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Government Corruption Media Articles

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Uvalde officials are using a legal loophole to block the release of shooting records
2022-06-18, NPR
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/18/1106017340/uvalde-legal-loophole-mass-shooting...

Uvalde city officials are using a legal loophole and several other broad exemptions in Texas to prevent the release of police records related to last month's mass shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead, according to a letter obtained by NPR. Since the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School, law enforcement officials have provided little and conflicting information, amid mounting public pressure for transparency. The Texas Department of Public Safety, which is leading the state investigation, previously said that some accounts of the events were preliminary and may change as more witnesses are interviewed. The City of Uvalde has hired a private law firm to make its case, which cited the "dead suspect loophole," to deny the release of information because the gunman died in police custody. The legal exception bars the public disclosure of information pertaining to crimes in which no one has been convicted. The Texas Attorney General's Office has ruled that the exception applies when a suspect is dead. The maneuver has been used repeatedly by Texas law enforcement agencies to claim they're not required to turn over the requested information because a criminal case is still pending, even though the suspect is dead. The loophole was established in the 1990s to protect people who were wrongfully accused or whose cases were dismissed, said Kelley Shannon, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. "It is meant to protect the innocent," Shannon said.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in policing and in the court system from reliable major media sources.


Texas cops waited 77 minutes to attempt entering Uvalde classrooms under attack
2022-06-18, New York Post
https://nypost.com/2022/06/18/uvalde-cops-waited-77-minutes-to-try-entering-c...

Security footage shows cops at the Uvalde, Texas school massacre waited 77 minutes before even trying to open the doors to two classrooms where the shooter killed 19 children and two teachers last month, a new report said. The latest revelation, published Saturday by The San Antonio Express News, is the latest detail that shows a botched police response to the massacre, which is now under investigation by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Video shows that gunman Salvador Ramos, 18, was able to open the door to classroom 111 on May 24, even though it was supposed to lock automatically when shut. Once inside the classroom, Ramos was able to access classroom 112 through another interior door. It was unclear if the door was locked while Ramos conducted the shooting spree, but police did not even check or try to open it, despite having access to a Halligan tool which could have broken the lock. Uvalde school district police Chief Pete Arredondo was in charge of the operation. He previously told The Texas Tribune that he waited for 40 minutes for keys from the custodian to try to open the classroom door. Finally, at 12:50 p.m., police breached the door and shot and killed the suspect who had first broken into the school at 11:33 a.m. through an exterior door that had also failed to automatically lock. Texas investigators say Arredondo mistakenly treated the shooting as a barricaded suspect incident instead of an active shooter situation.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


Deputy: 2 officers had chance to shoot Uvalde school gunman
2022-06-18, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Texas-committee-still-trying-to-question-...

Two Uvalde city police officers passed up a fleeting chance to shoot a gunman outside Robb Elementary School before he went on to kill 21 people inside the school, a senior sheriff's deputy told The New York Times. That would mean a second missed opportunity for officers to stop Salvador Ramos before the May 24 rampage inside the school that killed 19 children and two teachers. Officials said that a school district police drove past Ramos without seeing him in the school parking lot. The unidentified officers, one of whom was armed with an AR-15-style rifle, said they feared hitting children playing in the line of fire outside the school, Chief Deputy Ricardo Rios of nearby Zavalla County told the newspaper. Rios said he had shared the information with a special Test House committee investigating the school massacre. Uvalde police officials agreed Friday to speak to the committee investigating, according to a Republican lawmaker leading the probe who had begun to publicly question why the officers were not cooperating sooner. “Took a little bit longer than we initially had expected," state Rep. Dustin Burrows said. On Thursday, Burrows signaled impatience with Uvalde police, tweeting that most people had fully cooperated with their investigation “to help determine the facts” and that he didn't understand why the city's police force “would not want the same.” He did not say which members of the department will meet with the committee, which is set to continue questioning witnesses in Uvalde on Monday.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


'Forever chemicals' in drinking water pose risk even at low levels, EPA says
2022-06-16, CBS News/Associated Press
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/pfas-forever-chemicals-drinking-water-ris...

