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.

I get this a lot: Hey Mark ... why don't you quit toeing the typical blasé journalism line ... and instead write about the real truths? Like for example how both Kerry and Bush are members of mega-yuppie Yale secret society/boys' club Skull & Bones. And why, furthermore, don't you talk about the real truths of 9/11? Haven't you seen that amazing [9/11] video on that Web site? And what about Building 7? Why did that 47-story tower adjacent to the WTC collapse when it had no fire and no plane crash? Why isn't the media reporting any of this? Does this make you laugh? Scoff? It is, after all, incredibly easy to dismiss conspiracy theories. But you know what? It's not that easy. These people ... have a point. They are indeed onto something quite large and ominous and it very much has to do with the media toeing the line of "safe" information. There is indeed ample evidence that the U.S. government, long before 9/11, had already discussed the quite plausible possibilities and strategic benefits of unleashing a "Pearl Harbor"-type event on America. There are plenty of strangely unanswered questions about 9/11, about the stunning inaction of NORAD and Bush's stupefying nonreaction upon hearing of the attack, not to mention his administration's incredible attempts to halt any independent 9/11 investigations. Of course, no one in any major media will touch this stuff. It is professional suicide to dare suggest an alternate truth to the one supplied by the Pentagon and regurgitated by the media. And the truth is, we don't really want such unstable questions answered. We simply cannot tolerate to have our world, our leaders, our foundations so questioned. We prefer stasis to growth, security to true knowledge.

No one foresaw ... the shocking extent to which the internet would change the terms of trade between corporations and society. One of the world's largest drug companies [was] the first victim. Britain's GlaxoSmithKline, the world's second-largest pharma, denied any wrongdoing, but agreed to pay $2.5m ... for concealing evidence of its antidepressant Seroxat's potential for harming children, while doing them no measurable good. Infinitely more frightening ... this pharma had the backing of institutions that we, the public, rely on to protect us from poisoning by prescription. The Royal College of Psychiatrists had insisted only a year earlier that 'there is no evidence that antidepressant drugs can cause dependence syndromes'. It was really the internet that allowed public health activists to do an end run around GSK's and the medical authorities' denials of the drug's risks. An explosion of websites dedicated to vivid accounts of antidepressant reactions told these campaigners about hundreds of thousands affected by a problem that officially did not exist. Health activists in Britain and America have uncovered the core of pharma might. In both countries, clinical drug tests are paid for by the pharmas, who tweak the trials' design for the best possible results. Until recently, only the most favourable findings got published in the 20,000-odd biomedical journals, many of them dependent on pharmas for funding. The drugs are approved for marketing by regulators, whose salaries are mostly financed by the subjects of their evaluations. The medicines are then prescribed by doctors routinely courted with pharma gifts ... meant to persuade them to change their prescribing habits.

Note: For a two-page summary with lots more reliable information on major health cover-ups by a doctor who was editor-in-chief of one of the most pretigious medical journals in the world, click here.

The Carlyle Group [is] an investment house famous as one of the most well-connected companies anywhere. Former president George H.W. Bush is a Carlyle adviser. Former British prime minister John Major heads its European arm. Former secretary of state James Baker is senior counselor, former White House budget chief Richard Darman is a partner, former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt is senior adviser -- the list goes on. Those associations have brought Carlyle enormous success. The Washington-based merchant bank controls nearly $14 billion in investments, making it the largest private equity manager in the world. It buys and sells whole companies the way some firms trade shares of stock. But the connections also have cost Carlyle. It has developed a reputation as the CIA of the business world -- omnipresent, powerful, a little sinister. Media outlets from the Village Voice to BusinessWeek have depicted Carlyle as manipulating the levers of government from shadowy back rooms. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) even suggested that Carlyle's and Bush's ties to the Middle East made them somehow complicitous in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. It didn't help that as the World Trade Center burned on Sept. 11, 2001, the news interrupted a Carlyle business conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel here attended by a brother of Osama bin Laden. Former president Bush, a fellow investor, had been with him at the conference the previous day. Bush['s] primary function is to give speeches for Carlyle that attract wealthy foreigners in places where the former president is especially revered, such as Asia. The company has rewarded its faithful with a 36 percent average annual rate of return.

