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Revealing News For a Better World

News Articles
Excerpts of Key News Articles in Major Media


Below are key excerpts of little-known, yet highly revealing news articles from the media. Links are provided to the full news articles for verification. If any link fails to function, read this webpage. These articles are listed by order of importance. You can also explore these articles listed by order of the date of the news article or by the date posted. By choosing to educate ourselves, we can build a brighter future.

Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.


Full scale of plastic in the world's oceans revealed for first time
2014-12-10, The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/10/full-scale-plastic-worlds-...

More than five trillion pieces of plastic, collectively weighing nearly 269,000 tonnes, are floating in the world’s oceans, causing damage throughout the food chain, new research has found. Data collected by scientists from the US, France, Chile, Australia and New Zealand suggests a minimum of 5.25tn plastic particles in the oceans, most of them “micro plastics” measuring less than 5mm. The volume of plastic pieces, largely deriving from products such as food and drink packaging and clothing, was calculated from data taken from 24 expeditions over a six-year period to 2013. The research, published in the journal PLOS One, is the first study to look at plastics of all sizes in the world’s oceans. “We saw turtles that ate plastic bags and fish that ingested fishing lines,” said Julia Reisser, a researcher based at the University of Western Australia. “But there are also chemical impacts. When plastic gets into the water it acts like a magnet for oily pollutants. It’s hard to visualise the sheer amount, but the weight of it is more than the entire biomass of humans." The research, the first of its kind to pull together data on floating plastic from around the world, will be used to chart future trends in the amount of debris in the oceans. But researchers predict the volume will increase due to rising production of throwaway plastic, with only 5% of the world’s plastic currently recycled.

Note: Ocean acidification was number one on 2014's top 25 stories subjected to press censorship.


CIA interrogations report sparks prosecution calls
2014-12-10, BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30407950

The UN and human rights groups have called for the prosecution of US officials involved in what a Senate report called the "brutal" CIA interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects. UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism Ben Emmerson said that senior officials from the administration of George W Bush who planned and sanctioned crimes must be prosecuted, as well as CIA and US government officials responsible for torture. "As a matter of international law, the US is legally obliged to bring those responsible to justice," Mr Emmerson said in a statement made from Geneva. Correspondents say that the chances of prosecuting members of the Bush administration are unlikely. Several countries suspected to have hosted [CIA torture] sites reacted strongly to the publication. Poland's former president [Aleksander Kwasniewski] has publicly acknowledged for the first time [that] his country hosted a secret CIA prison. Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius called on the US to say whether CIA used his country to interrogate prisoners. Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani called the report "shocking", saying the actions "violated all accepted norms of human rights in the world".

Note: Read revealing excerpts from this most disturbing report. For more, read how the CIA teamed up with the UK's MI6 to kidnap people and deliver them to be tortured at a Libyan site in 2004. Could this US program have happened without strong international support?


Senate Report Rejects Claim on Hunt for Bin Laden
2014-12-09, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/world/senate-report-raises-doubts-about-cia...

Months before the operation that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, the Central Intelligence Agency secretly prepared a public-relations plan that would stress that information gathered from its disputed interrogation program had played a critical role in the hunt. Starting the day after the raid, agency officials in classified briefings made that point to Congress. But in page after page of previously classified evidence, the Senate Intelligence Committee report on C.I.A. torture, released Tuesday, rejects the notion that torturing detainees contributed to finding Bin Laden. The crucial breakthrough in the hunt was the identification of ... Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. The United States had started wiretapping a phone number associated with Mr. Kuwaiti by late 2001. It was in 2004 that the C.I.A. came to realize that it should focus on finding Mr. Kuwaiti as part of the hunt for Bin Laden. [A man named] Hassan Ghul, who had been captured in Iraqi Kurdistan ... provided “the most accurate” intelligence that the agency produced about Mr. Kuwaiti’s role and ties to Bin Laden. Mr. Ghul provided all the important information about [Mr. Kuwaiti] before he was subjected to any torture techniques. During that [initial] two-day period in January 2004, “He opened up right away and was cooperative from the outset.” Nevertheless, the C.I.A. then decided to torture Mr. Ghul. During and after that treatment, he provided “no actionable threat information.”