The Environmental Protection Agency is warning that two nonstick and stain-resistant compounds found in drinking water are more dangerous than previously thought and pose health risks even at levels so low they cannot currently be detected. The two compounds, known as PFOA and PFOS, have been voluntarily phased out by U.S. manufacturers, but there are a limited number of ongoing uses and the chemicals remain in the environment because they do not degrade over time. The compounds are part of a larger cluster of "forever chemicals" known as PFAS that have been used in consumer products and industry since the 1940s. The EPA on Wednesday issued nonbinding health advisories that set health risk thresholds for PFOA and PFOS to near zero, replacing 2016 guidelines that had set them at 70 parts per trillion. The chemicals are found in products including cardboard packaging, carpets and firefighting foam. The toxic industrial compounds are associated with serious health conditions, including cancer and reduced birth weight. The revised health guidelines are based on new science and consider lifetime exposure to the chemicals, the EPA said. Officials are no longer confident that PFAS levels allowed under the 2016 guidelines "do not have adverse health impacts," an EPA spokesman said. PFAS chemicals have been confirmed at nearly 400 military installations and at least 200 million people in the United States are drinking water contaminated with PFAS.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and health from reliable major media sources.


The Truth Never Mattered at Guantánamo
2022-06-11, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2022/06/11/the-truth-never-mattered-at-guantanamo/

It was the evening of June 9, 2006. Three [Guantánamo Bay] detainees were declared dead. The Navy says the men killed themselves by hanging, in separate nonadjoining cells, in the same way, at the same time, under video surveillance, with no guards noticing and no prisoners calling for the guards to intervene. They tell us that each of the men had bound their wrists and ankles with fabric and shoved fabric down their own throats — and then ask us to believe that they hung themselves. Despite explosive reporting by Scott Horton for Harper’s Magazine in which multiple sources ... refuted the official narrative and gave evidence that a cover-up had taken place, no independent official investigation of the incident was ordered. This disturbing episode quickly turned unspeakably dark: Independent autopsies ordered by the families of the dead were useless since the bodies, which showed signs of torture, had been sent home with missing parts. The men’s throats — the larynx, the hyoid bone, and the thyroid cartilage — had been removed. Even after this shocking finding ... there would be no investigations. The narrative that these men did something terrible and deserved to be imprisoned for it defines the very nature of the post-9/11 response. It doesn’t matter that the original accusations against many of them were flimsy and easily disproved. Due process and the presumption of innocence, the defining values of the American ideal of justice, would be forever denied them.

Note: Read a troubling letter by Sharqawi Al Hajj, a Yemeni citizen detained at Guantanamo Bay. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.


Why America Doesn't Trust the CDC
2022-06-10, Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com/why-america-doesnt-trust-cdc-opinion-1713145

Two weeks ago, with no outcomes data on COVID-19 booster shots for 5-to-11-year-olds, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) vigorously recommended the booster for all 24 million American children in that age group. The CDC cited a small Pfizer study of 140 children that showed boosters elevated their antibody levels–an outcome known to be transitory. When that study concluded, a Pfizer spokesperson said it did not determine the efficacy of the booster in the 5-to-11-year-olds. But that didn't matter to the CDC. Seemingly hoping for a different answer, the agency put the matter before its own kangaroo court of curated experts, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Committee members ... emphasized the importance of a universal booster message that applies to all age groups. Most remarkably, it didn't seem to matter to the CDC that 75.2 percent of children under age 11 already have natural immunity, according to a CDC study. Natural immunity is certainly much more prevalent today, given the ubiquity of the Omicron variant since February. CDC data from New York and California demonstrated that natural immunity was 2.8 times more effective in preventing hospitalization and 3.3 to 4.7 times more effective in preventing COVID infection compared to vaccination during the Delta wave. These findings are consistent with dozens of other clinical studies. Yet natural immunity has consistently and inexplicably been dismissed by the medical establishment.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.


Break Government Officials' Monopoly on Public Health
2022-06-10, Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com/break-government-officials-monopoly-public-health-op...

