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CORRUPTION UPDATES 41 March 15th to March 21st, 2007 The CORRUPTION UPDATES reviews corruption in the news. News Stories from California, the Nation and the World are abstracted below, and followed by commentary and references. |
CORRUPTION UPDATES 41
Previous Corruption Updates: Page 40
Next Corruption Updates: Page 42
1) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE: BEE, 3-16-07
Study: Schools need billions
40 percent funding hike required to boost student achievement, report says.
By Clea Benson - Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDT Friday, March 16, 2007
http://www.sacbee.com/111/v-print/story/138946.html
The state's schools need at least 40 percent more money than they are currently getting to boost student achievement to acceptable levels, according to a report released Thursday.
That would amount to an additional $25 billion a year on top of the more than $54 billion that currently goes to schools.
...despite the findings, both Republicans and Democrats said they weren't about to suddenly and dramatically increase spending on schools.
"This is a conversational opportunity for us to think very carefully about how we move forward," said Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, a Democrat from Los Angeles.
(ARNIE): "Today's studies show that no amount of money will improve our schools without needed education reform," he said.
The Legislature's nonpartisan budget adviser has predicted that as the state's revenues increase naturally over the next five years, there will be about $6 billion in new money available for discretionary spending on education.
A second report released Thursday, by Jennifer Imazeki of San Diego State University, gave a different estimate of how much it would take to adequately fund schools: an additional $1.7 billion to $1.5 trillion.
The researchers who released the reports said that estimate "should not be considered reliable," because the economic model used in the calculations did not work.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS IN A DEATH SPRIAL
After decades of underfunding and massive, unfunded, increases in enrollment, California's schools are incapable of educating our children.
This is a decision we have made, but will not admit. Thirty five years ago, our national and state leaders decided cheap labor was more important than paying the wages and taxes to support our middle-class.
Dems and Repubs both agree that spending money on schools is not in the books: Thieves do not voluntary give back what they have stolen.
I suggest an alien tax. Many groups like to crow about how much money illegals, and the semi-legals, make for business. Let's figure out just how much money business has stolen from American Workers, and their schools, using illegal labor, add the figures together, and charge them for the services provided and the wages lost.
I suggest a policy innovation. Since we don't know how many illegal, foreign kids are going to show up at our schools every year, we must do an annual poll, determine the number, and charge the business community for the expenses they are incurring.
The same thing would work at the hospitals, prisons, and social services.
The hidden costs of our business community's labor policy are coming due, and nobody but average middle-class Americans are going to pay the bill.
Corruption Updates 4, 2nd article on page, “Special Interests and Politicians Play, Our Education System Melts Away"
Corruption Updates 34, 3rd article on page, “LONG TERM PRISON CRISIS RECOGNIZED?SEEING IT HAS NEVER BEEN A PROBLEM-PAYING IS...”
Corruption Updates 36, 7th article on page, “CORPORATE-DEMOCRAT IMMIGRATION POLICY SUCCESSFUL: PERMANENT LOW COST LABORING UNDERCLASS CREATED IN US”
Corruption Updates 36, 9th article on page, “HONEST STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ONLY SHOWS MONETARY COST OF IMMIGRATION: EDUCATION, MEDICINE, DEMOCRACY, AND JUSTICE ARE HIDDEN “COSTS” OF CHEAP FOREIGN LABOR ON AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS”
Study:
Schools need billions, bee, march 16, '07
Corruption Updates 45, 8th article on page, “Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows”
Corruption
Updates 51 , 10 th article on page, “Lenders Loot Database: Add Education: Everything Bush Touches Turns to Pain for Average Americans, Profit for Corporate Criminals"
Search the Corruption Database under
Education
Immigration
2) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE : LA TIMES, 3-19-07:
Scientist accuses White House of 'Nazi' tactics
By Joel Havemann, Times Staff Writer
1:05 PM PDT, March 19,
2007
WASHINGTON
-- A government scientist, under sharp questioning by a federal
panel for his outspoken views on global warming, stood by his view
today that the Bush administration's information policies smacked
of Nazi Germany.
James Hansen, director of the
Goddard Institute for Space Studies in the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration....