Note: Read revealing excerpts from this most disturbing report.


Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance With Attorneys General
2014-12-06, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/us/politics/energy-firms-in-secretive-allia...

Attorneys general in at least a dozen states are working with energy companies and other corporate interests, which in turn are providing them with record amounts of money for their political campaigns, including at least $16 million this year. The Times reported previously how individual attorneys general have shut down investigations, changed policies or agreed to more corporate-friendly settlement terms [for] campaign benefactors. But the attorneys general are also working collectively. Out of public view, corporate representatives and attorneys general are coordinating legal strategy and other efforts to fight federal regulations, according to a review of thousands of emails and court documents and dozens of interviews. Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma [used his post] to help start what he and allies called the Rule of Law campaign. That campaign, in which attorneys general band together to operate like a large national law firm, has been used to back lawsuits and other challenges against the Obama administration on environmental issues, the Affordable Care Act and securities regulation. The most recent target is the president’s executive action on immigration. Coordination between the corporations and teams of attorneys general involved in the Rule of Law effort also involves actual litigation to try to clear roadblocks to energy projects, documents show.

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


The remarkable collapse of our trust in government, in one chart
2014-12-04, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/12/04/the-remarkable-coll...

No one likes -- or trusts -- the government. At this point, that's accepted conventional wisdom. And most people assume it has always been like that. But that lack of trust hasn't always been a part of the American experience -- as this awesome chart from our friends at the Pew Research Center shows. The downward trajectory is stark. The collapse began during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, which, not coincidentally, overlapped with the Vietnam War. The 1970s -- thanks to Vietnam and Watergate -- sped up the loss of faith in the government. And, after a quasi-resurgence during the 1980s, the trend line for the past few decades is quite clear. With the exception of relatively brief spikes that overlap with the first Gulf War and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the number of people who trust the government has been steadily declining; the last time Pew asked the question, in February, just 24 percent said they trust the government "always" or "most of the time". Exit polling from the 2014 midterms makes clear that things haven't improved. That's a tough starting place for any politician. But, if the chart [linked to] above is any indication, it's the new normal.

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


Pledge 1% Program wants to help companies become more charitable
2014-12-02, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Pledge-1-Program-want-to-help-companie...

A campaign launching Tuesday aims to get growing businesses to do what San Francisco’s Salesforce.com did in its infancy 15 years ago: Promise to donate 1 percent of its equity, 1 percent of its employees’ time and 1 percent of the firm’s products to charity. Called the Pledge 1% Program — and led by Salesforce and others — it aims to get 500 other corporations to do the same over the next year. Those who have bought into the idea have seen other benefits. “It’s good for business, too,” said Bradley Heinz, program manager at Optimizely.org. The San Francisco company — which includes several top execs who used to work at Salesforce — is participating in the program. If a younger company can make philanthropy part of its DNA when it is smaller, it will become a way of life as it grows. It is somewhat easier to convince a young firm to volunteer time and offer its product at a deeply discounted rate. San Francisco’s income inequality divide — the fastest-growing in the country — is inspiring other growing companies to look at what they can do to help. Employees at Practice Fusion, a cloud medical records company in San Francisco, decided that they would take $50,000 that would have been used for their holiday gift and give it to the poor. “People were not that into the gifts and schwag,” said Practice Fusion CEO Ryan Howard. “They wanted to give back.”