Public health initiatives in the United States are suffering from a crisis of trust. Recent polls show that only a third of the public trusts insurance and pharmaceutical companies, while just 56 percent trust the government health agencies that are meant to regulate these industries. Another survey during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that only around half of Americans have a "great deal" of trust in the CDC, while a mere third have such trust in the Department of Health and Human Services. When the mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 were made available to the public free of charge, a national conversation began about "vaccine hesitancy"–the phenomenon of Americans choosing not to be vaccinated even when incentivized and, in some cases, coerced. Americans had watched public health experts lie, misdirect, ignore evidence and yield to professional pressure. Few wanted to be their guinea pigs. Not all the COVID-19 gaslighting was the fault of the media or politicians - much was implemented by experts abusing their apolitical position of trust. The experts ... including Drs. Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci, insisted on the most asinine and evidence-free preventative measures, including facial coverings, lockdowns and social distancing. Their insulated role as health advisers enabled them to manipulate health policy in ways that benefited only themselves. The most stark example was the corruption of data collection at the Center for Disease Control–a scandal that crashed public trust to a new low.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.


Justice Department launches civil rights investigation of Louisiana State Police
2022-06-09, NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/justice-department-launch...

The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation Thursday of the Louisiana State Police, launching the review after a series of videos showed officers brutally beating Black motorists. One particularly violent video showed state troopers punching, stunning, and dragging an unarmed man, Ronald Greene, as he apologized for failing to stop during a high-speed chase in 2019. He died shortly after, but state police initially told his family that he was killed when his car hit a tree. “We find significant justification to investigate whether Louisiana State Police engages in excessive force and in racially discriminatory policing,” said Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general in charge of the civil rights division. State Police Superintendent Lamar Davis has said he would welcome the Justice Department investigation. Two-thirds of his agency’s uses of force have been directed at Black people, he [said]. Greene’s arrest was one of least a dozen over the past 10 years in which state police troopers or their superiors ignored or concealed evidence of beatings. Under Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Justice Department has opened similar investigations of police departments in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd and in Louisville, Kentucky, following the death of Breonna Taylor.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


Nassar Victims Suing F.B.I. for Early Investigative Failures
2022-06-08, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/us/politics/nassar-fbi-lawsuits.html

More than 90 women who say they were sexually assaulted by Lawrence G. Nassar, the former doctor for U.S.A. Gymnastics who was convicted on state sexual abuse charges, filed lawsuits on Wednesday against the F.B.I. for its failure to investigate him when it received credible information about his crimes. The lawsuits come two weeks after the Justice Department decided not to prosecute two former F.B.I. agents accused of bungling the bureau’s 2015 investigation into Mr. Nassar, allowing him to assault more than 70 girls and women for over a year before Michigan authorities arrested him. The agents were accused by the Justice Department’s own watchdog of making false statements about the matter. In the fall, Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, testified to Congress that “there were people at the F.B.I. who had their chance to stop this monster back in 2015 and failed.” The plaintiffs include the Olympic gymnastics gold medalists Simone Biles, Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney. “My fellow survivors and I were betrayed by every institution that was supposed to protect us — the U.S. Olympic Committee, U.S.A. Gymnastics, the F.B.I. and now the Department of Justice,” Ms. Maroney said. “It is clear that the only path to justice and healing is through the legal process,” she added. Mr. Nassar, who was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison, was accused of molesting hundreds of girls and women, including many members of the 2012 and 2016 U.S. Olympic gymnastics teams.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.


US water likely contains more ‘forever chemicals’ than EPA tests show
2022-06-06, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/06/us-drinking-water-pfas-toxic-...

Guardian analysis of water samples from around the United States shows that the type of water testing relied on by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is so limited in scope that it is probably missing significant levels of PFAS pollutants. The undercount leaves regulators with an incomplete picture of the extent of PFAS contamination and reveals how millions of people may be facing an unknown health risk in their drinking water. The analysis checked water samples from PFAS hot spots around the country with two types of tests: an EPA-developed method that detects 30 types of the approximately 9,000 PFAS compounds, and another that checks for a marker of all PFAS. Seven of the nine samples collected showed higher levels of PFAS in water using the test that identifies markers for PFAS, than levels found when the water was tested using the EPA method – and at concentrations as much as 24 times greater. PFAS ... are often called “forever chemicals” because they don’t fully break down, accumulating in the environment. Some are toxic at very low levels and have been linked to cancer, birth defects, kidney disease, liver problems, decreased immunity and other serious health issues. The limitations of the test used by state and federal regulators, which is called the EPA 537 method, virtually guarantees regulators will never have a full picture of contamination levels as industry churns out new compounds much faster than researchers can develop the science to measure them.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and health from reliable major media sources.


