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By Tom Segev
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By Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco
$25.99
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Wikimedia Commons / Agência Brasil
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Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi’s political rap sheet is already quite appalling, from alleged under-age sexcapades to anti-Semitic jokes. But new allegations by state prosecutors have added another blotch on the billionaire’s bill: He’s accused of buying votes to stay in power.
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AP / Antonio Sierra
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While it may just prove what we already know, WikiLeaks’ gold mine of information has birthed yet another gem. It seems the U.S. is worried about the prospects of Mexico’s fight against its rampant drug trade, describing the army there as “risk averse” and official corruption as widespread.
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White House / Karen Ballard
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Before he was vice president, Dick Cheney ran oil giant Halliburton, a subsidiary of which once dropped $180 million in bribes on Nigerian officials. Now Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency plans to charge Cheney over the affair.
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AP / Susan Walsh
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The health industry spinmaster-turned-whistle-blower says the consumer is funding the industry’s smear campaigns: “A big portion of what we spend or pay in premiums is skimmed off to operate and conduct these fear-mongering and anger-mongering campaigns.”
Posted on Nov 30, 2010
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AP / Susan Walsh
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The health industry spinmaster-turned-whistle-blower says the consumer is funding the industry’s smear campaigns: “A big portion of what we spend or pay in premiums is skimmed off to operate and conduct these fear-mongering and anger-mongering campaigns.”
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By Amy Goodman — Health insurance executives at an industry strategy session on how to respond to Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary “Sicko” thought they may have to implement a plan “to push Moore off a cliff,” says whistle-blower Wendell Potter.
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AP / Jeff Widener
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By Chris Hedges — There is no hope left for achieving significant reform or restoring our democracy through established mechanisms of power. We must take to the streets, armed with the tiny acts of truth and kindness that throughout history have exposed the oppressor’s cruelty.
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Rep. Charles Rangel via Flickr (CC-BY)
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Rep. Charlie Rangel may as well have stuck around for the full hearing. An ethics subcommittee convicted the veteran lawmaker Tuesday of 11 counts of naughty, having to do with fundraising, cheap rent and taxes. Rangel’s colleagues could decide to give him the boot, but he’s likelier to get off with just a reprimand.
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AP
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By Chris Hedges — The country suffers an impoverishment of ideas and analysis at a moment when we desperately need radical voices to make sense of the corporate destruction of the global economy and the ecosystem.
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Flickr / Tracy O (CC-BY-SA)
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Much has been made of the $4 billion spent in the midterm elections, including $140 million of Meg Whitman’s own money, but spending, as Ms. Whitman found out, does not equal victory. Sharron Angle spent more per voter than any other candidate—about $97—and still lost.
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By David Sirota — At the end of this $4 billion We-Didn’t-Start-the-Fire-worthy vaudeville known as the 2010 election, what do we have to show for it?
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By Joe Conason — In New York, there is a traditional name for the kind of anonymous cash now cascading into the American electoral process.
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The Guardian is reporting that some of Europe’s biggest polluters, including everyone’s favorite oil company, have given $240,200 in campaign donations to U.S. senators who, coincidentally, helped defeat climate change legislation.
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Today on the list: How did outside groups manage to spend $3.6 million on one Colorado race in one day? And what the hell happened to Randy Quaid? Plus: The future of books, music and your democracy, after the jump.
Posted on Oct 26, 2010
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — If you travel any place where there is a contested race for the House or Senate, you are bombarded with attack ads, almost all against Democrats, paid for by groups that do not have to reveal where their money comes from.
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By Richard Reeves — What is the most powerful political operation in the country in this 21st century? It’s the United States Supreme Court. The men and women in black are on their way to deciding their second national election in just the first decade of the century.
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U.S. Army / Staff Sgt. Ken Denny
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Remember when President Bush said the U.S. would bring democracy to Afghanistan? Afghan and Western officials have indicated that last month’s elections were so fraudulent that almost 25 percent of all votes cast will be thrown out.
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By Ruth Marcus — Both parties and their allies exploit and stretch campaign finance laws. To expect otherwise is to expect lions not to eat zebras when the opportunity arises.
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AP / Matt York
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By Chris Hedges — The ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes spent his life battling the assault on democracy by tyrants. It is disheartening to be reminded that he lost.
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Flickr / Gregg O'Connell (CC-BY)
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The pro-business and, more often than not, pro-Republican group is spending $10 million on TV ads this week alone, and it doesn’t have to say who is paying for any of it. The ads, part of a reported $75 million campaign to shake up Congress, represent the biggest one-week spending spree by a non-party group, reports AP.
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By Eugene Robinson — How sweet and innocent they seem, these mysterious organizations with names like Americans for Job Security. Who could argue with that? Who wants job insecurity?
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Flickr / d. FUKA
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Chinese authorities are investigating a private company that is accused of taking payments from local officials to imprison and abuse disgruntled constituents. China has a long tradition of oppressed provincials making pilgrimages to seek redress in the capital.
Posted on Sep 27, 2010
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Police have arrested current and former city officials who are accused of pilfering millions from the taxpayers of Bell. The small Los Angeles suburb gained national notoriety as a poster town for bureaucratic corruption, and authorities wasted no time investigating and arresting the alleged nest featherers.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — With Congress coming back this week, there’s a chance to limit the damage the Supreme Court has caused our democracy.