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Haunting Photos of the Sites of Child Abuse
2014-12-01, Time Magazine
https://time.com/3608071/see-haunting-photos-of-the-sites-of-child-abuse/

In a damning 2009 report, Ireland’s independently-run Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse – which spent nine years investigating thousands of allegations of abuse at religious-run institutions – spoke of a culture of “endemic sexual abuse” in the country’s Catholic boys’ schools and of the “deferential and submissive attitude” of the Irish state towards the religious orders who ran them. What emerged from the investigation, and from a separate Dublin-specific inquiry concluded the same year, was that institutional child abuse was widespread and that it had occurred not only in schools, but in many places where young people were in the care of religious orders. The commissions also revealed that very often when children reported the abuse, they were largely ignored and even punished. The state, too, had willfully turned a blind eye. The very ordinariness of [the abuse] struck photographer Kim Haughton as profoundly disturbing. This was molestation that was at once hidden and woven into the fabric of everyday life. “So much of this happened in places like schools and churches, and in homes,” she tells TIME. And so she embarked on In Plain Sight, a project in which the [actual] sites of these abuses became the subjects of her lens ... places that, when taken at face value, seem unremarkable. “The work, I hope, challenges us to confront these crimes in the context in which they happened,” Haughton adds, “everyday life.”

Note: Read the complete story to see photos from In Plain Sight. Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals also reach to the highest levels of government in the US. And read an abundance of major media news articles showing rampant child sexual abuse at high levels in many prominent organizations.


Ferguson hug between protester and police officer goes viral
2014-11-30, CNN
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/ferguson-hug-between-protester-and-police-office-g...

In the wake of a grand jury decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, Americans have grown accustomed to images of police and protesters in Ferguson, Missouri. One such image is now going viral, but not for the reason one might think. The photo ... shows 12-year-old Devonte Hart and Portland Police Sgt. Bret Barnum embraced in a hug outside of a Ferguson rally on Tuesday. Hart’s mother ... explained that she and Hart went to downtown Portland “with the intention of spreading love and kindness.” Hart brandished a “Free Hugs” sign as he stood alone in front of a police barricade. His mother says he started to get emotional during the rally: “He wonders if someday when he no longer wears a ‘Free Hugs’ sign around his neck, when he’s a full-grown black male, if his life will be in danger for simply being.” That’s when Sgt. Barnum noticed Hart crying and called the boy over to him. Barnum ... asked why he was crying. Hart’s mother says his response was “about his concerns regarding the level of police brutality towards young black kids was met with an unexpected: “Yes. I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Next, Sgt Barnum asked if he could have one of the “Free Hugs” advertised on his sign. Barnum [said] “it’s a blessing for me that I didn’t miss an opportunity to impact this child.” The image has now been shared widely across social media. Hart’s mother called the tearful hug “one of the most emotionally charged experiences I’ve had as a mother.”

Note: Read lots more on this inspiring incident and the challenging background of Devonte Hart. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Denmark Aims for 100 Percent Renewable Energy
2014-11-20, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/science/earth/denmark-aims-for-100-percent-...

Denmark, a tiny country on the northern fringe of Europe, is pursuing the world’s most ambitious policy against climate change. It aims to end the burning of fossil fuels in any form by 2050 — not just in electricity production, as some other countries hope to do, but in transportation as well. Lest anyone consider such a sweeping transition to be impossible in principle, the Danes beg to differ. They essentially invented the modern wind-power industry, and have pursued it more avidly than any country. They are above 40 percent renewable power on their electric grid, aiming toward 50 percent by 2020. The political consensus here to keep pushing is all but unanimous. The trouble, if it can be called that, is that renewable power sources like wind and solar cost nothing to run, once installed. That is potentially a huge benefit in the long run. But [it] can render conventional power plants, operating on gas or coal or uranium, uneconomical to run. Yet those plants are needed to supply backup power for times when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining. So the trick now is to get the market redesign right. If Denmark can figure out a proper design for the electric market, it has another big task to meet its 2050 goal: squeezing the fossil fuels out of transportation.

Note: Denmark is consistently setting world records for wind power, which is now cheaper than fossil fuels there.


