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Olympic National Park and Olympic National Forest in Washington State are ... where the US Navy aims to conduct its Northwest Electromagnetic Radiation Warfare training program. It will fly ... 2,900 training exercises over wilderness, communities and cities across the Olympic Peninsula for 260 days per year, with exercises lasting up to 16 hours per day. No public notices for the Navy's plans were published in any media that directly serve the Olympic Peninsula. But word spread. Public outcry forced the Navy to extend the public comment period until November 28 and schedule more public meetings. According to the US Navy's Information Dominance Roadmap 2013-2028, the Navy states it "will require new capabilities to fully employ integrated information in warfare by expanding the use of advanced electronic warfare." The purpose of these war games is to train to deny the enemy "all possible frequencies of electromagnetic radiation (i.e. electromagnetic energy) for use in such applications as communication systems..." David King, the mayor of Port Townsend, a town on the Northeast corner of the Olympic Peninsula, has voiced his opposition to the plan, along with numerous other public officials. Mike Welding, the Naval Air Station at Whidbey Island spokesman, recently admitted to reporters, "If someone is in the exclusion area for more than 15 minutes, that's a ballpark estimate for when there would be some concern for potential to injure, to receive burns."
Note: We don't generally use truth-out.org as a reliable source, but as no major media are covering this most important development, we're including this article here. To verify this information, please click on some of the links in the article and see the U.S. Navy's "Information Dominance Roadmap".
Civil asset forfeiture ... allows the government, without ever securing a conviction or even filing a criminal charge, to seize property. The practice ... has become a staple of law enforcement agencies because it helps finance their work. Under a Justice Department program, the value of assets seized has ballooned to $4.3 billion in the 2012 fiscal year from $407 million in 2001. From Orange County, N.Y., to Rio Rancho, N.M., forfeiture operations are being established or expanded. Much of the nuts-and-bolts how-to of civil forfeiture is passed on in continuing education seminars for local prosecutors and law enforcement officials, some of which have been captured on video. In the sessions, officials ... offered advice on dealing with skeptical judges, mocked Hispanics whose cars were seized, and ... gave weight to the argument that civil forfeiture encourages decisions based on the value of the assets to be seized rather than public safety. Prosecutors boasted in the sessions that seizure cases were rarely contested or appealed. Civil forfeiture places the burden on owners, who must pay court fees and legal costs. And often the first hearing is presided over not by a judge but by the prosecutor whose office benefits from the proceeds. Mr. McMurtry [chief of the forfeiture unit in the Mercer County, N.J., prosecutors office] said his handling of a case is sometimes determined by department wish lists. If you want the car, and you really want to put it in your fleet, let me know Ill fight for it.
Note: Watch the video at the link above showing a trainer teaching cops how to steal a car that a cop might want legally. For more along these lines, see these concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption and civil liberties news articles from reliable sources.
Americas Nazi transplants: scientists, academics and thinkers who were employed by the U.S. government, despite rsums full of horrid atrocities. Washington worked to protect them from the consequences of their horrible pasts. This information, revealed in detail for the first time in [Eric] Lichtblaus book, The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitlers Men, traces the legal battles and moral struggles surrounding the ... Operation Paperclip program, which brought former Nazi scientists to America to bolster the nations scientific community. Among the Third Reich transplants was the late Wernher von Braun, considered a legendary NASA space scientist who ... oversaw Hitlers Mittelwerk slave labor factory. Another was the late Dr. Hubertus Strughold, who is still considered the father of space medicine." Strughold ... helped orchestrate science experiments on human guinea pigs at the Dachau concentration camp. Even while the White House and its intelligence agencies were quietly employing some of the Nazis best minds in the nations scientific circles, mostly in a Huntsville, Alabama, military community, the Justice Department was secretly building cases against them. A deal was struck that allowed [Arthur] Rudolph to renounce his American citizenship and go quietly back to Germany in 1984. He was never charged with a war crime. No other Paperclip scientists were prosecuted for their past atrocities or complicity in Nazi war crimes.
