the fight, because the movie unites both sides,” Weinstein said. “We’ve shown the movie to Republicans. Both sides of the bench love the film." Moore won an Academy Award for best documentary with his 2002 gun-control film “Bowling for Columbine” and scolded Bush in his Oscar acceptance speech as the war in Iraq was just getting under way. The investigation has given master promoter Moore another jolt of publicity just before the release of one of his films.

Note: WantToKnow.info founder Fred Burks was hit with a $7,500 fine for a 10-day vacation to Cuba in 1999. For some strange reason, his was the first Cuba travel case prosecuted. He has taken it to court, where the case is still undecided. For more, including a link to a Los Angeles Times article on his case, click here.

Depleted uranium, which is used in armour-piercing ammunition, causes widespread damage to DNA which could lead to lung cancer, according to a study of the metal's effects on human lung cells. The study adds to growing evidence that DU causes health problems on battlefields long after hostilities have ceased. DU is a byproduct of uranium refinement for nuclear power. It is much less radioactive than other uranium isotopes, and its high density - twice that of lead - makes it useful for armour and armour piercing shells. It has been used in conflicts including Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq and there have been increasing concerns about the health effects of DU dust left on the battlefield. In November, the Ministry of Defence was forced to counteract claims that apparent increases in cancers and birth defects among Iraqis in southern Iraq were due to DU in weapons. Prof Wise and his team believe that microscopic particles of dust created during the explosion of a DU weapon stay on the battlefield and can be breathed in by soldiers and people returning after the conflict. Once they are lodged in the lung even low levels of radioactivity would damage DNA in cells close by. "The real question is whether the level of exposure is sufficient to cause health effects. The answer to that question is still unclear," he said, adding that there has as yet been little research on the effects of DU on civilians in combat zones. "Funding for DU studies is very sparse and so defining the disadvantages is hard," he added.

Note: We suspect a major cover-up of the dangers of DU, on which the media have reported little. How convenient that this pesky waste product from nuclear power plants which is radioactive for thousands of years could be sold to the military for weapons. For lots more on this vital topic, click here.

Food safety experts have advised parents to eliminate a series of additives from their children's diet while they await the publication of a new study that is understood to link these ingredients to behaviour problems in youngsters. The latest scientific research into the effect of food additives on children's behaviour is thought to raise fresh doubts about the safety of controversial food colourings and a preservative widely used in sweets, drinks and processed foods. It will be several months before the results are published, despite the importance of the findings for children's health. Researchers at Southampton University have tested combinations of synthetic colourings and preservative that an average child might consume in a day to measure what effect they had on behaviour. A source at the university [said] their results supported findings first made seven years ago that linked the additives to behavioural problems, such as temper tantrums, poor concentration and hyperactivity, and to allergic reactions. Independent experts say that consumers should consider removing these additives from their children's diets now. Dr Alex Richardson, the director of Food and Behaviour Research and senior research scientist at Oxford University, said: "There are well-documented potential risks from these additives. In my view the researchers had done an excellent piece of work first time round and there was enough evidence to act. If this new study essentially replicates that, what more evidence do they need to remove these additives from children's food and drink?"

Note: For how drug companies collude with government to suppress this kind of information, click here.

The United States and the European Union have signed up to a new transatlantic economic partnership at a summit in Washington. The pact is designed to boost trade and investment by harmonising regulatory standards, laying the basis for a US-EU single market. The two sides agreed to set up an "economic council" to push ahead with regulatory convergence in nearly 40 areas, including intellectual property, financial services, business takeovers and the motor industry. The aim is to increase trade and lower costs. Some reports suggest that incompatible regulations in the world's two richest regions add 10% to the cost of developing and producing new cars.

Note: Why is this important news getting such minimal press coverage?