The Fed Needs Governors Who Aren’t Wall Street Insiders
2014-11-19, Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/articles/elizabeth-warren-and-joe-manchin-the-fed-needs...

The Federal Reserve's Board of Governors and the New York Fed have been responsible for supervising Wall Street banks. After the 2008 crisis and the regulatory lapses it revealed, Congress gave the Fed even more oversight authority. Two recent reports highlight that the Fed isn’t very good at supervising certain banks. In September, Carmen Segarra, a former bank examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, released secret recordings she had made of meetings at the New York Fed in 2012. The recordings revealed that New York Fed employees had identified concerns with a proposed Goldman Sachs deal. The New York Fed didn’t attempt to make Goldman address these concerns. The recordings also showed Ms. Segarra’s superiors pressuring her to soften her finding that Goldman did not comply with federal regulations on conflicts of interest. An October report from the Fed’s Office of Inspector General provided additional confirmation that the Fed is failing to oversee the big banks. The report found that the New York Fed had failed to examine J.P. Morgan Chase’s Chief Investment Office despite a recommendation to do so in 2009. The report concluded that the New York Fed needed to improve its supervision of the biggest, most complex banks. We’re all counting on the Fed to monitor the big banks and stop them from taking on too much risk, but evidence is mounting that this faith in the Fed is misplaced.

Note: If the above link fails, click here. For more along these lines, see these concise summaries of deeply revealing articles about widespread corruption in government and banking and finance. For additional information, see the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Banking Corruption Information Center.


American Wins International Children's Peace Prize
2014-11-18, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/american-teen-makes-history-wins-international...

Neha Gupta became the first ever American today to be awarded the Children’s International Peace Prize in The Hague, Netherlands. The prize is awarded annually to a child, anywhere in the world, for his or her dedication to children’s rights. Gupta began her astounding work when she was just a child herself, visiting her parents' native India nine years ago. Carrying out a family tradition of celebrating birthdays by delivering gifts to orphans, she was struck by the condition these children were living in. "The place was just really in shambles," Gupta told Saulny. "I didn't want to accept these things. These are things I wanted to fix." She moved to fix them quickly, any way that she could. Back home in Pennsylvania, she made a bold move, deciding to sell all of her toys to raise money for the orphans she had met in India. "We just put it out on our driveway and people came, bought things and it turned out to be such a successful event,” Gupta said. “From that one event we raised $700 and I’ve wanted to keep going.” Gupta kept going, selling crafts door to door and collecting corporate donations in her dad’s SUV. Nine years later, now an 18-year-old college student, she runs Empower Orphans, a global charity that has raised $1.3 million. The organization reaches orphans in the U.S. and abroad, helping to build classrooms, buy books, equip computer labs, pay for health exams, supply water and buy sewing machines to empower other young women to start their own businesses. Despite all of her extraordinary successes, Gupta describes herself as just an ordinary teenager who found her calling early in life. That bit of serendipity has touched the lives of more than 25,000 children so far.

Note: Don't miss an inspiring video on this beautiful woman and the way she is changing the world.


On Media Outlets That Continue to Describe Unknown Drone Victims As “Militants”
2014-11-18, The Intercept
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/18/media-outlets-continue-describe...

It has been more than two years since The New York Times revealed that “Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties” of his drone strikes which “in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants ... unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.” The paper noted that “this counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths,” and even quoted CIA officials as deeply “troubled” by this decision. After the Times article, most large western media outlets continued to describe completely unknown victims of U.S. drone attacks as “militants” — even though they (a) had no idea who those victims were or what they had done and (b) were well-aware by that point that the term had been “re-defined” by the Obama administration. Like the U.S. drone program itself, this deceitful media practice continues unabated. The U.S. government itself —let alone the media outlets calling them “militants”— often has no idea who has been killed by drone strikes in Pakistan. The Intercept previously reported that targeting decisions can even be made on the basis of nothing more than metadata analysis and tracking of SIM cards in mobile phones. Just last month, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism documented that “fewer than 4% of the people killed have been identified by available records as named members of al Qaeda.”