Hansen
said the Bush administration was not the first in U.S. history to practice information
management over government scientists, but it has been the most
vigorous. He deplored a "politicization of science."
"When
I testify to you as a government scientist," he said, "why
does my testimony have to be reviewed, edited and changed by a
bureaucrat in the White House?" Sitting beside him was one
of the bureaucrats Hansen was talking about: Philip Cooney, chief
of staff to the White House Council on Environmental Quality from
2001 to 2005.
Cooney, an official of the American
Petroleum Institute before going to the White House,
acknowledged having reviewed some of Hansen's testimony as part of a
long-standing practice designed to result in consistency.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
SCIENCE CLAIMS BUSH A NAZI
Political policy decisions can only be made with honest information. Scientists do studies and experiments, and provide the results to politicians, who then argue, and eventually decide upon a policy. Until now.
Under Bush, Scientists are not necessary. Bush has replaced science with political propaganda, rendering honest policy formation impossible.
The same mechanism was used on the CIA intelligence, to make up an excuse to attack Iraq. US Attorneys have been fired for not politicizing federal prosecutions. Bush uses “signing statements” to illegally modify law.
This President betrayed the identity of an American Spy to distract attention from, and cover up his lies.
Bad news kids. The climate has already changed. Significantly. Apparently we are too stupid to notice. Fall has been running deeper into Winter for 11 years, now ending in early December. Winter has been more Fall-like every year, producing diminishing rain and snow. Spring has been bringing us the majority of our winter-like storms. Our Winter rain has been coming in Spring, or not at all.
The Winter storm track, usually bringing storms here from the North West, has shifted to the West, and even brings humid storms from the South. Unprecedented.
These are local trends that have been occurring in the SF Bay Area for the last 12 years. They are significantly different than the weather patterns during the previous 30 years.
But most people in the Bay Area have no idea what the weather here was like 30 years ago, as the majority just arrived from somewhere else, and think, “It's always been like this here.” No, it hasn't. These people are not here to protect our environment or resources, but to consume them. And things are heating up.
Spring failed to deliver the Winter rains this year, and people are still piling into California.
How
long we can go on like this? Bush won't let the scientists talk, so
ignorance and greed will light our path into the future, as they
have guided us for the last 50 years.
Corruption Updates 33, 10th article on page, “Bush Suppressing Science and Truth: climate scientists censored, science suppressed”
Corruption Updates 21, 9th article on page, “WHITE HOUSE UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR CENSORING SCIENCE: INSPECTORS FOR NASA AND COMMERECE DEPTS MAY EXPOSE WIDESPREAD MISCONDUCT”
Read more about political Censorship of Science
Search the Corruption Database under
Censorship
Environment
3) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE : LA TIMES, 3-20-07:
Congressional hearing heats up over changes to climate reports
Democrats lay out a paper trail that they say shows how non-scientists edited scientists' work to downplay the impact of global warming.
By Nicole Gaouette, Times Staff Writer
March 20, 2007
WASHINGTON — Government scientists, armed
with copies of heavily edited reports, charged Monday that the
Bush administration and its political appointees had soft-pedaled
their findings on climate change.
To underscore their
charges of the administration's oil-friendly stance, Democrats
grilled an oil lobbyist who was hired by the White House to
review government climate change documents and who made hundreds of
edits that the lawmakers said minimized the impact of global
warming.
Republicans
targeted a NASA director who testified about administration
pressure, accusing him of political bias, of politicizing his work
and of ignoring uncertainties in climate change science.
And
they disputed his contention that taxpayer-funded scientists are
entitled to free speech. "Free speech is not a simple thing and
is subject to and directed by policy," said Rep. Chris Cannon
(R-Utah).
The hearing was the latest effort to challenge what the Democratic congressional majority sees as the Bush administration's unchecked use of power.
To
support their charges Monday, the Democrats produced hundreds of
pages of legal depositions, exhibits and e-mail exchanges between
administration officials. The paper trail illustrated how officials with no scientific training shaped the administration's
climate change message and edited global warming reports, inserting
doubt in the place of definitive statements and diminishing
the role people play in the planet's rising
"There
may have been a concerted effort directed by the White House
to mislead the public about the dangers of global climate change,"
said Waxman, who also cited the administration practice of
"controlling what federal scientists could say to the public
and the media about their work."
