1. US Congress Sells Out to Wall
Street (For full story, click here)

Americans
get the best democracy money can buy, money coming more than ever today from
Wall Street. Since 2001, eight of the most troubled financial firms have donated
$64.2 million to congressional candidates, presidential candidates and the
Republican and Democratic parties. Is it surprising how much they control them?
Influential House and Senate finance and banking committee members got $5.2
million from bailout recipients like Goldman Sachs, Citibank, AIG, Fannie Mae,
Freddie Mac, and others. In the last election cycle, Obama received at least
$4.3 million from the same institutions. From 1998 – 2007, financial and banking
companies spent $1.7 billion on federal campaign contributions and another $3.4
billion on lobbyists. In 1999, the Glass-Steagall Act was gutted – the landmark
1933 law that prevented banks from getting into the insurance business. In
January 2000, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act legitimized swap
agreements and other hybrid instruments, at the core of today’s problems, by
preventing regulatory oversight of derivatives and leveraging, thus letting Wall
Street legally pillage and speculate. The result was a financial coup
d’etat cementing the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of
connected insiders who choose candidates, control elections, weaken financial
regulations, and basically run the country for their own self-interest.
As a result, Washington today has become largely a subsidiary of the Wall Street
financial giants.

Sources:
Truthout/McClatchy, Oct. 2, 2008, “Lax Oversight? Maybe $64
Million to DC Pols Explains It,” by Greg Gordon. Rolling Stone, Mar. 19,
2009, “The Big Takeover,” by Matt Taibbi. OpenSecrets.org,
Feb. 10, 2009, “Congressmen Hear from TARP Recipients Who Funded Their
Campaigns,” by Lindsay Renick Mayer.

2. US
Schools Are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s (For full story, click here)

According to
a UCLA Civil Rights report, “schools in the US are 44 percent non-white,
and … Latinos and blacks, the two largest minority groups, attend schools more
segregated today than during the civil rights movement forty years
ago.” The result is: unequal education which denies disadvantaged
youths access to college and better jobs; growing numbers of these youths
becoming “virtually unemployable” for anything more than menial labor or the
military; greater vulnerability to future poverty, poor health, gangs, crime,
and prolonged incarceration in America’s vast prison/industrial complex. The
report stresses the need for “leaders who recognize that we have a common
destiny in an America where our children grow up together, knowing and
respecting each other, and are all given the educational tools that prepare them
for success in our society.” The UCLA Civil Rights Study shows that most severe
segregation in public schools is in the Western states, including California –
not in the South, as many people believe. Eighty-five percent of the nation’s
teachers are white, and little progress is being made toward diversifying the
nation’s teaching force.

Source :
The Civil Rights Project, UCLA, January 2009, “Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society: A 21st Century
Challenge,” by Gary Orfield.

3. Toxic
Waste Behind Somali Pirates (For full story, click here)

The
international community has come out in force to condemn and declare war on the
Somali fishermen pirates, while discreetly protecting the illegal, unreported
and unregulated fleets from around the world that have been poaching and dumping
toxic waste in Somali waters since the fall of the Somali government eighteen
years ago. Foreign interests have been using hundreds of vessels to loot the
country’s food supply, according to the High Seas Task Force (HSTF), stealing
“an estimated $450 million in seafood from Somali waters annually” and ruining
the livelihoods of Somali fishermen. Somalia has also been used as a
dumping ground for hazardous waste starting in the early 1990s, and continuing
through the civil war there. Instead of rectifying the problem, the UN
passed “aggressive resolutions that entitle and encourage transgressors to wage
war on Somali pirates.” NATO, the EU, and other countries issued similar orders.
Some say that the acts of piracy may actually be born of desperation. What is
one man’s pirate may be another man’s Coast Guard.

Sources:
UK’s Independent, January 5, 2009, “You are being lied to about pirates,” by Johann Hari. Al
Jazeera English, October 11, 2008, “Toxic waste behind Somali piracy,” by Najad Abdullahi.
WardheerNews, January 8, 2009, “The Two Piracies in Somalia: Why the World Ignores the Other,”
by Mohamed Abshir Waldo.