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about military corruption and high level manipulation of mass media from reliable sources.


Waste Water from Oil Fracking Injected into Clean Aquifers
2014-11-14, NBC News (San Francisco Affiliate)
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/Waste-Water-from-Oil-Fracking-Inject...

State officials allowed oil and gas companies to pump nearly three billion gallons of waste water into underground aquifers that could have been used for drinking water or irrigation. Those aquifers are supposed to be off-limits to that kind of activity, protected by the EPA. California’s Department of Conservation’s Chief Deputy Director, Jason Marshall, told NBC Bay Area, “There have been past issues where permits were issued to operators that they shouldn’t be injecting into those zones." In “fracking” or hydraulic fracturing operations, oil and gas companies use massive amounts of water to force the release of underground fossil fuels. The practice produces large amounts of waste water that must then be disposed of. Marshall said that often times, oil and gas companies simply re-inject that waste water back deep underground where the oil extraction took place. But other times, Marshall said, the waste water is re-injected into aquifers closer to the surface. In the State’s letter to the EPA, officials admit that in at least nine waste water injection wells, the waste water was injected into “non-exempt” or clean aquifers. For the EPA, “non-exempt” aquifers are underground bodies of water that are “containing high quality water” that can be used by humans to drink, water animals or irrigate crops. "It should not have been permitted,” said Marshall.

Note: The complete article summarized above includes maps of the Bakersfield, CA wells contaminated by these fracking waste injections. For more along these lines, read this Los Angeles Times article about how fracking poisons drinking water, and see concise summaries of deeply revealing corporate corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Historical abuse inquiry: Police examine 'possible homicide'
2014-11-14, BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-30052726

Police are investigating "possible homicide" linked to what has been described as a paedophile ring involving powerful people in the 1970s and 1980s. The group is alleged to have included senior figures in public life, the military, politics and law enforcement. A key witness who has spoken to police has told the BBC that he was abused for nine years as a boy. The Metropolitan Police said, "At this early stage in this inquiry, with much work still to do, it is not appropriate to issue appeals or reveal more information." Using the name "Nick", the alleged victim said he had given three days of video-taped evidence to detectives. His accounts are being assessed as part of ... a new Scotland Yard investigation. Nick, now in his 40s, says ... the group was "very organised" and would arrange for chauffeur-driven cars to pick up boys, sometimes from school, and drive them to "parties" or "sessions" at locations including hotels and private apartments in London and other cities. "Some of them were quite open about who they were. They had no fear at all of being caught, it didn't cross their mind." Nick said he had one motivation for speaking to the BBC - to encourage other alleged victims or those who unwittingly assisted the abusers to come forward. "People who drove us around could come forward. Staff in some of the locations could come forward. We weren't smuggled in under a blanket through the back door. It was done openly and people must have questioned that and they need to come forward."

Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. And read an abundance of major media news articles showing rampant child sexual abuse at high levels in many prominent organizations.


These 14 Teenage Inventors Built a Glove That Translates Sign Language—and Other Tech Solutions
2014-11-11, Yes! Magazine
http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/these-14-teenage-inventors-made-a-glo...

These 16 individuals under 20 have all invented solutions that have somehow eluded those who can legally drink. Many of these kids were inspired by simple necessity. Others were driven by compassion. Some of them were just doing science fair projects. Eesha Khare: This 18-year-old from Saratoga, California, was still in high school when she invented a battery that can be charged in 20 seconds. It also lasts 10 times as long as a standard battery. Ryan Patterson: The inability to communicate with most hearing people makes life difficult for deaf persons. Knowing this, Colorado-born Ryan invented a glove that translates sign language. It’s simply a golf glove that uses sensors, a radio frequency transmitter, and a microcontroller to interpret hand movements. He was 17. Why didn’t anyone else think of this? Raquel Redshirt: Growing up in New Mexico’s Navajo Nation, Raquel experienced poverty so extreme that her family and neighbors often couldn’t afford electricity, making it near impossible to cook anything. So at 16, she discovered a way to make solar-powered ovens using the simple materials collected around the area. Working with old tires, aluminum foil, shredded paper, and dirt, she made these usually expensive ovens for the people in her community. Have you built any ovens for your neighbors lately?