"It would be a
serious abuse if senior White House officials deliberately tried to
defuse calls for action by ensuring that the public heard a
distorted message about the risks of climate change," Waxman
said.
Philip Cooney, the oil lobbyist who became chief of
staff at the Council on Environmental Quality, (made significant
changes to report)
James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said the edits confused public understanding of the issue. "If we push our climate system hard enough, it can pass tipping points," he said. "That is not a situation we want to leave for our children."
Cooney, now with Exxon Mobil Corp., came to the White House in 2001 after more than 15 years with the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry lobby group. His last post there was leader of the climate team.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
REPUBLICANS DEMAND SCIENCE SAYS WHAT THEY WANT IT TO SAY
This Administration is the greatest gift Exxon Mobil corporation has ever received. The Interior Department has become a department of Big Oil, and Exxon, one of the biggest funders of junk science about Global Warming, got one of its own people in position to turn government science into junk.
And, Bush's middle eastern policy (Wars) has raised Big Oil's profits to the most money ever made by any corporation. Ever. An all-time record.
This was just “normal” political corruption and abuse of office, until Congress got involved. Congress gives this issue an Orwellian character, as if distorting science and fact is normal, acceptable behavior.
Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) is obviously confused. “Free Speech,” Administration policy, and science are three separate issues, Chris.
A scientific study, to be valid, is not subject to prior “free speech” or political policy distortions. It is science, and must be objectively structured and executed. If not, it must be thrown out, and done again. Then the product of the scientific method, the result, is to be put before policy makers, the Administration, and the public.
Free Speech, Administration policy, and debate are then brought to bear on the science, and policy results. Corrupted science is unacceptable. It is a subtle way for the President to lie to Congress and the People.
Bush has intervened at the “science” level, where experts analyze and organize data, in every executive branch agency. This is a gross misuse and abuse of office, and must be throughly investigated, and severely punished.
This Administration is in charge of our Food, Drugs, and the safety of our roads. Vioxx is killing people, SUVs roll over, and our cats and dogs are dropping like flies. Feel safe?
Impeachment is putting itself back on the table, despite the best efforts of the Democratic Leadership to roll over on the war, on business subsidies, and the massive tax breaks for the richest people in our country.
This Administration has given Americans the best chance in a hundred years to take our democracy back. Let's not waste it. Get involved.
Also See:
Use the links from article two, above.
Search the Corruption Database under
Censorship
Environment
4) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE : McClatchy, 3-15-07:
Another twist in tale of attorneys
By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor - McClatchy Washington
Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, March 15, 2007
http://www.sacbee.com/111/v-print/story/138180.html
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department said Wednesday that revisions in the USA Patriot Act that gave the administration unprecedented powers to replace ousted U.S. attorneys were designed by a mid-level department lawyer without the knowledge of his superiors or anyone at the White House.
In e-mails released this week, Justice Department officials discussed relying on the new powers to get "our preferred person appointed" with "far less deference to home state senators," according to an e-mail by Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
William Moschella, principal associate deputy attorney general, said that he pursued the changes on his own, without the knowledge or coordination of his superiors at the Justice Department or anyone at the White House.
...neither
Moschella nor other department officials disclosed at what point
Moschella or anyone else at Justice realized the provision could be
used as part of the wider strategy of replacing U.S. attorneys.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
"PATRIOT ACT” OR ATTACK ON CONSTITUTION?
What a bunch of Shit. Moschella was guided, if not by a specific person, by the evil spirit of tyranny that lives in, and guides this Administration. In any case, this was no accident.
The irony is that Moschella was working in, and for, the Justice Department when he secretly modified our Constitution, not only stripping citizens of their rights, but also stripping the Senate of their rights. It is impossible to believe that Moschella, working alone, had the balls to alter our Constitution without guidance from “on high.”
When questioned by Congress about the reasons and methods used for firing the US Attorneys, Moschella lied to congress.