Bilderberg reconvenes in person after two-year pandemic gap
2022-06-04, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/04/bilderberg-reconvenes-in-person...

Bilderberg is back with a vengeance. After a pandemic gap of two years, the elite global summit is being rebooted in ... Washington DC, with a high-powered guest list that includes the heads of Nato, the CIA, GCHQ, the US national security council, two European prime ministers, a healthy sprinkle of tech billionaires, and Henry Kissinger. Back in 2019, the last time Bilderberg met in the flesh, the conference kicked off with the optimistic topics “A Stable Strategic Order” and “What Next For Europe?” This year however, the agenda reeks of chaos and crisis. Top of the schedule is the blandly terrifying item “Global Realignments”, followed by “Nato Challenges”, the biggest of which is obviously Ukraine. To be sure, the Washington conference is a high-level council of war, headlined by the secretary general of Nato, Bilderberg veteran Jens Stoltenberg. He’s joined at the luxurious Mandarin Oriental hotel by the Ukrainian ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, and the CEO of Naftogaz, the state-owned Ukrainian oil and gas company. Many consider it an older, less flashy Davos, staged annually by the World Economic Fund. The two events have a good bit in common. Klaus Schwab, the grisly head of Davos, is a former member of Bilderberg’s steering committee. Formed in the mid-1950s as a joint project of British and US intelligence, the conference has kept its cards so close to its chest that the world’s press has given up trying to get a glimpse of them.

Note: For more on this secretive, powerful group, explore this article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


Uvalde Police Didn’t Move to Save Lives Because That’s Not What Police Do
2022-05-27, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2022/05/27/uvalde-texas-shooting-police-law-enforcem...

The more details that emerge about how police responded to the massacre in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, the clearer it is that the already well-funded, heavily armed and amply trained law enforcement officers on the scene failed to save the lives of 19 children and two of their teachers. Salvador Ramos murdered 21 people. Despite earlier, misleading claims from law enforcement officials, it appears that no police officers engaged with the shooter before he entered the school. Instead of rushing in to protect the children and staff when reports of a gunman approaching the school were made at 11:30 a.m., police instead waited outside and aggressively confronted parents who were begging them to enter. The parents were threatened with arrest — one cop brandished a Taser — as they attempted to access the school to save their kids themselves. The police failed at protecting the schoolchildren, yes, but we should not be under the illusion that this is an example of the cops failing at their jobs. As far we can tell from reports, police at the scene acted as they usually do, in accordance with standard policing practice: Rather than risk a hail of gunfire to stop the killer, they kept themselves safe. It is disgusting, not shocking, that police officers would sooner harass and handcuff parents — parents begging them to save their children from a massacre — than they would run in and put themselves in the line of fire.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


The Brooklyn Hologram Studio Receiving Millions from the CIA
2022-05-27, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2022/05/27/metaverse-cia-military-hologram-looking-g...

Looking Glass Factory, a company based in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, revealed its latest consumer device: a slim, holographic picture frame that turns photos taken on iPhones into 3D displays. Looking Glass received $2.54 million of “technology development” funding from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA, from April 2020 to March 2021 and a $50,000 Small Business Innovation Research award from the U.S. Air Force in November 2021 to “revolutionize 3D/virtual reality visualization.” Across the various branches of the military and intelligence community, contract records show a rush to jump on holographic display technology, augmented reality, and virtual reality display systems as the latest trend. Critics argue that the technology isn’t quite ready for prime time, and that the urgency to adopt it reflects the Pentagon’s penchant for high-priced, high-tech contracts based on the latest fad in warfighting. Military interest in holographic imaging, in particular, has grown rapidly in recent years. Military planners in China and the U.S. have touted holographic technology to project images “to incite fear in soldiers on a battlefield.” Other uses involve the creation of three-dimensional maps of villages of specific buildings and to analyze blast forensics. Palmer Luckey, who founded the technology startup Anduril Industries ... has received secretive Air Force contracts to develop next-generation artificial intelligence capabilities under the so-called Project Maven initiative.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption from reliable major media sources.