4.
Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina (For full story, click here)

North
Carolina’s Shearon Harris nuclear plant contains the largest radioactive waste
storage pools in the country. If the cooling system malfunctions, the resulting
fire would be virtually unquenchable and could trigger a nuclear meltdown.
Between 1999 and 2003, there were twelve major problems requiring the shutdown
of the plant. In 2002, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) put the plant on
notice for nine unresolved safety issues detected. When the NRC returned to the
plant a few months later, it determined that the corrective actions were “not
acceptable.” Between January and July of 2002, Harris plant managers were forced
to manually shut down the reactors four times. Problems at Shearon
Harris continue with chilling regularity. Yet the NRC ignores the potential
risks. A recent study by Brookhaven Labs estimates that a pool fire
could cause 140,000 cancers, contaminate thousands of square miles of land, and
cause over $500 billion in off-site property damage. The plant is a nuclear time
bomb, and millions in the region are at risk.

Source:
CounterPunch, August 9, 2008, “Pools of
Fire,” by Jeffrey St. Clair.

5.
Europe Blocks US Toxic Products (For full story, click here)

Unlike in
America, European countries are moving toward a model of insisting on
environmental and consumer safety that requires assessing thousands of chemicals
for their potential toxic effects. New regulations will mandate that companies
seeking market access eliminate toxic substances and produce safer electronics,
automobiles, toys and cosmetics. Without compliance henceforth, the products of
hundreds of US companies may be excluded from European markets, and according to
Mark Schapiro, author of
Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday
Products, “only five percent of all chemicals in the US have
undergone even minimal testing.” Further, new EPA requirements consider the
“costs to industry” in assessing threats to public health as a reason to side
with industry and keep regulations minimal. The divergence between US
and European regulation has made America the dumping ground for toxic toys,
electronics and cosmetics. The US produces and consumes the toxic materials from
which other countries around the world are protected.

Sources:
Scientific American, Sep. 30, 2008, “European Chemical Clampdown Reaches Across Atlantic,” by David
Biello. Environmental Defense Fund, Sep. 30, 2008, “How Europe’s
New Chemical Rules Affect US.”

6.
Lobbyists Buy Congress (For full story, click here)

In
2008, The Center for Responsive Politics reported that “special interests paid
Washington lobbyists $3.2 billion in 2008,” higher than any year on record and
13.7% more than 2007. That amounts to $17.4 million for each day Congress was in
session, or $32,523 per legislator per day. Health interests spent the
most for the third consecutive year, $478.5 million, followed by the FIRE sector
(finance, insurance and real estate) at $453.5 million. It’s a small investment
yielding big returns for these and other industries, competing at the public
trough for as much as they can get. The payoff is in the billions for some
corporations, and for Wall Street trillions have been pledged, as well as
interest free money from the banker-owned Federal Reserve.

Source:OpenSecrets.org, “Washington Lobbying Grew to $3.2 Billion Last Year, Despite
Economy,” by Center for Responsive Politics.

7.
Obama’s Military Appointments Have Corrupted Pasts (For full story, click here)

After
promising not to politicize intelligence and to keep lobbyists out of top
government posts, Obama appointed many former lobbyists and board members of
companies doing business directly with the Pentagon. He retained Robert
Gates as Defense Secretary despite his history at CIA of having cooked the books
for political reasons. According to Agency insiders who knew him, he “corrupted
the intelligence product” to suit the White House and further his own
self-interest. When Bush nominated him for CIA Director in 1991, a virtual
insurrection among CIA analysts erupted over his penchant for having politicized
intelligence. Independent counsel Lawrence Walsh states that, despite Gates’
touted memory, he “denied recollection of facts thirty-three times.” Obama’s
Deputy Defense Secretary, William Lynn, is just as tainted. The former Raytheon
vice president and company lobbyist caused Republican Senator Charles Grassley
to object to his “very questionable accounting practices” as Pentagon
comptroller during the Clinton years. He and Obama’s Undersecretary of Defense,
Robert Hale, who served as Assistant Air Force Secretary Financial Comptroller
under Clinton, are claimed to have lost enough taxpayer money to pay for Obama’s stimulus plan
four times over. They now again oversee DOD spending. The list goes on. Most of
Obama’s national security team is composed of recycled appointees committed to
continued imperial wars and outlandish amounts of military spending for
them.

Sources:
The Hill, November 24, 2008, “Ties to Chevron, Boeing Raise Concern on Possible NSA Pick,”
by Roxana Tiron. Truthout.org/Consortium News, November
13, 2008, “The Danger of Keeping
Robert Gates,” by Robert Parry. Global Research, February 13, 2009, “Obama’s Defense Department Appointees – The 3.4 Trillion Dollar
Question,” by Andrew Hughes.