If taken at face value, (which I don't) and you believe that Moschella independently altered the Constitution, then Moschella's boss in the Justice Department is responsible for the actions of this rogue employee. Moschella and his bosses should be punished for secretly altering the Constitution, and lying to Congress about why they did it.
Gonzales must take full responsibility for short circuiting both the Constitution, and the Senate's power. For this secret Constitutional amendment alone, he should be fired, or forced out of office. This would be mandatory for an honest Administration, unless Moschell's trick, his follow-up lies to Congress, and his department's other illegal actions, had been approved at the highest level of authority, by the President.
Has Moschella been suspended pending investigation? Has he been fired? I think not. A review of the DOJ website and news sources indicates he has not been censured in any way. Heck, they tried to keep Sampson on the payroll after he was forced to resign.
No punishments for these crimes will come from this Administration. This Administration exercises many unconstitutional powers, and sought the power to control Federal Prosecutions. This Administration intentionally used the “Patriot Act” as an instrument to expand illegal police powers as much as it could.
Moschella was willing to take the blame for the Administration's underhandedness, but I hope the full story will come out.
In any case, Moschella seriously, and unconstitutionally expanded the President's ability to escape the Senate's Constitutional check, expand illegal governmental power, and corrupt our Justice system.
The Patriot Act has seriously, and unconstitutionally, expanded the President's ability to illegally search Americans.
This Administration has been trying to draw as much power into its hands as it can, with no checks, since they took office. Although it has exploded in their face, the US Attorney clause in the Patriot Act was no accident, or surprise to the Administration. It compliments the rest of their actions.
They
were just too prepared to use it.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 16, 1st article on page, October 5, 2006, “BUSH TRAINING CONGRESS TO OBEDIENCE PROBLEM TEACHING THEM TO ROLL OVER WHEN THEY ARE ASLEEP”
Corruption Updates 22, 7th article on page, “Reid Threatens Bush with Oversight”
Corruption Updates 23, 4th article on page, “Bush Claims to Unlimited Power Contested”
Corruption Updates 23, 8th article on page, “Harmon Calls Wiretapping Illegal”
Corruption Updates 23, 9th article on page, NYTIMES, 12-3-06: “TIMES SOFTPEDALS PRESIDENTIAL WAR CRIMES AND DOMESTIC CRIMES. LEAVE IT TO THE TIMES TO PUT LIPSTICK ON PIGS”
Corruption Updates 25, 2nd article on page, December 8, 2006, “GOP senator says war may be 'criminal'”
Corruption Updates 25, 7th article on page, 12-6-06, “Italy Seeks Indictments of C.I.A. Operatives in Egyptian’s Abduction”
Corruption Updates 25, 8th article on page, 12-6-06, “Senators rap FBI over domestic spying”
Corruption Updates 31, 1st article on page, 1-17-07, “AG criticizes judges for terror rulings”
Corruption Updates 31, 2nd and 3rd articles on page, “Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Indefensible,” and “A Bush appointee's crude gambit on detainees' legal rights”
Corruption Updates 31, 6th article on page, 1-17-07, “Secret Court to Govern Warrantless Taps”
Corruption Updates 31, 7th article on page, 1-19-07, “Pentagon Revises Its Rules on Prosecution of Terrorists”
Corruption Updates 31, 8th article on page, 1-19-07, “Pentagon sets rules for detainee trials”
Corruption Updates 34, 2rd article on page, “WHITE HOUSE CLAIMS SECRET POLICY POWER"
Read more articles About Abuse of the US Attorney
Search the Corruption Database under
Secret Government
US Attorney
Illegal Searches
5) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
FBI Violations May Number 3,000, Official Says
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post
Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 21, 2007; A07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/20/AR2007032000921_pf.html
The Justice Department's inspector general told a committee of angry House members yesterday that the FBI may have violated the law or government policies as many as 3,000 times since 2003 as agents secretly collected the telephone, bank and credit card records of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals residing here.
Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said that according to the FBI's own estimate, as many as 600 of these violations could be "cases of serious misconduct" involving the improper use of "national security letters" to compel telephone companies, banks and credit institutions to produce records.
National security letters are comparable to subpoenas but are issued directly by the bureau without court review.