When the old spymaster thought he was dying, his eldest son came to visit him. In the CIA, [Howard Hunt] had helped to mastermind the violent removal of a duly elected leftist president in Guatemala and assisted in subterfuges that led to the murder of Che Guevara. But his first-born son, [Saint] was by his side now. For years, he and Saint had hardly spoken. Then Saint came to him wanting to know if he had any information about JFK’s assassination. His father had sworn in two government investigations that he didn’t. But now, in August 2003, propped up in his sick bed, he began to write down the names of men who participated in a plot to kill the president. He scribbled the initials “LBJ”, standing for Kennedy’s vice-president, Lyndon Johnson. Under “LBJ”, connected by a line, he wrote the name Cord Meyer. Meyer was a CIA agent whose wife had an affair with JFK; later she was murdered, a case that has never been solved. Next, his father connected to Meyer’s name the name Bill Harvey, another CIA agent; also connected to Meyer’s name was the name David Morales, another CIA man and a well-known, vicious black-operations specialist. Then his father connected to Morales’s name, with a line, the framed words “French Gunman Grassy Knoll”. So there it was: according to Hunt, LBJ had Kennedy killed. And that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t the only shooter in Dallas. There was also, on the grassy knoll, a French gunman, presumably the Corsican mafia assassin Lucien Sarti. A few weeks later, Saint received in the mail a tape recording from his dad. Hunt’s voice on the cassette is weak and grasping, but he essentially remakes the same points he made in his handwritten narrative.

Note: Though this article interesting refers to Saint as a "conspiracy nut," if you take the time to read it, you will find it raises many serious questions about the Kennedy assassination. The History Channel has an excellent documentary series showing beyond doubt there was more than one gunman. To order, click here. For the banned final episode of this series, which presents powerful evidence LBJ was directly involved in the JFK assassination, click here

Nearly 50 years since an alleged UFO was sighted at Roswell, New Mexico, a new CNN/Time poll released Sunday shows that 80 percent of Americans think the government is hiding knowledge of the existence of extraterrestrial life forms. While nearly three-quarters of the 1,024 adults questioned for the poll said they had never seen or known anyone who saw a UFO, 54 percent believe intelligent life exists outside Earth. Sixty-four percent of the respondents said that aliens have contacted humans, half said they've abducted humans, and 37 percent said they have contacted the U.S. government. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. As for the Roswell incident, nearly two-thirds of the respondents to the poll said they believed that a UFO crash-landed in a field outside the New Mexico town 50 years ago next month. Most people -- 91 percent -- told the pollsters that they had never had contact with aliens or known anyone who had. A similar number -- 93 percent -- said they had never been abducted or known anyone whisked away by beings from another planet. But if they do meet someone from a galaxy far, far away, 44 percent said they expect to be treated as friends, while 26 percent think they'll be treated as enemies.

Note: The wording here can be a little misleading. Stated another way, the above poll shows a full 9 percent said they had contact with aliens or knew someone who had, while 7 percent were either abducted or knew someone who was. Over one quarter had seen or know someone who saw a UFO. These are quite significant numbers. For lots more reliable, verifiable information suggesting a major cover-up on this topic, click here.

It may be difficult for Americans to comprehend the frame of mind of the men who ... started the Central Intelligence Agency's effort to manipulate human behavior. The C.I.A. leaders were certain the Communists had embarked on a campaign to control men's minds and they were determined to find a defense, setting out in earnest the next year1950with Project Bluebird, which evolved into Project Artichoke, then became MK-ULTRA - MK-DELTA. With each code name change, they broadened their sweep, until there remained virtually no avenue of human behavior control they were not exploring. There was an "urgent need," the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies argued, to develop "effective and practical techniques" to "render an individual subservient to an imposed will or control." The C.I.A. men ... acknowledged among themselves that much of what they were setting out to do was "unethical," bordered on the illegal and would be repugnant to the American people. "Precautions must be taken," one agency official wrote in an internal memo, "not only to protect the operation from exposure to enemy forces, but also to conceal these activities from the American public in general." They wanted to be able to get away with murder without leaving a trace. In attempts to develop ways to administer lethal and mind-altering drugs surreptitiously through clothing as thick as a leather jacket, they tried out small spray guns and pencil-like injectors. They studied the writing of the psychologist who worked with Adolf Hitler, wondered about the use of the "occult" and of "black psychiatry."

