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CORRUPTION UPDATES 77 June 15, 2007: Draft Posting: Stay Tuned for More! The CORRUPTION UPDATES posts corruption news stories from California, the Nation and the World, and gives you the straight story. |
CORRUPTION UPDATES 77
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1) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE:
Arrests in Egypt Point Toward a Crackdown
June 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/world/africa/15egypt.html?pagewanted=print
In recent days, hundreds of members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the popular outlawed political movement, have been arrested. A request was denied to free from prison the onetime presidential candidate and political dissident Ayman Nour. A prominent member of Parliament who helped form a new political party was forced out in connection with a years-old financial case.
The state-controlled press has virulently attacked Egyptians who attended a conference in Doha, Qatar, to discuss democracy. And elections on Monday to select members of the upper house of Parliament were described by independent organizations as manipulated to ensure that the governing party won a majority of the seats — a charge the government denies.
“They don’t want any divergence, they don’t want any noise,” said Mohamed Sayyid Said, deputy director of the government-financed Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. “They don’t want anyone to talk. They don’t want anyone to disagree.”
Ezzat Darag, a member of the governing National Democratic Party bloc in Parliament, defended the government’s actions. “The general atmosphere is freedom, freedom, freedom,” he said. “You can’t open up all the way. There has to be a ceiling of respect.”
A prominent religious scholar at the Islamic Research Institute at Al Azhar also defended the arrests on religious and political grounds. “They didn’t arrest them because of their ideas alone,” said the scholar, Sheik Abdel Moety Bayoumy. “These ideas constitute a movement that has political goals and can cause sedition. Politics always starts with an idea, and sedition starts with ideas.”
Mr. Tharwat attended the democracy conference in Doha. He worked for the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies, headed by Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who is Egypt’s most renowned democracy advocate. Mr. Tharwat was arrested on the same night as Mr. Said.
“Their goal was to disrupt, derail and intimidate,” Mr. Ibrahim said. “The government’s obsession is now to create conformity with its ideas.”
The governing party, which won 69 of the 71 seats that were decided without a runoff, said the election was fair and open.
Some voters said, though, that it appeared that ballot boxes were already full when the polling places opened in the morning. The government denied the charge, but Mr. Ibrahim said some of his monitors confirmed the accusation.
...Mr. Ibrahim. Once imprisoned in connection with his work to promote democracy, he is again a focus of state ire because he attended the Doha conference and because he met, briefly, with President Bush in Prague. The government-controlled press labeled him an agent of the United States and Israel for those actions. Mr. Ibrahim’s essays have appeared on Mr. Said’s Web site.
President Hosni Mubarak is furious with Mr. Ibrahim, so much so that officials suggested that he leave the country for a time to allow the president to cool off, said Mr. Ibrahim and other people familiar with the president’s thinking who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the issue.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Hints of Decades-Old Reign of Egyptian Dictator Reported by NY Times
Also See:
MORE ARTICLES ON EGYPT
Corruption Updates 18, 7th article on the page, "For moderate democracy"
“Egypt Sends Sadat's Nephew to Prison for Defaming Military,” Corruption Update 21, 3rd article on page, states that,
“The United States had at one time talked about Egypt as leading the way toward democratic reform in the Middle East. But with the chaos in the region, and the political uncertanity in Egypt, officials in Egypt said the United States has dropped all pressure to make democratic reforms.”
For further developments on American toleration of the suppression of democracy by the American sponsored dictatorship in Egypt, see,
“Egypt Cracks Down on Brotherhood,” Corruption Update 27, 5th article down.
“2007, Redrawing the Map,” Corruption Update 27, 6th article on page.