An FBI tally showed that the bureau made an average of 916 such requests each week from 2003 to 2005, but Fine told the House Judiciary Committee that FBI record keeping has been chaotic and "significantly understates" the actual use of that tool.
Fine's estimate of the incidence of serious abuses was extrapolated from his investigators' scrutiny of 293 national security letters, out of 44,000 letters -- containing 143,074 data requests -- that the FBI has reported issuing during the three-year period he reviewed.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
HOW DO YOU SAY ILLEGAL SEARCH? “NATIONAL SECURITY LETTER”
What is a “Patriot Act?” In the twisted logic of our corporate politicians, acting “patrioticlly,” means attacking one of the core values in our Constitution, our right to be SECURE in our Persons, Houses, Papers, and Effects. Today's Patriot is yesterday's traitor, and tomorrow's fool.
The Patriot Act is an attack on the rights that the Patriots fought and died for. It is an act of traitors, not patriots. Beware of politicians and media outlets who speak benignly of illegal governmental powers, in terms of acceptability.
Searches without warrants are criminal acts, even when approved by Congress, and carried out by the President, the FBI, or the government as portrayed by network television police and CIA dramas.
Congress, the President, and Network television believe that if they invoke “Terror,” they can justify doing anything with unlimited governmental power.
“National Security Letters” are abuses of power, a criminal misuse of political office, and insults to our Constitution.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 23, 8th article on page, “Harmon Calls Wiretapping Illegal”
Corruption Updates 23, 9th article on page, “TIMES SOFTPEDALS PRESIDENTIAL WAR CRIMES AND DOMESTIC CRIMES”
Corruption Updates 25, 8th article on page, “FBI CHIEF DEFYS CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT REFUSAL TO DISCLOSE ILLEGAL PROGRAM REVE”
Corruption Updates 31, 6th article on page, “Secret Court to Govern Warrant less Taps”
Search the Corruption Database under
Illegal Searches
Unconstitutional Presidential Power
6) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY: McClatchy, 3-15-07:
Kenya defends transfers, absolves U.S.
By Shashank Bengali - McClatchy Nairobi Bureau
Published
12:00 am PDT Thursday, March 15, 2007
http://www.sacbee.com/111/v-print/story/138125.html
NAIROBI, Kenya -- Kenyan authorities on Wednesday defended the secret transfers of dozens of prisoners to war-torn Somalia and rejected allegations that its ally, the United States, was directing its actions.
The U.S. government refused to confirm or deny allegations that it played a significant behind-the-scenes role.
A spokesman for Kenya's police, who detained at least 150 people caught fleeing December's U.S.-backed war against Islamist militias in Somalia, said top levels of government in Kenya and Somalia had directed the transfers of at least 80 of the prisoners.
The spokesman, Gideon Kibunja, said U.S. law enforcement agents had provided "consultations" to Kenyan authorities, who held and interrogated the prisoners. The countries routinely cooperate on terrorism cases in Kenya, where alleged al-Qaida operatives bombed the U.S. Embassy in 1998.
The secret transfers have caused alarm because of transfers of detainees by the CIA without court proceedings to foreign countries to be interrogated. Critics say the practice violates international law and has led to the torture of prisoners.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
BUSH LAWLESSNESS SPREADS TO KENYA:
EXTRA-JUDICIAL HOLDING-TRANSFERING PRISONERS OK BY US
Bush's crimes, his lawless use of American power, here and around the world, in pursuit of his endless “global war on terror,” have given solace to tyrants and dictators around the world.
Bush's international crimes have justified the use of arbitrary authority by harsh governments and dictators around the world. A dictator need only employ the word “Terror,” and the rule of law, political dissidents, and factional opponents, magically disappear.
America is providing a new role model of international relations and propriety, based on lawless brutality. It is a lawless brutality based on what they can get away with, and makes democracy and the rule of law irrelevant. Bush's fight against terror is terror, and fans the fires of violence. This was not unexpected.
Ignoring global human rights naturally follows the destruction of our Constitutional rights and democracy. We have secretly supported death squads for a Century. Bush has not just exposed these crimes, he has exposed our political system for what it is.