Note: To see a free copy of this highly revealing New York Times article, click here. For lots more reliable, verifiable information suggesting a major cover-up of government mind control programs, click here.

The National Rifle Association is urging the Bush administration to withdraw its support of a bill that would prohibit suspected terrorists from buying firearms. Backed by the Justice Department, the measure would give the attorney general the discretion to block gun sales, licenses or permits to terror suspects. In a letter this week to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, NRA executive director Chris Cox said the bill, offered last week by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey, "would allow arbitrary denial of Second Amendment rights based on mere 'suspicions' of a terrorist threat." A 2005 study by the Government Accountability Office found that 35 of 44 firearm purchase attempts over a five-month period made by known or suspected terrorists were approved by the federal law enforcement officials. "When I tell people that you can be on a terrorist watch list and still be allowed to buy as many guns as you want, they are shocked," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which supports Lautenberg's bill.

Mankind's second race for the moon has taken on a distinctly Cold War feel, with the Russian space agency accusing its old rival NASA of rejecting a proposal for joint lunar exploration. The charge comes amid suspicion in Moscow that the US is seeking to deny Russia access to an isotope in abundance under the moon's surface that many believe could replace fossil fuels and even end the threat of global warming. A new era of international co-operation in space supposedly dawned after the US, Russia and other powers declared their intention to send humans to the moon for the first time since 1972. But while NASA has lobbied for support from Britain and the European Space Agency, Russia says its offers have been rebuffed. While the Americans have been either coy or dismissive on the subject, Russia openly says the main purpose of its lunar program is the industrial extraction of helium-3. Some scientists say helium-3 could be the answer to the world's energy woes. As helium-3 is non-polluting and effective in tiny quantities, many countries are taking it very seriously. Germany, India and China, which will launch a lunar probe to research extraction techniques in September, are all studying ways to mine the isotope. "Whoever conquers the moon first will be the first to benefit," said Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist of China's lunar program. Many in Moscow's space program believe Washington's agenda is driven by a desire to monopolise helium-3 mining. The plot, says Erik Galimov, of the Russian Academy of Sciences, would "enable the US to establish its control of the energy market 20 years from now and put the rest of the world on its knees as hydrocarbons run out".

In an e-mail uncovered and released by the House Judiciary Committee last month, Tim Griffin, once Karl Rove's right-hand man, gloated that "no [U.S.] national press picked up" a BBC Television story reporting that the Rove team had developed an elaborate scheme to challenge the votes of thousands of African Americans in the 2004 election. Griffin wasn't exactly right. The Los Angeles Times did run a follow-up article. But ... most of the major U.S. newspapers and the vast majority of television news programs ignored the story even though it came at a critical moment just weeks before the election. In fact, not one U.S. newsperson even bothered to ask me or the BBC for the data and research we had painstakingly done. The truth is, I knew that a story like this one would never be reported in my own country [the U.S.], because investigative reporting ... is dying. Again and again, I see this pattern repeated. Back in December 2000, I received two computer disks from the office of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Analysis of the data ... indicated that Harris' office had purged thousands of African Americans from Florida's voter rolls as "felons." Florida now admits that many of these voters were not in fact felons. Nevertheless, the blacklisting helped cost Al Gore the White House. I reported on the phony felon purge in Britain's Guardian and Observer and on the BBC while Gore was still in the race, while the count was still on. Yet the story of the Florida purge never appeared in the U.S. daily papers or on television ... until months later, that is, after the Supreme Court had decided the election.

Note: The American-born author of this article, BBC reporter Greg Palast, has repeatedly exposed major corruption in the British media, yet the U.S. press often ignores his well-researched stories. For possibly the most amazing story he wrote which got virtually no U.S. media coverage, click here.