These articles describe Mubarak's suppression of democracy through Constitutional amendments:
Corruption Update 30, 7th article on page, BBC Tuesday, 16 January 2007 “Egypt detains Brotherhood backers”
Corruption Update 32, 1st article on page, "Rice speaks softly in Egypt" RICE THANKS DICTATOR FOR REGIONAL SUPPORT
Corruption Update 32, 7th article on page, "President Hosni Mubarak's proposed constitutional amendments were approved by the People's Assembly majority" EGYPTIAN-AMERICAN DICTATOR DICTATES REPRESSIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
Corruption Update 32, 8 th article on page, "The Muslim Brotherhood says it will continue to measure its responses despite the regime's latest heavy-handed clampdown" BROTHERHOOD MODERATE IN FACE OF DICTATORIAL REPRESSION
Corruption Update 40, 6 th article on page, "Before the vote" (MUBARAK ABOUT TO IMPOSE BUSH RULES ON EGYPT The Constitutional changes Mubarak is about to impose on Egypt are the same powers Bush has claimed here)
Read More Articles on Egypt
Search the Corruption Database under
Egypt
Supporting Dictators
2) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Report Details Deals in Student Loan Industry
By KAREN W. ARENSON and DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
June 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/washington/15loans.html?pagewanted=print
Gifts and payoffs to universities and their officials by student lenders were far more pervasive than had been disclosed and in some cases were demanded by university officials themselves in exchange for promoting lenders to students, according to a Senate report on the student loan industry issued yesterday.
The report, released by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Education Committee, drew new colleges into the loan scandal.
“It is clear that the problem is systemic and cannot be isolated to a few ‘problem’ lenders or schools,” the report concluded.
The report was released as the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, announced that Johns Hopkins University had agreed to five years of monitoring and to pay $1.1 million to settle an investigation of its student loan practices.
Nelnet, a lender based in Nebraska, created an elaborate point system to reward college officials who advised it.
. The credits could be redeemed for donations to an “alma mater or college/university of choice.” Each was good for $1.
A spreadsheet from Chase’s student loan unit showed the scope of marketing activities, listing payments of over $1,000 each to produce 405 foldable wallets for Ursuline College, CD replications for Southeastern Louisiana University, 200 T-shirts for Texas Southern University, to name just a few examples.
Bank of America’s activities included $11,414 to sponsor a lunch at the College of William and Mary.
The report provided new details of lenders’ dealings with Lawrence W. Burt, the financial aid director at the University of Texas at Austin and Ellen Frishberg, a Johns Hopkins financial aid official. Mr. Burt was fired and Ms. Frishberg resigned after revelations that each had benefited financially from Student Loan Xpress or its parent company, Education Lending Group.
The employee complained about what officials in Mr. Burt’s office expected him to do to win business. “I am not going to see Larry 10 times yearly,” he wrote. “I do not golf, I do not have happy hours, I do not provide sports tickets and only once have I bought Larry tequila.”
When Mr. Burt also demanded favors from Citibank, and it refused, he dropped it from the college’s preferred lender list, the report said. It returned after treating him to golf and meals.
In Ms. Frishberg’s case, the report shed light on how she came to receive more than $65,000 in consulting fees and tuition payments from Student Loan Xpress. E-mail obtained by the Senate showed her soliciting tuition reimbursement.
Lawrence Di Rita, a spokesman for Bank of America, said the bank believed that its activities described in the document were “consistent with Department of Education standards and policy.”
Citibank, which was described not only as paying for student receptions for Chaminade but also of taking the college officials on its advisory board to places like San Marco, Fla., and San Diego, said that it was the first lender to voluntarily commit to a new code of conduct.