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By Eugene Robinson — Just how corrupt is the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan? It should be clear by now that President Hamid Karzai doesn’t want us to know.
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By Amy Goodman — The massive recall of salmonella-infected eggs, the largest egg recall in U.S. history, opens a window on the power of large corporations over not only our health, but over our government.
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Flickr / Richard Loyal French (CC-BY-ND)
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A 10-year study of the influence business finds that the billions of dollars ($3.5 billion in 2009 alone, according to the Center for Responsive Politics) thrown at elected officials add up to a whole lot of nothing—that is, the influential spend a lot of time, energy and cash stalemating each other and keeping things the way they are.
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By Ruth Marcus — After reading the ethics reports on Reps. Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters, the obvious question is: What is wrong with these people? The tempting answer: They’re members of Congress.
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house.gov
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Rep. Maxine Waters, a stalwart progressive voice in the House for nearly 20 years, is defending herself against charges that she improperly intervened to help bail out a bank with ties to her husband. Waters released a statement denying any wrongdoing, saying she was merely working on behalf of minority banks.
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U.S. Government via nytimes.com
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David H. Brooks did well enough selling body armor to the military to hire 50 Cent and Aerosmith to play at his daughter’s bat mitzvah. He wore a gem- and diamond-encrusted American flag belt buckle, lest his patriotism come under suspicion. Now he’s on trial for allegedly improperly putting millions on his expense account, for fraud and for insider trading.
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You know you have it made when a $550 million settlement with the SEC boosts your stock by $3 billion. Goldman Sachs’ penalty for selling a fancy investment it secretly bet against was about half what was expected, amounting to just 14 days of earnings. You might say they got away with it.
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Flickr / Digital Sextant (CC-BY)
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Four police officers have been indicted on charges related to the fatal shootings that took place on the Danzinger bridge days after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans. Two civilians were killed and four others wounded in the incident. If convicted, the officers could receive the death penalty.
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White House / Pete Souza
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By Chris Hedges — A close reading of the new health care legislation, which will conveniently take effect in 2014 after the next presidential election, is deeply depressing.
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Universidad de la Habana
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Cuba’s Communist Party has reportedly expelled an esteemed intellectual, Esteben Morales, for writing a “bombshell article” accusing senior officials of corruption. Morales was stripped of his membership in the party and has since disappeared from public view.
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U.S. Army / Staff Sgt. Susan Wilt
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The House has decided not to approve some $4 billion in aid to Afghanistan after The Wall Street Journal reported that the country’s notoriously corrupt government has secretly flown billions of dollars in U.S. aid and drug money to “safe havens abroad.”
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By Ruth Marcus — “You don’t have to drink. You just have to pay.” Has there ever been a better summary of how Washington works—and the need for campaign finance reform—than this line from a 2007 e-mail?
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Flickr / mattdente (CC-BY-SA)
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Yasha Levine, who reported for us on tea party diva Michele Bachmann’s hypocritical penchant for federal farm subsidies, tipped us off that the Obama administration and Congress are making it harder to track the millionaires who hit up Uncle Sam for crop cash.
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Iraq Electoral Commission
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The Iraqi electoral commission has upheld the results of the country’s parliamentary election after a partial recount demanded by the incumbent prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, whose coalition finished second in the voting.
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youtube.com
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So, about that whole joining-the-Taliban quip that Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai supposedly made last weekend? Didn’t happen, according to Karzai spokesman Waheed Omar, who had apparently shifted into backpedaling mode on Wednesday.
Posted on Apr 7, 2010
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AP / George Osodi
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By Gbemisola Olujobi — Now, what was the interest of the Saudi authorities in keeping Yar’Adua, the president of a sovereign nation, incommunicado and out of his people’s reach for three months? And if the Saudi authorities had nothing to do with the president being out of reach, who kept him away from his officials and his people?
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U.S. Air Force / Staff Sgt. Jessica J. Wilkes
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Iraq’s recent election was supposed to remove Nouri al-Maliki from power, but the prime minister, sounding rather like a Bond villain, declared “the game is still very much on.” Now a governmental commission created to keep Baathists out of public life says that on the night before the election it banned six candidates who went on to win.
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Flickr / Truthout.org by Troy Page; adapted by Mr. Wright
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President Obama arrived in Kabul on Sunday on a surprise visit to Afghanistan, where he is expected to address U.S. troops as well as put pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to step up the fight against corruption and drug trafficking.
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Want to see how the FDIC works with banks to help them turn a nifty profit on short sales and foreclosures? Check out this video from the folks at Think Big, Work Small in which they detail how it happens.
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Flickr / The Photique
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A hacker using the alias “Neo” has attained almost cult status in Latvia after releasing through Twitter the confidential financial data of allegedly corrupt banks and state-owned companies that profited from the global recession.
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AP / Laura Rauch
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By Max Blumenthal —
Business is booming in Arizona, thanks to a disturbing federal immigration program that transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to a private prison company, parasitic attorneys and other opportunists.
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In this interview, Chris Hedges elaborates on his Truthdig column that says democracy in America is a useful fiction.
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Guantanamo Prisoner’s Case Demonstrates Unfairness of Military Commissions
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