Bush has broken through the tired facade of American Justice, to show the world what we really are, rather than what we say we are. Bush's lawlessness, while mouthing the terms democracy and freedom, has established a new global standard of political hypocrisy. This has been taken up by dictators and tyrants around the world.
The world has a new role model and standard for international lawlessness. Bush's new legal standards, of arbitrary authority and violence, is spreading around the world.
The United States' example of illegal kidnappings, torture, illegal extraditions, and endless unlawful detentions, have destroyed our credibility, undermined our alliances, and angered people around the world. Bush has damaged, if not destroyed, the spread of democracy around the world, degraded the state of human rights, and made extra judicial violence an acceptable tool for our allied governments around the world. This will engender increasing global instability into the foreseeable future.
Kenya is the just the latest example of how countries around the world are following our lead by dropping the rule of law from their domestic and international relations.
Bush's crimes encourage, not discourage, resistance and violence against tyrannical governments around the world.
Terror bred Terror, and now it's breeding more.
Search the Corruption Database under
International
7) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE : BEE, 3-17-07
Immigrant office proposed
New agency would help the foreign-born with integration into civic life of California.
By Aurelio Rojas - Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 12:00 am
PDT Saturday, March 17, 2007
http://www.sacbee.com/111/v-print/story/139453.html
Cedillo's nine-year legislative effort to allow illegal immigrants to apply for driver's licenses has made him a polarizing figure. Fitton is suspicious SB 1 would not distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants and "undermine the enforcement of our nation's immigration laws."
But Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said such an office would not serve the interests of all Californians.
"Is the office going to be supporting the enforcement of federal immigration law, or is it going to be targeted amorphously at immigrants, no matter their status?" he said. "I think it's more of the latter."
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
CALIFORNIA ENCOURAGES CRIMIGRANTS
It is amazing to watch people become “Americans.”
It is amazing that they come to a country that is illegitimate by its own standards. It is amazing they come to work for, and obey the corporations that broke our democracy. Criminals moving to a Criminal Nation for money.
Is being an American no more than crimigrant self-interest and Corporate Greed? Obedience and Consumption by illegal peasants are now, apparently, the only thing required to become an American Citizen. No wonder the government is seizing our rights without qualm.
Legal immigrants are swearing allegiance to the criminal fucks that broke our Constitution, stole our democracy, then looted our country of it wealth. “For a better way of life.” I hope the long term cost is worth the short term gain. If not, the Crimigrants will be disappointed, and may have to move where there is more money.
The Special Interests and Corporations have no problem lifting foreign peasants to wages that impoverish Americans.
The political poichos are right there, and Cedillo is serving his corporate criminal masters, and his foreign criminal “constituents,” by claiming America has no rights to control its borders or labor policy. According to California Democrats, “the Constitution doesn't count anymore. It was written for a different time and place, and doesn't apply any more.”
Those are fighting words.
America has a duty, according to Cedillo and other traitors like him, to flood our country with illegal foreigners, and subsidize their education, medicine, and incarceration, while they work to make American Corporations richer.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 36, 7th article on page, “CORPORATE-DEMOCRAT IMMIGRATION POLICY SUCCESSFUL: Poverty”
Corruption Updates 36, 9 th article on page, “HONEST STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ONLY SHOWS MONETARY COST OF IMMIGRATION: EDUCATION, MEDICINE, DEMOCRACY, AND JUSTICE ARE HIDDEN “COSTS” OF CHEAP FOREIGN LABOR ON AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS”
Search the Corruption Database under
Crimigrants
Immigration
Economics
8) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE : BBC, 3-19-07:
Estrada associate guilty of graft
Monday, 19 March 2007, 08:10 GMT BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/6465441.stm
A close associate of former Philippine President Joseph Estrada has been sentenced to at least two years and four months in jail for corruption.
Charlie "Atong" Ang was also fined 25m pesos ($500,000) by the Manila court.
Ang confessed to helping Mr Estrada divert money generated from tobacco taxes for his own personal use - a charge which the former leader denies.
Mr Estrada himself is currently awaiting a verdict in his own long-running plunder trial.