Ben Kiser, a Nelnet spokesman, said it had used its reward system only for university officials who were members of its Innovation Council. He said the council was discontinued this year, and that Nelnet had never made payments to any universities because of the council’s work.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Student Loans designed to Profit Lenders, not Student's Education
Also See:
Corruption Updates 41, 1st article on page, "CA. Schools Need Billions"
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
Schools
3) THE Article PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Senator Blocks Vote on Subpoenas Over Eavesdropping
By JAMES RISEN
June 15, 2007
A Republican senator blocked a vote in the Judiciary Committee on whether to authorize subpoenas to the Justice Department to obtain secret legal opinions and other documents related to the National Security Agency’s program of domestic eavesdropping. The action by Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona will block the vote for a week. After the vote next Thursday, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the committee, can decide whether to issue the subpoenas or use them as leverage in negotiations with the Bush administration over access to the documents.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Ilegal Spying Program Protected by Jon Kyl, R-Arizona
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
4) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
House Agreement Ends Impasse Over Lawmakers’ Pet Projects
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
June 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/washington/15earmarks.html?
WASHINGTON, June 14 — Democrats and Republicans in the House reached agreement Thursday night on how to handle the lawmaker pet projects known as “earmarks,” ending a standoff that brought legislative activity in the House to a halt.
Democrats promised to abandon a plan that would have would have prevented Republicans from challenging individual earmarks on the chamber floor.
In return, Republicans will allow a stalled $36.3 billion homeland security spending measure, along with a veterans’ measure Democrats want to pass this week, to come to a vote without earmarks. The projects are to be added to the bills later in conference committees with the Senate.
“We’ve won this round,” said the House Republican leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio
Originally, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, David R. Obey of Wisconsin, said he would publish a list of pending projects next month, along with the names of their sponsors. Mr. Obey said lawmakers could write to his committee if they objected to a project.
Republicans balked, saying the plan would rob them of the opportunity to challenge the projects on the House floor, even though such challenges have been rare in recent years — and are even more rarely successful. In protest, Republicans slowed House proceedings by proposing more than 100 amendments to the homeland security measure.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Deal to Preserve and Share Earmarks reached between Dems and Repubs
Also See:
Corruption Updates 3, “Media Reports: Both Parties Corrupt”
Corruption Updates 5, 1st article on page, “Corruption fails as Campaign issue...”
Corruption Updates 14, 10th article down on page. “Murtha trades his vote, and ethics, for pork”
Pelosi does earmarks well and often, LA Times, 11-13-06, “Speaker-to-be is no stranger to earmarking,” (abstract at LA Times archive, #52 under Richard Simon search)
Corruption Updates 19, 1st article on page, “TOP RECIPEINTS OF LOBBYISTS BRIBES ARE LEADERSHIP OF BOTH PARTIES”
Corruption Updates 19, 3rd article on page, “PARTIES AND THEIR BRIBERS WORK TO CIRCUMNAVIGATE CAMPAIGN FINANCE RESTRICTION”
Corruption Updates 20, 1st article on page, 10-25-06, “PELOSI FUNRAISING FRENZY ASSURES SPECIAL INTEREST DOMINATION OF GOVERNMENT INDEPENDENT OF WHICH SIDE WINS IN NOV”
Corruption Updates 20, 6th article on page, 10-27-06, “DEMS RECEIVE SPECIAL INTEREST BRIBES ANTICIPATING VICTORY IN NOV VOTERS ASSURED ONLY CHANGE AFTER NOVEMBER WILL BE WHICH PARTY GETS 60% OF THE SPECIAL INTEREST BRIBES, AND WHICH PARTY GETS 40% OF THE BRIBES”
Corruption Updates 21, 2nd article on page, 10-30-06: “SHADOW PARTIES (527S) INFUSE MILLIONS IN BRIBE MONEY INTO ELECTION SPECIAL INTERESTS SKIRT CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAWS TO MAINTAIN THEIR ILLIGIMATE AUTHORITY THROUGH POLITICAL BRIBERY”
Corruption Updates 21, 8fh article on page, 11-1-06: “DEMS BIG CHANCE TO REAP THE REWARDS OF CORRUPTION POLITICAL VICTORY OPENS DOORS OF LOBBYING FIRMS TO DEMO INSIDERS: IT'S THE DEMS TURN TO ROB THE PUBLIC BLIND, AND BETRAY OUR DEMOCRACY”
Corruption Updates 22, 6th article on page, “MONEY WINS IN ALMOST EVERY POLITICAL RACE”
Corruption Updates 24, 6th article on page, 12-4-06, “POLITICIANS WHO BRIBE POLITICIANS ARE LEADERS UNCONTESTED CANDIDATES REDISTRIBUTE BRIBE MONEY TO BUY PLUM COMMITTEES AND CHAIRMANSHIPS”
Corruption Updates 26, 1st article on page, 12-8-06, “LOBBYISTS SEE NO CHANGE UNDER DEMS CORRUPTION PRESENTED AS FORCE OF NATURE, DEM CORRUPTION NATURAL”
Corruption Updates 27, 2nd article on page, “DEM LEADERS TO REFORM CONGRESS?”