Note: Why aren't some of these inventions being hailed and promoted widely in the media? Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Ebola Contracts Worth $2 Billion Could Benefit Drugmakers
2014-11-10, Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-10/ebola-contracts-worth-2-billion-coul...

Drugmakers including Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., Johnson & Johnson and Emergent Biosolutions Inc. (EBS) are among companies standing to gain from what may be $2 billion in U.S. contracts related to Ebola. President Barack Obama asked Congress last week for $6.2 billion in emergency funding to stop the spread of the virus that has killed more than 4,800 people in West Africa. The request is heavily focused on health needs as opposed to prior funding that was largely centered on defense contracts, Brian Friel, a Bloomberg Intelligence contracts analyst, said. Friel said he expects multiple drugmakers involved in Ebola will share in what will likely be no-bid contract awards to “make everyone happy.” His $2 billion estimate is based on the percentage of its budget the Department of Health and Human Services spent on contracts last year. Little information is available yet about which companies are getting Ebola-related public funding. Congress has approved $838 million in Ebola money this year, resulting in $77 million in contracts so far. Not all awards have been made public. The U.S. has spent more than $400 million as of Oct. 24.

Note: Read this webpage which lays bare the gross profiteering by pharmaceuticals on pandemics like ebola as reported in the mainstream media.


Navy Plans Electromagnetic War Games Over National Park and Forest in Washington State
2014-11-10, Truthout
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/27339-navy-plans-electromagnetic-war-games...

Olympic National Park and Olympic National Forest in Washington State are ... where the US Navy aims to conduct its Northwest Electromagnetic Radiation Warfare training program. It will fly ... 2,900 training exercises over wilderness, communities and cities across the Olympic Peninsula for 260 days per year, with exercises lasting up to 16 hours per day. No public notices for the Navy's plans were published in any media that directly serve the Olympic Peninsula. But word spread. Public outcry forced the Navy to extend the public comment period until November 28 and schedule more public meetings. According to the US Navy's Information Dominance Roadmap 2013-2028, the Navy states it "will require new capabilities to fully employ integrated information in warfare by expanding the use of advanced electronic warfare." The purpose of these war games is to train to deny the enemy "all possible frequencies of electromagnetic radiation (i.e. electromagnetic energy) for use in such applications as communication systems..." David King, the mayor of Port Townsend, a town on the Northeast corner of the Olympic Peninsula, has voiced his opposition to the plan, along with numerous other public officials. Mike Welding, the Naval Air Station at Whidbey Island spokesman, recently admitted to reporters, "If someone is in the exclusion area for more than 15 minutes, that's a ballpark estimate for when there would be some concern for potential to injure, to receive burns."

Note: We don't generally use truth-out.org as a reliable source, but as no major media are covering this most important development, we're including this article here. To verify this information, please click on some of the links in the article and see the U.S. Navy's "Information Dominance Roadmap".