DOJ's new policy requires officers to stop others from using excessive force
2022-05-24, NPR
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/24/1100920286/doj-new-policy-excessive-force

The Justice Department is updating its use of force policy for the first time in 18 years, saying explicitly that federal officers and agents must step in if they see other officers using excessive force. The policy takes effect on July 19. The new policy is outlined in a memo Attorney General Merrick Garland sent to senior Justice leaders. The rules apply to all agencies under the Justice Department, including the FBI, DEA, ATF and U.S. Marshals Service. "It is the policy of the Department of Justice to value and preserve human life," the policy begins. It later adds, "Officers may use force only when no reasonably effective, safe, and feasible alternative appears to exist and may use only the level of force that a reasonable officer on the scene would use under the same or similar circumstances." The policy's first portion deals with deadly force, barring tactics such as firing guns to disable cars. But the next section calls for de-escalation training, and the next two spell out situations in which officers have an "affirmative duty" — to prevent or stop other officers from using excessive force, and to render or call for medical aid when it's needed. Law enforcement officers should be able to recognize and act on "the affirmative duty to intervene to prevent or stop, as appropriate, any officer from engaging in excessive force or any other use of force that violates the Constitution, other federal laws, or Department policies on the reasonable use of force," the policy states.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


FBI Provides Chicago Police with Fake Online Identities for "Social Media Exploitation" Team
2022-05-20, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2022/05/20/chicago-police-fbi-social-media-surveilla...

The Social Media Exploitation, or SOMEX, team ... had been set up to help the FBI find informants and intelligence using information gleaned from social sites. The Intercept and Chicago-based transparency groups obtained more than 800 pages of emails and other documents about the team through public records requests. These show that the team’s officers were given broad leeway to investigate people across platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, using fake social media accounts furnished by the FBI, in violation of some platforms’ policies. The week that followed George Floyd’s murder by a white police officer was an intense moment in Chicago’s — and U.S. — history. Thousands of people took to the city’s streets to peacefully demonstrate against police violence. Despite ample warning, the Office of Inspector General report found, Chicago’s police were unprepared. When they did react, their response was chaotic and excessively violent, with officers variously hiding their badge numbers, turning off their body cameras, blasting people with pepper spray at close range ... and telling an arrestee that they would be raped in jail. The SOMEX team’s reaction was also troubling. The team’s mission was to provide both the FBI and the CPD with useful intelligence. What the SOMEX officers did instead: flag potential damage of police cars, investigate the social media connections of people who had made threats online, and cull videos for the department’s YouTube channel.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


How a Social Security program piled huge fines on the poor and disabled
2022-05-20, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/20/social-security-fraud-pena...

After her longtime partner died of kidney cancer, federal agents knocked on Gail Deckman’s door outside Chicago and told her she was in trouble: She had kept thousands of dollars in Social Security disability benefits that should have stopped when he died. The inspector general’s office, which investigates disability fraud and tries to recoup money for the government, ultimately charged her $119,392 — nearly three times what she received in error. The inflated fees were set in motion during the Trump administration, when attorneys in charge of a little-known anti-fraud program run by the inspector general’s office levied unprecedented fines against Deckman and more than 100 other beneficiaries without due process. The escalating penalties created a giant jump — at least on paper — in the amount of money the inspector general could show lawmakers it was bringing in. A Chicago woman was fined $132,000 after wrongly receiving as much as $10,618 in benefits. A Denver woman was sanctioned $168,000 after cashing as much as $14,960 in wrongly received checks. The remarkable penalties led to tumult inside the Office of Inspector General Gail Ennis, where a whistleblower was targeted for retaliation, according to a ruling this month. [Deborah] Shaw testified that she was shocked when she was directed in early 2019 to issue a penalty of $176,000 to a woman who had already written a check for $26,000 to repay the government the entire amount she had wrongly received in disability benefits.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


White House working towards first presidential meeting with Saudi Arabia, which Biden had vowed to make a 'pariah'
2022-05-19, CNN News
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/19/politics/joe-biden-mohammed-bin-salman/index.html