8.
Bailed Out Banks Cheat IRS Out of Billions (For full story, click here)

It’s an old
story. “Only the little people pay taxes,” according to former tax cheat Leona
Hemsley (1920 – 2007), and rarely does anyone like her get caught. In
2008, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that 83 of the top
publicly held US companies have operations in tax havens like the Cayman
Islands, Bermuda, and the Virgin Islands. 14 of these companies, including AIG,
Bank of America, and Citigroup, received money from the government
bailout. In addition, Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) helped wealthy
clients cheat the IRS out of over $20 billion in recent years, according to the
Department of Justice. Other notorious tax havens include Austria, Luxembourg,
Singapore, Hong Kong, Monaco, Gibraltar, and the Bahamas. In 2008, havens like
these saved Goldman Sachs billions of dollars through “changes in (its)
geographic earnings mix.” For many other companies, it’s much the same through
legal provisions in the tax code. According to some estimates, trillions of
dollars in both corporate profits and personal wealth have migrated offshore,
and the offshore banking world now harbors $11.5 trillion in individual wealth
alone.

Sources:
Bloomberg, December 16, 2008, “Goldman Sachs’s Tax Rate Drops to 1% or $14 Million,” by
Christine Harper. The Huffington Post, February 23, 2009, “Gimme Shelter: Tax Evasion and the Obama Administration,” by
Thomas B. Edsall.

9. US
Arms Used for War Crimes in Gaza (For full story, click here)

For
decades, America has supplied Israel, population 7.5 million, with tens of
billions in aid, interest-free loans, and the latest in new weapons and
technology, including illegal white phosphorous shells used against Gazan
civilians during Operation Cast Lead. In addition, Washington has
supplied F-16 fighters, attack helicopters, tactical missiles, bunker-buster
bombs, a wide variety of other munitions, and undisclosed new weapons for
testing in real time combat situations against Palestinian or other Arab
civilians. In Gaza, shell fragments revealed names of US defense contractors,
including Raytheon. Another was marked the Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas. In
shocking support for Israel’s questionable attacks, and in violation of
international and US law, both Houses of Congress overwhelmingly endorsed the
continued aggression. Obama stayed silent on the subject in the run-up to his
January 20 inauguration.

Sources:
Human Rights Watch, Mar. 25, 2009, “White Phosphorus Use Evidence of War Crimes Report,” Fred
Abrahams. Guardian, Feb. 23, 2009, “Suspend Military Aid to Israel, Amnesty Urges Obama,” Rory
McCarthy. Inter Press Service, Jan. 8, 2009, “US Weaponry
Facilitates Killings in Gaza,” Thalif Deen. Consortium News, Jan. 18, 2009,
“Is Israel’s
Gaza War a New War Crime?” by Dennis Bernstein. Foreign Policy Journal, Jan.
09, 2009, “US Senate Endorses Israel’s War on Gaza,” by Jeremy R.
Hammond.

10.
Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate (Full story here)

In November
2008, Ecuador became the first country to undertake an examination of the
legitimacy and structure of its foreign debt. In violation of Ecuadorian law,
predatory international lenders were involved in hundreds of illegitimate
irregularities. Billions in foreign debt at exorbitant interest rates
resulted in debt service far exceeding the principal borrowed, and at a
staggering human cost. In December, President Rafael Correa announced
his country would default. In April 2009, he was re-elected overwhelmingly. Ecuador exposed the corrupted international finance system in a way that
could set a precedent for the poorest of indebted countries. Correa
asked other Latin American nations “to forge a united response, (and for) the
United Nations to help develop international norms to regulate the foreign debt
market.” The April 2008 House passed Jubilee Act was a positive step forward.
However, the Senate failed to pass its S. 2166 version, then cleared the
legislation from its books. In June 2009, Ecuador agreed with 91% of its
creditors to pay 35 cents on the dollar for its debt. Other countries may now
follow suit, especially those most impacted by the global economic crisis.

Sources:
Alternet, Nov. 26, 2008, “Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate and Illegal,” by
Daniel Denvir. Utube, Fall 2008, “Invalid Loans to Ecuador: Who Owes Who,” by
Committee for the Integral Audit of Public Credit. Institute for Policy Studies,
Dec. 15, 2008, “Ecuador’s Debt Default,” by Neil Watkins, Sarah Anders.