Corruption Updates 28, 1st article on page, 1-2-07: “LOBBYISTS HIRING-BRIBING DEMS SHIFTING FUNDS AND PERSONELL TO DEMS ASSURES NO REAL CHANGES
Corruption Updates 28, 4th article on page, “Bush and Dems Fight Over Earmarks”
Corruption Updates 30, 2nd article on page, “Democrats set back on earmarks” (REID TRIES TO KILL REAL EARMARK REFORMS)
Corruption Updates 33, 4th article on page, “Lobbyists find new Congress is open for business”
Search the Corruption Database under
Earmarks
5) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Thomas the Tank Engine Toys Recalled Because of Lead Paint
By ANGEL JENNINGS
June 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/business/15recall.html?ref=business
The toy maker RC2 Corporation pulled a number of its Thomas & Friends trains and accessory parts off the shelves yesterday after learning that the red and yellow paint used to decorate more than 1.5 million of the toys contained lead.
“Parents should not delay in getting these toys away from their kids,” Scott Wolfson, spokesman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said yesterday.
The affected Thomas toys were manufactured in China, which has come under fire recently for exporting a variety of goods, from pet food to toothpaste, that may pose safety or health hazards. “These are not cheap, plastic McDonald’s toys,” said Marian Goldstein of Maplewood, N.J., who spent more than $1,000 on her son’s Thomas collection, for toys that can cost $10 to $70 apiece. “But these are what is supposed to be a high-quality children’s toy.”
Ms. Goldstein’s 4-year-old son owns more than 40 piecesfrom the Thomas series, and seven of them were on the recall list...
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Rich Kids Threatened by China Toys: Now will Govt Act to End China Poison Trade?
Also See:
Corruption Updates 59, 3rd article on page, "F.D.A. to Test Toothpaste Sent to U.S. From China"
Corruption Updates 60, 8th article on page, "China:Recall Is Issued for Frozen Fish"
Search the Corruption Database under
China
6) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
To Avoid Any Conflict, Clintons Liquidate Holdings
June 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/us/politics/15clintons.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print
WASHINGTON, June 14 — Concerned that their personal finances might become a political liability once again, Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton in April sold the millions of dollars of stocks held by their blind trust after learning that those investments included oil and pharmaceutical companies, military contractors and Wal-Mart, their aides said Thursday.
Mrs. Clinton automatically became aware of her investments because of a government directive this spring that she, as a presidential candidate, had to dissolve her blind trust and disclose all of her assets to the public.
According to the financial disclosure documents, the couple’s total net worth falls between $10 million and $50 million. Besides investments, Mr. Clinton earned about $10 million in paid speeches in 2006...
According to their 1993 financial disclosure form, the Clintons were far less wealthy than they are today. Their estimated net worth at the time was $633,015 to $1.62 million. Mr. Clinton’s share of the blind trust was valued from $15,001 to $50,000, and Mrs. Clinton’s $500,001 to $1 million.
Mr. Clinton also has $15,001 to $50,000 in Easy Bill Ltd., an India-based company that works on electronic transactions and business services for Indians.