Note: If the above link fails, click here. To understand the amazingly powerful role of this low-profile, yet extremely wealthy and influential group, click here to view free a 48-minute documentary shown on Dutch national TV which clearly depicts the depths of corruption and deceit at the highest levels of government. You will be thankful that you watched this highly educational film.

It is shocking: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. "It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me. [The] release of the report, which represents an exhaustive 17-month investigation by an 11-member team within the agency, has been "stalled." First by acting CIA Director John McLaughlin and now by Porter J. Goss, the former Republican House member (and chairman of the Intelligence Committee) who recently was appointed CIA chief. The official stressed that the report was more blunt and more specific than the earlier bipartisan reports produced by the Bush-appointed Sept. 11 commission and Congress. "The report found very senior-level officials responsible." By law, the only legitimate reason the CIA director has for holding back such a report is national security. None of this should surprise us given the Bush administration's great determination since 9/11 to resist any serious investigation. The president fought against the creation of the Sept. 11 commission, for example, agreeing only after enormous political pressure was applied by a grass-roots movement led by the families of those slain. And then Bush refused to testify to the commission under oath. Instead he deigned only to chat with the commission members, with Vice President Dick Cheney present, in a White House meeting in which commission members were not allowed to take notes.

Note: If the above link fails, click here. For other reliable information on the 9/11 cover-up, click here.

What [Israeli historian Gad] Kroizer had discovered and later footnoted in an academic paper ... was the location of an ultrasecret jail where Israel has held Arabs in total seclusion for years, barred visits by the Red Cross and allegedly tortured inmates. Known as 1391, the facility is used as an interrogation center by a storied unit of Israel's military intelligence, whose members-all Arabic speakers-are trained to wring confessions from the toughest militants. Some of the methods are reminiscent of Abu Ghraib: nudity as a humiliation tactic, compromising photographs, sleep deprivation. In a few cases, at least, interrogators at 1391 appear to have gone beyond Israel's own hair-splitting distinction between torture and what a state commission referred to in 1987 as "moderate physical pressure." But the nightmare for those in 1391 is the isolation and the fear that no one knows where you are. The location of the compound is so hush-hush that a court this year banned a visit by an Israeli legislator. Prisoners describe being hooded everywhere at the facility except in their cells. Hassan Rawajbeh ... a member of the nearly disbanded Palestinian Preventive Security force ... was picked up by soldiers in Nablus 18 months ago. He was hooded, handcuffed and thrown on the floor of a van. When the hood was removed, he was in a tiny, windowless cell. The chamber contained no toilet, only a bucket in the corner, which ... his jailers would empty once every few weeks. A low buzzing droned constantly. For nearly four months, Rawajbeh saw no one but his interrogators, who kept him naked for days at a time and prevented him from going to the bathroom.

The FBI has shut down some 20 sites which were part of an alternative media network known as Indymedia. A US court order forced the firm hosting the material to hand over two servers in the UK used by the group. Indymedia says it is a news source for the anti-globalisation movement and other social justice issues. The reasons behind the seizure are unclear but the FBI has reportedly said the action was taken at the request of Italian and Swiss authorities. The servers affected were run by Rackspace, a US web hosting company with offices in London. It said it had received a court order from the US authorities last Thursday to hand over the computer equipment at its UK hosting facility. The reasons behind the action against the Indymedia websites are unclear. The group said the servers affected had hosted the sites of more then 20 local collectives and audio streams for several radio stations, as well as several other projects. The seizure has sparked off protests from journalist groups. "The constitution does not permit the government unilaterally to cut off the speech of an independent media outlet, especially without providing a reason or even allowing Indymedia the information necessary to contest the seizure," said EFF [Electronic Frontier Foundation] Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl.

Note: This important news was not covered by any major U.S. media. Why? Is it a coincidence that these websites were taken down shortly after they started promoting a video clip showing President Bush may have been using an electronic hearing aid during the presidential election debates with John Kerry? Website founder Fred Burks had personal experience suggesting Bush may have used electronic feeds in high-level meetings while Burks worked as a language interpreter for him. For more, click here.