Three Ways Courts Screw the Innocent Into Pleading Guilty
2014-11-07, The Intercept
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/07/how-the-innocent-get-screwed

(senior federal district judge) Jed A. Rakoff’s essay in The New York Review of Books ... tries to explain why innocent people so often plead guilty. At least 20,000 people have pled guilty to and gone to jail for felonies they did not commit — if you very conservatively take criminologists’ lowest estimates, and cut them in half. Rakoff identifies three ways the criminal justice system obstructs its own “truth seeking mechanism,” a trial by jury: 1. By embracing the increasingly popular plea bargain. 97 percent of federal trials were resolved last year through plea bargain. Plea bargains ... are weighted largely in favor of the prosecutor. The notion that a plea bargain is a contractual mediation between two relatively equal parties, Rakoff argues, “is a total myth”. 2. Through mandatory minimum sentences. The combination of mandatory sentences and prosecutorial discretion forces the defendant [to] run the risk of losing the case and serve the maximum sentence or take a reduced charge, at a reduced sentence, even when innocent. 3. Via the unfettered rise of prosecutorial power. Prosecutors have far more power ... than any other party involved in the criminal justice system. The one mechanism that could check their power is the jury trial, which is becoming “virtually extinct” in federal court, Rakoff writes. One possible solution to all these problems — aside from repealing mandatory minimum sentences and generally reducing the severity of sentences — is greater judicial oversight.

Note: For more along these lines, see these concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption and civil liberties news articles from reliable sources.


Dark money looms large in 2014 midterms
2014-11-07, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/diaz/article/Dark-money-looms-large-in-2014-mid...

The most disturbing trend in the financing of American political campaigns is not the magnitude of the money being spent. It’s that more and more of that money is not going through the campaigns themselves — where donations must be disclosed and limited — but from nonprofit groups that are being set up for the express purpose of frustrating any attempt to identify their funders. This infusion of “dark money” all but obliterates the post-Watergate notion that Americans have a right to know who is behind ... candidates. In this new world order, various players are operating under different sets of rules — and some seem to be creating their own, aware that this Supreme Court seems disinclined to stop them. We know, for example, that billionaire investor Tom Steyer spent $74 million on behalf of Democratic candidates who were committed to doing something about climate change. There is no exact figure on how much was spent at the other end of the spectrum by the Koch brothers, the conservative oil barons who funnel much of their donations through nonprofits that are not required to list their funding sources under the tax code. A memo by the Koch brothers’ main political arm, leaked to Politico in May, forecast a budget of $125 million in this election. Such obfuscation is becoming more commonplace. The average voter is left without knowing who really is behind these campaigns. But make no mistake: Our elected officials are well aware of their benefactors and their expectations.

Note: For more along these lines, see these summaries of deeply revealing election news articles from reliable sources.


Army Slow to Investigate War Gear Missing in Afghanistan
2014-11-06, Bloomberg
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-11-04/army-slow-to-investigate-war-gear...

The U.S. Army has been slow to investigate hundreds of millions of dollars in missing weapons systems, vehicles, electronics and communications gear in Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon’s inspector general. The Army field support brigade in Afghanistan responsible for managing gear being shipped out of the country failed to report “in a timely manner” 15,600 pieces of unaccounted gear valued at as much as $419.5 million, according to a report labelled “For Official Use Only” that reviewed major lost-property reports from fiscal 2013. Some of the missing gear eventually may turn up as the U.S. completes the bulk of its withdrawal, Army officials said in a response to the inspector general. Yet with the closing of 309 bases since 2010, “only a fraction of the items” from previous reviews of unaccounted property has been recovered, according to the audit dated Oct. 30. “Due to the significant delays in reporting inventory losses” the Army’s Rock Island, Illinois-based Sustainment Command, which oversees the effort, “does not have accurate accountability and visibility of its property," said Michael Roark, assistant inspector general for contract management, who signed the report. “There is a risk that missing property will not be recovered” and “no one was held financially responsible for the property losses or accountable for missing reporting deadlines,” the report found. The audit disclosed ... 133,557 lost items valued at $238.4 million.

Note: Do you really think this equipment was just lost? Would the military just leave expensive and sensitive equipment carelessly? Could it be that it is meant to fall into enemy hands in order to keep the war machine pumping its huge profits into the pockets of certain elite groups? For more along these lines, see these concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable sources.


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