Mysterious Death ofMike Connell, Karl Rove's Election Thief
Karl Rove's chief IT consultant, MikeConnellwho was facing subpoena in connection with 2004 presidential electionfraud in Ohiomysteriouslydied in a private plane crash in 2008. Connell allegedly was the central figurein a long-standing plot to electronically flip votes to Republicans.
In July 2008, Connell was named as a keywitness in a lawsuit filed in 2006 by Columbusattorneys Clifford Arnebeck and Robert Fitrakis charging Ohio Secretary ofState Ken Blackwell with racially discriminatory practicesincluding theselective purging of voters from the election rolls and the unequal allocationof voting machines to various districts.
The case took on fresh momentum in July 2008when Arnebeck made another filing, inspired in part by GOP IT security expertStephen Spoonamore coming forward as a whistle-blower. Spoonamore said he wasprepared to testify to the plausibility of electronic vote-rigging having beencarried out in 2004.
Spoonamore, a conservative Republican whoworks for big banks, international governments and the Secret Service as anexpert in the detection of computer fraud, found evidence that Karl Rove, withthe help of Mike Connell and his company GovTech Solutions, electronicallystole the Ohio 2004 election for Bush.
Spoonamore testified that the “vote tabulationsystem [which Connell designed] allowed the introduction of an additionalsingle computer between computer A and computer B.” This is called a “man inthe middle” attack. According to Spoonamore, “This centralized collection ofall incoming statewide tabulations would make it easy for a single operator, ora preprogrammed ‘force balancing computer,' to change the results in any waydesired by the team controlling the Computer C.” Connell was ordered to appearfor a two-hour, closed-door deposition on Nov. 3, 2008, just 18 hours beforethe 2008 election.
Arnebeck said he had evidence that Rovethreatened Connell, cautioning that if Connell didn't “take the fall” forelection fraud in Ohio,Connell would face prosecution for supposed lobby law violations. After thisthreat, Arnebeck sent letters to the Department of Justice, as well as messagesto high-ranking members of the department, seeking protection for Connell andhis family from attempts to intimidate.
Election fraud analyst and author Mark CrispinMiller notes that the timing and circumstances of Connell's deathbetweendeposition and trialare too suspicious and convenient for Rove and the Bushadministration not to merit a thorough investigation. Arnebeck and Fitrakisintended to both further depose Connell and call him to testify as a keywitness in the federal conspiracy case.
Congress Sells Out toWall Street
Federal lawmakers responsible for overseeingthe economy have received millions of dollars from Wall Street. Since 2001,employees from eight of the most troubled firms have donated $64.2 million tocongressional candidates, presidential candidates and the Republican andDemocratic parties. As senators, Barack Obama and John McCain received acombined total of $3.1 million. The donors include investment bankers from BearStearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, insurerAmerican International Group (AIG) and mortgage giants Fannie Mae and FreddieMac. %u2028
Some of the top recipients of contributionsfrom employees of companies receiving Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)money are the same members of Congress who chair committees charged withregulating the financial sector and overseeing the effectiveness of thisunprecedented government program. Nearly every member of the House FinancialServices Committee, who in February 2009 oversaw hearings on how the $700billion of TARP bailout was being spent, received contributions associated withthese financial institutions during the 2008 election cycle. “You could saythat the finance industry got their money's worth by supporting members ofCongress who were inclined to look the other way,” said Lawrence Jacobs, thedirector of the University of Minnesota's Center forthe Study of Politics and Governance.
Since the start of 2009, Wall Street hasdonated $12.6 millionmore than any other sector this year. And 58% of that hasgone to Democrats, marking a change, perhaps, in political strategy. Not sincethe 1990 election cycle have finance, insurance and real estate companies givenmore than 52% of overall donations to Democrats, and from 1991 to 2006 financegave the majority of its money to Republicans. %u2028
U.S. Schools Are More Segregated Today Than in the 1950s
Schools in the United States are more segregatedtoday than they have been in more than four decades. Millions of non-whitestudents are locked into “dropout factory” high schools, where huge percentagesdo not graduate, and few are well prepared for college or a future in the U.S. economy.
According to a new civil rights reportpublished at the University of California, Los Angeles(UCLA), minorities are rapidly emerging as the majority of public schoolstudents in the United States. But Latinos and blacks, the twolargest minority groups, attend schools more segregated today than during thecivil rights movement 40 years ago. In Latino and African-American populations,two of every five students attend intensely segregated schools.
Unequal education leads to diminished accessto college and future jobs. Most non-white schools are segregated by poverty aswell as race. Most of the nation's dropouts occur in non-white public schools,leading to large numbers of virtually unemployable young people of color.
Schools in low-income communities remainhighly unequal in terms of funding, qualified teachers and curriculum. Thereport indicates that schools with high levels of poverty have weaker staffs,fewer high-achieving peers, health and nutrition problems, residentialinstability, more single-parent households, high exposure to crime and gangs, andmany other conditions that strongly affect student performance levels.Low-income campuses are more likely to be ignored by college and jobrecruiters.