Darren Williams spent four weeks this summer making a short but startling video that raises novel questions about the 2001 attack. The video, "9/11: Pentagon Strike," suggests that it was not American Airlines Flight 77 that slammed into the Pentagon, but a missile or a small plane. The video offers flashes of photographs taken shortly after impact, interspersed with witness accounts. The pictures seem incompatible with damage caused by a jumbo jet. Firefighters stand outside a perfectly round hole in a Pentagon wall where the Boeing 757 punched through; it is less than 20 feet in diameter. Propelled by word of mouth, Internet search engines and e-mail, the video has been downloaded by millions of people around the world. Williams created a Web site for the video, www.pentagonstrike.co.uk. Then he e-mailed a copy to Laura Knight-Jadczyk [who] posted a link to the video on the group's Web site, www.Cassiopaea.org. Within 36 hours, Williams's site collapsed under the crush of tens of thousands of visitors. But there were others to fill the void. In Texas, a former casino worker who downloaded the video began drawing almost 700,000 visitors a day. In Louisiana, a young Navy specialist put the video on his personal Web page. Suddenly, the site was inundated by more than 20,000 hits. "Pentagon Strike" is just the latest and flashiest example of a growing number of Web sites, books and videos contending that something other than a commercial airliner hit the Pentagon. Knight-Jadczyk said she never imagined anyone outside her group would ever view "Pentagon Strike." "The fact everybody's been sending it to his brother and his cousin ... reflects the fact that there is a deep unease," she said.

Note: This five-minute video is well worth watching, even though it was made a few years ago. To view it free online, click here. For lots more information suggesting a major 9/11 cover-up, click here.

Is the Bush White House trying to put the brakes on the congressional panel created last fall to investigate 9-11 attacks? The White House brushed off a request quietly made last week by the 9-11 Commission Chairman Tom Kean, the Republican former governor of New Jersey, to boost his budget by $11 million. The panel has until the end of May 2004 to complete its work, but it will spend the $3 million it was originally allotted by around August 2003 — if it doesn't get the supplement. Bush's recent move has miffed some members of the 9-11 panel. Kean and former congressman Lee Hamilton, the panel's top Democrat, requested additional funding in a letter to the administration last week. In denying the request, the White House irritated many of the members of the commission. The White House sidestepped the issue of why the request wasn't granted. The latest effort to curtail funding has angered victims of the attacks. Stephen Push, a leader of the 9/11 victims' families, who are closely monitoring the commission, said the White House decision was another in a long line of efforts to water down or shrink the panel's role. Commission member Tim Roemer ... has gone so far as to draw comparisons with the $50 million provided to investigate the recent Columbia tragedy in which seven people died. "If we're looking at well over $11 million for that, we certainly should be looking for at least the same vicinity of money for how 3,000 people died and how to strengthen our homeland security," he said.

Note: MSNBC reported that "the Ken Starr investigation of Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky cost the tax-payer $64 million." The Columbia tragedy invstigation ran $50 million. Yet the White House wanted to limit the investigation of the worst terror attack ever to $3 million. What secrets are they hiding? Click here for more.

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be "enemy combatants" has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace. Ashcroft's plan, disclosed last week but little publicized, would allow him to order the indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens and summarily strip them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts by declaring them enemy combatants. Ashcroft hopes to use his self-made "enemy combatant" stamp for any citizen whom he deems to be part of a wider terrorist conspiracy. Aides have indicated that a "high-level committee" will recommend which citizens are to be stripped of their constitutional rights and sent to Ashcroft's new camps. Few would have imagined any attorney general seeking to reestablish such camps for citizens. We have learned from painful experience that unchecked authority, once tasted, easily becomes insatiable. We are only now getting a full vision of Ashcroft's America. Ashcroft seems to dream of a country secured from itself, neatly contained and controlled by his judgment of loyalty. For more than 200 years, security and liberty have been viewed as coexistent values. Ashcroft and his aides appear to view this relationship as lineal, where security must precede liberty. Every generation has its test of principle in which people of good faith can no longer remain silent in the face of authoritarian ambition. If we cannot join together to fight the abomination of American camps, we have already lost what we are defending.

Note: If the above link fails, click here. This aritcle was written by Jonathan Turley, a professor of constitutional law at George Washington University. Though Ashcroft resigned, the laws he crafted remain in place.

”Once you get to a certain height, you are no longer in the range of the cellular network, because cell phone towers aren't built to project their signals that high.”

Washington Post, 12/9/04

“Today's vote by the FCC is intended to address whether technology has improved to the extent that cell phone calls now are possible above 10,000 feet -- they weren't in the past.”