George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat. [His book] is the first detailed account by a member of the president’s inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war. “There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,” Mr. Tenet writes in a devastating judgment. Nor, he adds, “was there ever a significant discussion” about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion. Mr. Tenet ... makes clear his bitter view that the administration made him a scapegoat for the Iraq war. As violence in Iraq spiraled beginning in late 2003, Mr. Tenet writes, “rather than acknowledge responsibility, the administration’s message was: Don’t blame us. George Tenet and the C.I.A. got us into this mess.” Mr. Tenet takes blame for the flawed 2002 National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq’s weapons programs, calling the episode “one of the lowest moments of my seven-year tenure.” Mr. Tenet largely endorses the view of administration critics that Mr. Cheney and a handful of Pentagon officials, including Paul D. Wolfowitz and Douglas J. Feith, were focused on Iraq as a threat in late 2001 and 2002 even as Mr. Tenet and the C.I.A. concentrated mostly on Al Qaeda. Mr. Tenet has spoken rarely in public, and never so caustically, since stepping down in July 2004.

Note: Was the Iraq war based largely on lies and deception? Now that Hussein is gone and there are no weapons of mass destruction, who is the enemy in Iraq? For the comments of a top U.S. general, click here.

In a letter written Saturday to former CIA Director George Tenet, six former CIA officers described their former boss as "the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community," and called his book "an admission of failed leadership." The letter, signed by Phil Giraldi, Ray McGovern, Larry Johnson, Jim Marcinkowski, Vince Cannistraro and David MacMichael, said Tenet should have resigned in protest rather than take part in the administration's buildup to the war. (Read the full letter) Johnson is a former CIA intelligence official and registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000. Cannistraro is former head of the CIA's counterterrorism division. The writers said ... "your lament that you are a victim in a process you helped direct is self-serving. You were not a victim. You were a willing participant in a poorly considered policy to start an unnecessary war. CIA field operatives produced solid intelligence in September 2002 that stated clearly there was no stockpile of any kind of WMD in Iraq. This intelligence was ignored and later misused." The letter said CIA officers learned later that month Iraq had no contact with Osama bin Laden and that then-President Saddam Hussein considered the al Qaeda leader to be an enemy. Still, Tenet "went before Congress in February 2003 and testified that Iraq did indeed have links to al Qaeda. "You helped set the bar very low for reporting that supported favored White House positions, while raising the bar astronomically high when it came to raw intelligence that did not support the case for war. You betrayed the CIA officers who collected the intelligence. Most importantly and tragically, you failed to meet your obligations to the people of the United States."

As the winds and water of Hurricane Katrina were receding, presidential confidante Karen Hughes sent a cable from her State Department office to U.S. ambassadors worldwide. Titled "Echo-Chamber Message" -- a public relations term for talking points designed to be repeated again and again -- the Sept. 7, 2005, directive was unmistakable: Assure the scores of countries that had pledged or donated aid at the height of the disaster that their largesse had provided Americans "practical help and moral support" and "highlight the concrete benefits hurricane victims are receiving." Eventually the United States ... would fail to collect most of the unprecedented outpouring of international cash assistance for Katrina's victims. Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Overall, the United States declined 54 of 77 recorded aid offers from three of its staunchest allies: Canada, Britain and Israel.

Randall Tobias, head of the Bush administration's foreign aid programs, abruptly resigned Friday after his name surfaced in an investigation into a high-priced call-girl ring. Tobias submitted his resignation a day after he was interviewed by ABC News for an upcoming program about an alleged prostitution service run by the so-called D.C. Madam. Tobias confirmed that he had called the Pamela Martin and Associates escort service to have women come to his condo and give him massages. Tobias, 65, who is married, [claimed] there had been "no sex" during the women's visits to his condo. His name was on a list of clients given to ABC by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who owns the escort service and has been charged with running a prostitution ring in the nation's capital. Tobias held two titles: director of U.S. foreign assistance and administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development. His rank was equivalent to deputy secretary of state. Before joining the administration, Tobias was a director and chairman of Eli Lilly and Co., the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical company. Palfrey recently made good on her threat to identify high-profile clients, listing in court documents a military strategist known for his "shock and awe" combat theories. Palfrey, 50, was indicted in March by a federal grand jury on charges of running the alleged call-girl ring from her home in Vallejo, Calif. Palfrey claimed she has 46 pounds of phone records involving clients [and] threatened to sell phone records that would identify 10,000 clients to pay for her criminal defense, but a federal judge ordered her not to release them. Palfrey, however, gave them to ABC News before the order took effect.