He was arrested shortly after being ousted by a popular revolt in January 2001, and faces charges of illegally acquiring tens of millions of dollars from state funds and gambling rackets.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
PHILLIPPINES EX-PRESIDENT'S BUDDY GETS TWO YEARS FOR CORRUPTION
After our Phillippino dictator, Marcos, wore out his welcome, we have been having a hard time regularizing political and economic corruption in the Philippines. A political-economic axis of corporate elites has been unable to form.
The lack of stable, local authority in the Philippines, assures chaos until they have their own “American” revolution, and throw out their foreign supported corrupt politicians.
With no stable governmental institutions, political corruption in the Philippines is personal, informal, and endemic. The after affects of our colonial brutality in the Philippines has left a stubborn legacy of political corruption and social disorder.
Search the Corruption Database under
International
Philippines
9) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE : BBC, 3-19-07:
China jails editor for subversion
Monday, 19 March 2007, 16:14 GMT BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/6467409.stm
The editor of a Chinese website has been sentenced to six years in prison for writing articles criticizing the government, Chinese media have said.
Zhang Jianhong
A media rights group said Mr Zhang was arrested last September after posting articles demanding the release of jailed political dissidents.
Chinese authorities have moved recently to tighten control over the internet.
Mr Zhang spent 18 months in a labour camp for his role in the Tiananmen protests, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
CHINA JAILS JOURNALISTS FOR “SUBVERSION”
China has become a Bushiean Corporate Fascist dreamland. China's Commie Government possesses unlimited power over individuals, business, and governmental authority. And they are greedy for wealth, power, and prestige, just like our leaders.
China has transformed itself into a nearly perfect capitalist state dedicated to profit, but this arrest shows that the relationship between political and economic power has not quite been worked out.
This has been made apparent by recent political power struggles that have been described as “anti-corruption” drives by the central government. This arrest is different, in that the target is not an opposing political faction, but free speech.
Independent of how the political and economic elites solve their problems, the average person will be held to obedience, or severely punished.
Why are we enriching and empowering these people?
Because our greed is more important than our ethics and values.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 36, 6th article on page, “AMERICA REFUSES TO STOP EXPANDING POPULATION AND CONSUMPTION: AMERICAN GREED-CONSUMPTION FUELS MANUFACTURING (POLLUTION) IN CHINA”
More Articles on China
Search the Corruption Database under
China
10) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Climate might be right to replumb water system
March 19 2007
Democratic
support for a new off-stream reservoir could be traded for
Republican backing of a comprehensive healthcare plan. Or swapped
for a state budget, if lawmakers get stuck in a long summer
stalemate. Or, more appropriately, bargained for an environmentally
friendly fix to the fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Or
all of the above.
"Everything's on the table,"
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) said in an interview.
"Healthcare really is important to me. And water really is
important to people on the other side.
The water debate is changing in Sacramento, largely because the climate is, and so will the hydrology. Global warming will convert Sierra snow to rain and result in more rapid runoff, requiring added storage space to quickly catch the water before it tumbles into the sea. At the other extreme, there'll be longer, more severe droughts and the need for water reserves.
Californians
voted for $4.9 billion in flood control bonds in November, but the
delta still needs to be re-plumbed. The water flow south is unstable
and the fishery is failing.
A big reservoir — north or
south of the delta — is something Republicans really want and
conceivably could get in this legislative session because of the
dire warnings and compromise opportunities.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is siding with the GOP lawmakers, even if it is seen in the Capitol as a fence-mending sop after he ignored Republicans on so many issues last year. The governor is sponsoring legislation, carried by Sen. Dave Cogdill (R-Modesto), to place a $5.95-billion water bond issue on the 2008 ballot. It would include $4.5 billion for water storage.
Cogdill comments: “...we're just waiting for that earthquake or sustained drought. Then we'll be falling all over each other to do something. Like in the energy crisis."
"The
Cogdill bill doesn't go," asserts Assemblywoman Lois Wolk
(D-Davis), who heads the house water committee.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
CALIFORNIA GROWTH BEYOND NATURAL LIMITS: POLITICIANS-CORPORATIONS WANT MORE
Water, education, roads, and every tax supported social and infrastructural institution of this state has been drained of its value by our corporate class during the last 37 years.
Why stop now?
One word: Responsibility.
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