San Francisco Chronicle, 12/15/04

"With television cameramen hovering, Qualcomm chief executive Irwin Jacobs sat in the front row of coach and made one of the first legal cell phone calls from a commercial jetliner. Jacobs pronounced the [brand new] technology behind the airborne phone call a success, although adding that it will be improved over the next couple years. Connections from the plane were generally good, although some calls were dropped."

USA Today/Associated Press, 7/16/04

Note: To find articles showing multiple cell phone use on Sept. 11, 2001, type "9/11" and "cell phone calls" into your favorite search engine, or click here for a Washington Post report on an alleged 30-minute uninterrupted cell phone call from Flight 93. Click here for a CNN report on another call from that flight. Tests have shown it is not possible to have an extended cell phone conversation above 10,000 feet.

Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., charged Friday that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) have covered up "catastrophic failures" that left the nation vulnerable during the Sept. 11 hijackings. "For almost three years now, NORAD officials and FAA officials have been able to hide their critical failures that left this country defenseless during two of the worst hours in our history," Dayton declared during a Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearing. Dayton told leaders of the Sept. 11 commission, that, based on the commission's report, a NORAD chronology ... said the FAA notified the military's emergency air command of three of the hijackings while those jetliners were still airborne. Dayton cited commission findings that the FAA failed to inform NORAD about three of the planes until after they had crashed. Dayton said NORAD officials "lied to the American people, they lied to Congress and they lied to your 9/11 commission to create a false impression of competence, communication and protection of the American people." He [said] if the commission's report is correct, President Bush "should fire whoever at FAA, at NORAD ... betrayed their public trust by not telling us the truth." Dayton argued that if the FAA had promptly sent a systemwide message about the hijackings, the pilot of the fourth plane seized, United Airlines Flight 93, might have been able to secure the cockpit doors and land the plane. Dayton said NORAD also falsely claimed that during the hijackings, it had F-16 Combat Air Patrol planes in place at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia and an AWAC command ship in the air to protect the nation's capital.

Note: Click here to visit the Internet archive, where you will see this article was removed not long after it was published. No other major media reported this vital news. To see the original, click here or here.

Your commission ... has now issued its "9/11 Commission Report". After [9/11] we, the translators at the FBI's largest and most important translation unit, were told to slow down, even stop, translation of critical information related to terrorist activities. This issue has been confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Melek Can Dickerson, with the assistance of her direct supervisor, forged signatures on top-secret documents related to certain 9/11 detainees. Not only does the supervisor facilitating these criminal conducts remain in a supervisory position, he has been promoted. In April 2001, a long-term FBI informant/asset ... received information that: 1) Osama Bin Laden was planning a major terrorist attack in the United States targeting 4-5 major cities, 2) the attack was going to involve airplanes [and] the attack was going to be carried out soon. No action was taken. After 9/11, the agents and the translators were told to 'keep quiet' regarding this issue. The translator who was present ... reported this incident to Director Mueller in writing. Why did your report choose to exclude the information ... despite the public confirmation by the FBI, witnesses provided to your investigators, and briefings you received directly? As you are fully aware, these issues and incidents were found confirmed by a Senior Republican Senator, Charles Grassley, and a Senior Democrat Senator, Patrick Leahy. Even FBI officials 'confirmed all my allegations and denied none' during their unclassified meetings with the Senate Judiciary staff. However, neither your commission's hearings, nor your commission's five hundred sixty seven-page report ... include these serious issues, major incidents, and systemic problems.

Note: If the above link fails, click here. Sibel Edmonds is one of the great heroes of our day. She has been gagged directly by the U.S. Attorney General from telling what she knows. The above letter was not published in any major U.S. media, though widely reported in alternative new sources. To understand how such vital information is hidden from the public, click here. For lots more on Ms. Edmonds, click here.

Emergency operations officials in Allegheny County and Pittsburgh hadn't trained for what happened Sept. 11. "Never in our wildest dreams did it ever come to the table that they would be using passenger aircraft as missiles," said Bob Full, chief of emergency operations for Allegheny County. It is clear from 911 tapes that local officials had less than 15 minutes' warning that the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 was in Pittsburgh airspace before the plane crashed at 10:06 a.m. in Somerset County, killing all 44 people aboard. Full learned about the errant plane at 9:53 a.m. That's when he got a call alerting him that the control tower at Pittsburgh International Airport had been evacuated. Thirteen minutes earlier, he had talked to an airport official who had no indication of any threat. Between those two conversations, the Pittsburgh tower had received a call from the Cleveland air traffic control tower, saying a plane was heading toward Pittsburgh and refusing to communicate with controllers. The FAA ordered the Pittsburgh control tower evacuated at 9:49 a.m.