Our nation's segregated schools result fromdecades of systematic neglect of civil rights policy and related educationaland community reforms. According to the UCLA report, we need leaders whorecognize these problems and will work toward an America where our children grow uptogether, knowing and respecting each other, and are all given the educationaltools that prepare them for success in society.
Bailed-Out Banks and America'sWealthiest Cheat IRS Out of Billions
A 2008 study done by the GovernmentAccountability Office (GAO) reported that 83 of the top publicly held U.S. companies have operations in tax havenslike the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the Virgin Islands.Fourteen of these companies, including AIG, Bank of America and Citigroup,received money from the government bailout. The GAO also reported thatactivities of Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) are directly connected to taxavoidance.
Swiss banking giant UBS has enabled wealthyAmericans to use tax schemessome of which are illegalto cheat the IRS out ofmore than $20 billion in recent years, according to the U.S. Department ofJustice (DOJ).
For corporations, the process of geographictax avoidance is fairly simple. A U.S. corporation will sell productsat reduced rates, even a loss, to their own offshore subsidiaries, and thenresell the products at higher prices, paying little or no taxes in the foreigncountry.
In December 2008, the bank holding companyGoldman Sachs reported its first quarterly loss. On the heels of thisannouncement, Goldman Sachs issued a statement confirming that its tax rate wasdropping from 34.1% to 1%. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which received $10 billionand debt guarantees from the government in October 2008, expects to pay only$14 million in taxes worldwide for 2008, compared with $6 billion in 2007. TheNew York-based Goldman Sachs cited “changes in geographic earnings mix” as thereason behind the decrease. %u2028
On Feb. 19, 2009, UBS for the first timeagreed to release to the DOJ an as yet undetermined number of the names of bankaccount holders.
Katrina's Hidden RaceWar
A shocking report in The Nation exposes how white vigilante groups patrolled the streetsof New Orleansafter Hurricane Katrina, shooting at least 11 African-American men.
While most of New Orleans was deluged in the wake ofKatrina, word spread that Algiers Point was dry. The National Guard designatedthe Algiers Point ferry landing an official evacuation site, where floodvictims were to be loaded onto buses headed for safety in Texas. Facing an influx of refugees, a groupof heavily armed white residents sought to seal the area and to rid theneighborhood of “those who didn't belong.” As the government collapsed, thecity fractured along racial lines. Algiers Point is largely white, while therest of Algiersis predominantly black. Desperate people began heading toward the west bank,some walking over bridges, others traveling by boat.
The media often portrayed the city's AfricanAmericans as looters and thugs, but it appears that the most serious crimeswere committed by gun-toting white males. While white vigilantes killed anestimated 11 African-American victims, local police have never conductedinvestigations. So far, the crimes have gone unpunished.
Democracy Now! footage shows that dead bodieswere left, sometimes for weeks, to rot in full view of Homeland Security, statetroopers, Army personnel, private security guards and police who “secured” thestreets of New Orleansin the aftermath of Katrina.
Bank BailoutRecipients Spent to Defeat Labor
On Oct. 17, 2008, three days after Bank ofAmerica received $25 billion in federal bailout funds, they hosted a conferencecall to organize opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).Participants, including AIG, were urged to persuade their clients to send“large contributions” to groups working against the EFCA, as well as to SenateRepublicans who could be used to help block passage of the bill, which wouldmake it easier for employees to organize into unions.
Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, andRick Berman, founder of the Center for Union Facts, led the hour-long phonecall that framed the legislation as a threat to American capitalism. Thelegislation is virtually certain to face a Republican filibuster, while Obamaand Senate Democrats have stated their commitment to the bill.
Donations of hundreds of thousands, if not millions,of dollars were needed, it was argued, to prevent Americafrom turning “into France.”
“If a retailer has not gotten involved inthis, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to[former Sen.] Norm Coleman and all these other guys, they should be shot. Theyshould be thrown out of their goddamn jobs,” Marcus declared. %u2028
According to author Sam Stein, reform groupsare urging an investigation into whether bailout recipients used taxpayer moneyto benefit political candidates or organizations.
Berman said that there “was nothing on thatcall that spoke to funneling money to anybody.” Either way, Bank of America diduse time and resources to host the anti-EFCA forum, on which individuals wereurged to make political donations. That alone has compelled groups advocatinggovernment reform to raise concerns with Congress.
Activists Slam WorldWater Forum as a Corporate-Driven Fraud
Water rights activists blasted the World WaterForum, held in Turkeyin March 2009, as a corporate trade show promoting privatization of water.Three hundred Turkish activists gathered near the forum's entrance and werefaced with the overwhelming force of between 2,000 and 3,000 police. The forumopened with Turkish police firing tear gas and detaining protesters, who wereshouting “Water for life, not for profit.”