President Joe Biden and Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, could meet for the first time as soon as next month, multiple sources told CNN. A meeting would ... represent a turnabout for a US president who once declared Saudi Arabia a “pariah” with “no redeeming social value.” Saudi Arabia currently holds the presidency of the Gulf Cooperation Council, so any engagement between Biden and bin Salman, known as MBS, would likely coincide with a meeting of the GCC in Riyadh, the sources noted. A meeting between American and Saudi leaders would have once been considered routine, but now marks a significant shift due to the recent strain in the relationship. It would also likely spark some controversy at home for Biden, who has been highly critical of the Saudis’ record on human rights, its war in Yemen, and the role its government played in the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden repeatedly criticized his predecessor, Donald Trump, for his cozy relationships with the world’s strongmen and dictators – including MBS of Saudi.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


DHS pauses a board created to combat disinformation amid a campaign to discredit it
2022-05-18, NPR
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/1099848240/dhs-disinformation-group-pause

A group within the Department of Homeland Security that was set up to focus on combating disinformation has been put on pause, DHS said Wednesday, and its director Nina Jankowicz is stepping down. The decision ... comes in the midst of a coordinated ... campaign against Jankowicz. The group, called the Disinformation Governance Board, launched three weeks ago and has not met. The working group was created with the purpose of helping to develop strategies to combat disinformation while, DHS said, remaining committed to protecting Americans' freedom of speech and other rights. Republicans were quick to claim [that] the board would result in censorship, criticizing what they considered an unclear mission as well as Jankowicz as its leader. DHS says it is conducting a review and assessment on how to continue their work on combating disinformation which will last 75 days. During this time, they said the board will not operate. DHS initially decided they would shut down the board on Monday, but by Tuesday they decided the board's work would be paused. "It is deeply disappointing that mischaracterizations of the Board became a distraction from the Department's vital work, and indeed, along with recent events globally and nationally, embodies why it is necessary," Jankowicz said in a statement announcing her resignation.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and media manipulation from reliable sources.


U.S. counts Indian boarding school deaths for first time but leaves key questions unanswered
2022-05-11, NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/indian-boarding-school-deaths-interior-d...

At least 500 Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children died while attending Indian boarding schools run or supported by the U.S. government, a highly anticipated Interior Department report said Wednesday. The report identified over 400 schools and more than 50 gravesites and said more gravesites would likely be found. The report is the first time in U.S. history that the government has attempted to comprehensively research and acknowledge the magnitude of the horrors it inflicted on Native American children for decades. But it falls well short of some independent estimates of deaths and does not address how the children died or who was responsible. The report also sheds little new light on the physical and sexual abuse generations of Indigenous children endured at the schools, which were open for more than 150 years, starting in the early 1800s. The report identified more than 500 child deaths after examining records for 19 of the facilities, a small share of the total number of schools identified. The number is significantly less than some estimates, which are in the tens of thousands. Preston S. McBride, an Indian boarding school historian and a Comanche descendent ... has found more than 1,000 student deaths at the four former boarding schools he has studied, and estimates the overall number of deaths could be as high as 40,000. “Basically every school had a cemetery,” he said. “There are deaths at or deaths because of virtually every single boarding school.”

Note: Canada has been investigating its own residential schools. What happened at these schools was akin to "cultural genocide," according to a 2015 report from Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


What is DHS' Disinformation Governance Board and why is everyone so mad about it?
2022-05-06, CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-is-dhs-disinformation-governance-board-and-...

The Department of Homeland Security's announcement of a "Disinformation Governance Board" to standardize the treatment of disinformation by the agencies it oversees has been met with an overwhelmingly negative response since it was first unveiled in April. "It's an awful idea, and you ought to disband it," Sen. Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, told Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas at a Senate hearing. The new board is intended to standardize the department's efforts to respond to disinformation that could be connected with violent threats to the U.S. So, if an agency under DHS — like Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) — identifies disinformation under its purview, it's the new disinformation board that would come up with the best practices for any DHS agency handling the disinformation. "There has been a lot of misinformation about your department's work to combat misinformation," said Senator Chris Murphy, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee's Homeland Security panel, told Mayorkas. "This is not the truth police," Mayorkas declared to the Senate panel ... responding to accusations of censorship. DHS selected author and disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz to lead the board. The former Fulbright-Clinton Public Policy Fellow previously oversaw programs for Russia and Belarus for the National Democratic Institute.

Note: 20 US Attorney Generals demanded DHS immediately disband this Disinformation Governance Board and “cease all efforts to police Americans’ protected speech.” For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.