Note: Why on Earth would they have evacuated the control tower from which they could best monitor what was going on with errant Flight 93? Could it be someone didn't want traffic control to see what was really going on? For lots more, click here and here.

The US wants to depose the diplomat who could take away its pretext for war with Iraq. On Sunday, the US government will launch an international coup. It has been planned for a month. It will be executed quietly, and most of us won't know what is happening until it's too late. It is seeking to overthrow 60 years of multilateralism in favour of a global regime built on force. The coup begins with its attempt ... to unseat the man in charge of ridding the world of chemical weapons. If it succeeds, this will be the first time that the head of a multilateral agency will have been deposed in this manner. The coup will also shut down the peaceful options for dealing with the chemical weapons Iraq may possess, helping to ensure that war then becomes the only means of destroying them. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) enforces the chemical weapons convention. Its director-general is a workaholic Brazilian diplomat called Jose Bustani. He has, arguably, done more in the past five years to promote world peace than anyone else on earth. His inspectors have overseen the destruction of 2 million chemical weapons and two-thirds of the world's chemical weapon facilities. In May 2000, as a tribute to his extraordinary record, Bustani was re-elected unanimously by the member states for a second five-year term. Last year Colin Powell wrote to him to thank him for his "very impressive" work. But now everything has changed. [But now] the man celebrated for his achievements has been denounced as an enemy of the people. In January, with no prior warning or explanation, the US state department asked the Brazilian government to recall him.

Note: The "coup" was successful. The New York Times, though reporting few of the details above, stated six days after the above article, "José M. Bustani ... was voted out of office today after refusing repeated demands by the United States that he step down because of his 'management style.'" For why this highly revealing story received no media coverage in the U.S., click here. For a top U.S. general's comments, click here.

Consumer advocates and others have complained bitterly in recent years that the Food and Drug Administration has veered from its scientific roots. Later this week, the agency is expected to release a formal recommendation that milk and meat from cloned animals should be allowed on grocery store shelves. The long-awaited decision comes as polling data to be released this week show that the public continues to have little appetite for such food, with many people saying the FDA should keep it off the market. That raises the issue: Should decisions such as this one be based solely on science, or should officials take into account public sensitivities, which may be unscientific but are undeniably real? "There is more to this issue than just food safety," said Susan Ruland of the International Dairy Foods Association, which represents such major companies as Kraft Foods and Dannon. The organization's member companies are concerned that sales of U.S. dairy products could drop by 15 percent or more if the FDA allows the sale of meat and milk from clones. Relatively few cloned farm animals exist; there are an estimated 150 clones out of the nation's 9 million dairy cows. But biotechnology companies are gearing up to clone farmers' tastiest cattle and pigs and most productive dairy cows. In the University of Maryland survey, nearly half of those polled asserted that it was not yet possible to clone farm animals for food. For the most part, people don't know this is a reality yet.

A two-year congressional inquiry into the Oklahoma City bombing concludes that the FBI didn't fully investigate whether other suspects may have helped Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols with the deadly 1995 attack, allowing questions to linger a decade later. The House International Relations investigative subcommittee [declared that] there is no conclusive evidence of a foreign connection to the attack, but that far too many unanswered questions remain. The report also sharply criticizes the FBI for failing to be curious enough to pursue credible information that foreign or U.S. citizens may have had contact with Nichols or McVeigh and could have assisted their plot. "We did our best with limited resources, and I think we moved the understanding of this issue forward a couple of notches even though important questions remain unanswered," Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., the subcommittee chairman, said in an interview with The Associated Press. Rohrabacher's subcommittee saved its sharpest words for the Justice Department, saying officials there exhibited a mindset of thwarting congressional oversight and did not assist the investigation fully.

Note: Should you choose to explore the deadly Oklahoma City bombing, you will find that there are many strange inconsistencies suggesting a major cover-up. If you are interested in more, you might start here.