Note: Keep your eyes on this Palfrey case. It could go big. Note also the link to the incredibly powerful pharmaceutical industry. For a Discovery Channel documentary which presents convincing evidence that major prostitution rings reach to the very highest levels of government, click here.

The Senate's No. 2 Democrat says he knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee. "The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it," Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said Wednesday when talking on the Senate floor about the run-up to the Iraq war in 2002. "I was angry about it. [But] frankly, I couldn't do much about it because, in the intelligence committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We can't walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress." Mr. Durbin yesterday said there was no "ethical" way to notify the public of specific misleading information being touted by the Bush administration because it would have required revealing top-secret information being provided to the intelligence committee. Mr. Durbin, whose floor comments were part of the debate before yesterday's passage of an emergency war-funding bill, said he and half the Democrats on the intelligence committee voted against the war over concerns of the White House's "very flimsy case, but it was given to the American people as a proven fact." Congress authorized the 2003 use of armed force against Iraq by votes of 296-133 in the House and 77-23 in the Senate. Five of nine Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence voted for the measure as did all eight Republicans.

Note: Why wasn't this key information reported in other major media? And if it is clear that the public is being blatantly lied to by politicians with hidden agendas, doesn't that justify the breaking of secrecy oaths?

Four years ago on May 1, President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln wearing a flight suit ... in front of a giant "Mission Accomplished" banner. He was hailed by media stars as a "breathtaking" example of presidential leadership in toppling Saddam Hussein. Despite profound questions over the failure to locate weapons of mass destruction and the increasing violence in Baghdad, many in the press confirmed the White House's claim that the war was won. How did the mainstream press get it so wrong? How did the evidence disputing the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the link between Saddam Hussein to 9-11 continue to go largely unreported? In the run-up to war, skepticism was a rarity among journalists inside the Beltway. The [PBS "Buying the War"] program analyzes the stream of unchecked information from administration sources and Iraqi defectors to the mainstream print and broadcast press. While almost all the claims would eventually prove to be false, the drumbeat of misinformation about WMDs went virtually unchallenged by the media. "Buying the War" examines the press coverage in the lead-up to the war as evidence of a paradigm shift in the role of journalists in democracy and asks, four years after the invasion, what's changed? "More and more the media become ... common carriers of administration statements," says the Washington Post's Walter Pincus. "We've sort of given up being independent on our own."

Note: You can view the highly revealing documentary "Buying the War" or read the transcript at the link above.

Sidney Gottlieb, who presided over the Central Intelligence Agency's cold-war efforts to control the human mind and provided the agency poisons to kill Fidel Castro, died on Sunday. He ... spent his later years caring for dying patients ... and fighting lawsuits from survivors of his secret tests. He will always be remembered as the Government chemist who dosed Americans with psychedelics in the name of national security. Mr. Gottlieb joined the C.I.A. in 1951. Two years later, the agency established MKUltra and Mr. Gottlieb was running it. He served two decades as the senior scientist presiding over some of the C.I.A.'s darkest secrets. The first of these were the LSD experiments. Mr. Gottlieb was fascinated by the drug [and] took it hundreds of times. In the 1950's and early 1960's, the agency gave mind-altering drugs to hundreds of unsuspecting Americans in an effort to explore the possibilities of controlling human consciousness. In one case, a mental patient in Kentucky was dosed with LSD continuously for 174 days. Other experiments involved agency employees, military officers and college students. In all, the agency conducted 149 separate mind-control experiments, and as many as 25 involved unwitting subjects. At least one participant died, others went mad, and still others suffered psychological damage after participating in the project, known as MK Ultra. The C.I.A. ... deliberately destroyed most of the MKUltra records in 1973. Mr. Gottlieb was also involved in the C.I.A.'s assassination plots. [He] developed a poison handkerchief to kill an Iraqi colonel, an array of toxic gifts to be delivered to Fidel Castro, and a poison dart to kill a leftist leader in the Congo.

Note: Read more about the CIA's MK-ULTRA program. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on mind control from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Mind Control Information Center.

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.