Shortly after the Clinton campaign released the financial information, the campaign of Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat, circulated to news organizations — on what it demanded be a not-for-attribution-basis — a scathing analysis. It called Mrs. Clinton “Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)” in its headline. The document referred to the investment in India and Mrs. Clinton’s fund-raising efforts among Indian-Americans. The analysis also highlighted the acceptance by Mr. Clinton of $300,000 in speech fees from Cisco, a company the Obama campaign said has moved American jobs to India.
A copy of the document was obtained by Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, which provided it to The New York Times. The Clinton campaign has long been frustrated by the effort by Mr. Obama to present his campaign as above the kind of attack politics that Mr. Obama and his aides say has led to widespread disillusionment with politics by many Americans.
Asked why the Obama campaign had initially insisted that it not be connected to the document, Mr. Burton replied, “I’m going to leave my comment at that.”
The Clintons had investments in several pharmaceutical companies, including Abbott Labs, Amgen, Biogen Idec, Genentech, Genzyme, Novartis, Pfizer and Wyeth. The assets in each company ran from $100,001 to $250,000. The trust also had assets in BP Amoco, $50,001 to $100,000; Chevron, $15,001 to $50,000; and Exxon Mobil, $100,001 to $250,000, as well as common stock in Raytheon and Wal-Mart Stores, $100,001 to $250,000 each.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Clintons Sale of Stocks Does Not Stop Corporate Bribery of Hillary-Bill and the DLC
Also See:
Corruption Updates 59, 2nd article on page, "At Wal-Mart, Clinton didn't upset any carts"
Corruption Updates 33, 2nd article on page, "Corporate Democrats of the Democratic Leadership Council Laughs at democracy"
Search the Corruption Database under
Clintons
7) THE Article PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
4 in Senate Seek Penalty for China
June 14, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/business/worldbusiness/14trade.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print
WASHINGTON, June 13 — Four leading Democratic and Republican senators proposed legislation Wednesday aimed at penalizing China over its export practices and predicted that they would have the votes to pass it in Congress this year even if it was vetoed by President Bush.
One of the four senators, Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee, said, “This bill requires the Treasury Department to take firm but fair action when other nations play games with the U.S. dollar.” He said the bill would pass by “a veto-proof majority in the House and Senate.”
Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, said that the bill was not intended to start a fight with China and that he hoped it would persuade the Chinese to voluntarily change their practices before any penalties were imposed.
Senators Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, were also co-sponsors. They had sponsored a tougher version of the bill last year, calling for tariff increases of 27 percent on Chinese goods if the authorities in Beijing did not raise the value of their currency.
The administration indicated it would oppose the bill, which appeared certain to aggravate tensions with China at a time when Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. has sought to use negotiations to change Chinese economic policies, particularly those keeping the value of its currency low in relation to the dollar.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
China Trade: Political Damage starting to exceed Private Profits:
Search the Corruption Database under
China (27 Abstracts)
8) THE Article PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Agents Are Warned in Terror Cases
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 14, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/us/14fbi.html?pagewanted=print
WASHINGTON, June 13 (AP) — The Federal Bureau of Information warned its agents Wednesday to carefully review all personal data collected from Americans in terror investigations to protect privacy rights and not to expect the evidence to remain secret.
The warning came in new guidelines issued to correct abuses of so-called national security letters that were revealed in a Justice Department audit three months ago. The letters allow investigators to subpoena evidence, without court approval, in terrorism and spy cases.
The Washington Post reported in its Thursday issue that an internal F.B.I. audit found that agents had potentially violated the law or agency rules far more frequently than the March report indicated.
Under the 24-page guidelines, which are effective immediately, investigators must request specific information, and justify its need, before the demand for data is sent.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Illegal Search Program Refined: "Abuses" of Criminal Program Accepted by Dem Congress
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
Previous Corruption Updates: Page 76
Next Corruption Updates: Page 78
Contact Us: Committeefordemocracy.org