According to its Web site, the World WaterForum is “an open, all-inclusive, multi-stakeholder process” where governments,NGOs, businesses and others “can link up, debate and attempt to find solutionsto achieve water security.”
However, the forum's main organizer, the WorldWater Council (WWC), is dominated by two of the world's largest private watercorporations, Suezand Veolia. Critics contend that the council's links to Suez and Veolia, as well as the largerepresentation of the business industry in the WWC, compromise its legitimacy.Corporate interests that make up the World Water Council are in constantcontact with the World Bank and other financial institutions. Each World WaterForum is set up as a quasi-United Nations event, to the extent of issuing aMinisterial Statement at the forum's close promoting global policy approachesto water and sanitation.
The WWC promotes extraordinarily expensive anddestructive dam and water diversion projects as well as policies such aspublic-private partnerships (PPPs) that put water services under privateownership. PPPs in Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador, the United States and othercountries have resulted in huge price hikes, as well as water pollution,depletion and cut-offs that, in the language of the water justice movement,“deny people the right to water.”
Despite these and other harmful impacts, theIstanbul Water Consensus aims to secure the commitment of local authorities tosimilar water policies.
This year's forum issued a communiqué thatdescribes access to water as a “basic human need” rather than a “human right,”despite efforts by dissenting Latin American countries, France and Spain to introduce the right towater. They were reportedly blocked by Egypt,Brazil and the United States.In the minutiae of political verbiage, this apparently slight difference interminology can have a profound significance. If water is defined as a “need”rather than a “right,” it becomes a commodity subject to trade and implies noobligation on the parts of governments to ensure access to it. If it is a humanright, on the other hand, mandatory government policy is activated to assureunconditional access to everyone.
Congress Invested inDefense Contracts
The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politicshas calculated that more than 151 members of Congress have up to $195 millioninvested in major defense contractors that are earning profits from the U.S. military occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2006, the investment portfolios of 151current membersmore than a quarter of Congresshad between $78.7 million and$195.5 million invested in companies that received major defense contracts(more than $5 million). The portfolios include holdings in companies paidbillions of dollars each month to support America's military. These companiesprovide almost everything the military uses, from aircraft and weapons tomedical supplies and soft drinks.
Lawmakers with the most money invested incompanies with Department of Defense contracts include Rep. RodneyFrelinghuysen (R-N.J.), with $49 million; Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), with up to$38 million; Rep. Robin Hayes (R-N.C.), with $37 million; Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), with $7.6 million; Rep. JaneHarman (D-Calif.), with $6.26 million; Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), with $8.36million; Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), with $2 million; Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis.), with $5.8 million; Rep. Kenny EwellMarchant (R-Texas), with $1.16 million; and Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), with upto $5 million.
Companies with congressional investorsreceived more than $275.6 billion from the government in 2006. The minimumvalue of Congress members' personal investments in defense contracting firmsincreased 5% from 2004 to 2006, but because lawmakers are only required toreport their assets in broad ranges, the value of these investments could haverisen as much as 160%or even dropped 51%.
Kerry and Sensenbrenner, two of Congress'wealthiest members, were among the lawmakers who earned the most from theirinvestments in defense contractors between 2004 and 2006, with Sensenbrennermaking at least $3.2 million and Kerry reaping at least $2.6 million.
A spokesman for Sensenbrenner, who supportedthe Bush administration's policies in Iraq, said the congressman's stockswere left to him by his grandparents and are managed almost entirely by hisinvestment advisers. Kerry, who had been particularly outspoken against theBush administration's strategy and policies in Iraq, is a beneficiary of familytrusts, which he doesn't control, the senator's spokesman said.
Excerpted fromCensored 2010: The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008-09, edited by Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff with Project Censored.
Here's the full list of underreported storiesof the year. To read about them, go to www.projectcensored.org- Congress Sells Out toWall Street
- U.S. Schools Are More Segregated Today Than in the 1950s
- Toxic Waste Behind SomaliPirates
- Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina
- Europe Blocks U.S. ToxicProducts
- Lobbyists Buy Congress
- Obama's MilitaryAppointments Have Corrupt Past
- Bailed-Out Banks and America'sWealthiest Cheat IRS Out of Billions
- U.S. Arms Used for War Crimesin Gaza
- Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate
- Private CorporationsProfit from the Occupation of Palestine
- Mysterious Death of MikeConnell, Karl Rove's Election Thief
- Katrina's Hidden Race War
- Congress Invested inDefense Contracts
- World Bank's Carbon TradeFiasco
- U.S. Repression of Haiti Continues
- The ICC Facilitates U.S. Covert War in Sudan
- Ecuador's Constitutional Rights of Nature
- Bank Bailout RecipientsSpent to Defeat Labor
- Secret Control of thePresidential Debates
- Recession Causes Statesto Cut Welfare
- Obama's TrilateralCommission Team
- Activists Slam WorldWater Forum as a Corporate-Driven Fraud
- Dollar Glut Finances U.S. MilitaryExpansion
- Fast-Track OilExploitation in Western Amazon