What's good for Beirut is not good for Gaza, according to Washington's playbook. And that discrepancy undermines the credibility of U.S. claims to be promoting democracy in the region. In Lebanon as in Gaza, democratically elected governments are being challenged by political opponents demanding fresh elections — and in each place, the standoff threatens to spark a civil war. Yet, the response of the U.S. and Britain to each crisis has been so different as to provoke accusations of double-standards and questions about the West's commitment to democracy in the Arab world. Despite Hamas's democratic victory at the polls in January, the West has imposed a blockade on financial aid to the Palestinian Authority because Hamas refuses to recognize Israel. This apparent double-standard in the West's stances on Lebanon and on Gaza has not gone unnoticed by Arab commentators. "How could the U.S. support the democratically elected government in Lebanon and do just the opposite in Palestine?" asked Talal Salman, the publisher of Lebanon's As-Safir newspaper. Promoting democracy in the Arab world has ostensibly been a cornerstone of Bush Administration policy. [Yet] the focus of the democratization drive has always been on Washington's regional enemies — Iraq, Iran and Syria — rather than on autocratic friends. So, while the Bush Administration continues ... talk of promoting democracy in the Middle East, many in the Arab world have a jaundiced view of Washington's intentions: Democracy, yes, but only when the outcome serves the interests of the U.S.

A former National Security Council official said Monday that the White House tried to silence his criticism of its Middle East policies by ordering the CIA to censor an op-ed column he wrote. Flynt Leverett, a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, or NSC, and a former CIA analyst, said the White House told a CIA censor board to excise parts of a 1,000-word commentary on U.S. policy toward Iran that he had offered to the New York Times. He said the agency's action "was fabricated to silence an established critic of the administration's foreign policy incompetence at a moment when the White House is working hard to fend off political pressure to take a different approach." Leverett said there were two key paragraphs that the CIA board wanted to cut. The first was about U.S. cooperation with Iran concerning Afghanistan about the time of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. The second dealt with an offer by Iran to the United States in early 2003 to discuss the possibility of a "grand bargain" that would settle several disputes between the two countries. He said both episodes had been publicly discussed by former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his former deputy, Richard L. Armitage. "There is no basis for claiming that these issues are classified and not already in the public domain," he said. Like other former CIA employees, he is required to submit manuscripts for articles, books and speeches to the agency for review.

Note: For a clip of Mr. Leverett talking about this on video, click here.

A dozen Army and Marine recruiters who visited high schools were among the personnel caught in a major FBI cocaine investigation, and some were allowed to keep working while under suspicion. The recruiters, who worked in the Tucson area, were targets of a federal sting called Operation Lively Green, which ran from 2001 to 2004 and was revealed last year. So far, 69 members of the military, prison guards, law enforcement employees and other public employees have been convicted of accepting bribes to help smuggle cocaine. The FBI allowed many recruiters to stay on the job even though they were targeted by the investigation. Some were still recruiting three years after they were photographed running drugs in uniform. Most of the recruiters pleaded guilty and will be sentenced in March. Some honorably retired from the military.

Note: For a description of serious government involvement in major drug trafficking by a former top DEA agent, click here. Immediately following is a similar story by a Pulitzer-winning journalist.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get you ... something fun for Christmas. Conspiracy Culture, at 1696 Queen St. W., offers unique "niche" shopping. "Anything conspiratorial is what's hot. People are just kind of trying to get in touch with alternative opinions and theories," said co-owner Patrick Whyte. The hot ticket for Yuletide is Terrorstorm on DVD, ($17.99) "a history of government-sponsored terrorism" that focuses on Britain and the U.S., Whyte said, adding the film's director, Alex Jones, was stopped by Canada Customs when he came to investigate a Bilderberg meeting last June. The Bilderberg Group is a shadowy elite organization (and even the non-paranoid concede this much) that holds annual invitation-only meetings of business and political leaders. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was purportedly photographed leaving one event a few years ago and likely attended last June's Ottawa meeting, although nobody is saying anything — which makes Bilderberg so conspiracy-worthy.

Note: For lots more on the highly secretive, elite Bilderberg Group, click here. To watch the Terrorstorm video free online at Google Video, click here. The first hour of Terrorstorm is absolutely awesome! It's one of the best compilations we've seen. Sadly, after the first hour it goes fairly rapidly downhill, but don't miss the first hour of it!

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.