Note: What this article fails to mention is the Nazi doctors secretly used to teach the CIA mind control methods it perfected. Read an amazing, eye-opening summary on this. Then see the astounding declassified CIA documents on this program.
With organic food growers reporting double-digit growth in U.S. sales each year, producers are challenging a proposed California pest-management program they say enshrines a pesticide-heavy approach for decades to come, including compulsory spraying of organic crops at the states discretion. The California Department of Food and Agricultures pest-management plan says compulsory state pesticide spraying of organic crops would do no economic harm to organic producers, on the grounds that the growers could sell sprayed crops as non-organic instead. I would rather stop farming than have to be a conventional farmer. I think I am not alone in that, said Zea Sonnabend, a Watsonville organic apple-grower with California Certified Organic Farmers. The fate of the pest-management plan outlined by the state isnt a theoretical concern. Its an immediate issue ... due, in part, to a disease-carrying pest. The disease spread by the Asian citrus psyllid kills citrus trees. Californias $2.4 billion citrus industry has found incursions by the bug. The standard treatment for the citrus pest is conventional pesticides, including neocotinoids linked to the decline of crop-pollinating bees. Organic farmers are asking the state to give more consideration to non-toxic controls, including long-term methods to strengthen crops and habitats in advance against marauding tropical species, said Kelly Damewood, policy director for California Certified Organic Farmers.
Note: Read concise summaries of deeply revealing articles that show bee colony deaths and autism are linked to pesticide exposure. Is compulsory state spraying of these pesticides really in the public's best interest?
The intelligence services have routinely been intercepting legally privileged communications ... according to internal MI5, MI6 and GCHQ documents. The information obtained may even have been exploited unlawfully and used by the agencies in the fighting of court cases in which they themselves are involved, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) has been told. MP David Davis, a former shadow home secretary, said past practice was to delete such material immediately if it was ever picked up. 28 extracts of internal intelligence policies showing how legally privileged material is handled by security officials were released to lawyers pursuing a claim through the IPT. The claim has been brought by two Libyans, Abdel-Hakim Belhaj and Sami Al Saadi. They were abducted in a joint MI6-CIA operation and ... tortured by Colonel Muammar Gaddafis regime in 2004. Belhaj has been given permission to sue the government for his mistreatment. Davis, who attended the hearing, said: In the past, when a bug or intercept on a criminal accidentally picked up a conversation with the criminals lawyer, the rule was that it was immediately deleted. Todays hearing shows that is no longer the case. Agencies are clearly keeping records of legal privileged material, and have explicit policies to handle it. In the case of MI5 that policy includes concealing ... that they have the material. This change has been carried out without changing the law or telling parliament. This is an enormous breach of defendants judicial rights.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing intelligence agency corruption news articles from reliable sources.
(senior federal district judge) Jed A. Rakoffs essay in The New York Review of Books ... tries to explain why innocent people so often plead guilty. At least 20,000 people have pled guilty to and gone to jail for felonies they did not commit if you very conservatively take criminologists lowest estimates, and cut them in half. Rakoff identifies three ways the criminal justice system obstructs its own truth seeking mechanism, a trial by jury: 1. By embracing the increasingly popular plea bargain. 97 percent of federal trials were resolved last year through plea bargain. Plea bargains ... are weighted largely in favor of the prosecutor. The notion that a plea bargain is a contractual mediation between two relatively equal parties, Rakoff argues, is a total myth. 2. Through mandatory minimum sentences. The combination of mandatory sentences and prosecutorial discretion forces the defendant [to] run the risk of losing the case and serve the maximum sentence or take a reduced charge, at a reduced sentence, even when innocent. 3. Via the unfettered rise of prosecutorial power. Prosecutors have far more power ... than any other party involved in the criminal justice system. The one mechanism that could check their power is the jury trial, which is becoming virtually extinct in federal court, Rakoff writes. One possible solution to all these problems aside from repealing mandatory minimum sentences and generally reducing the severity of sentences is greater judicial oversight.
Note: For more along these lines, see these concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption and civil liberties news articles from reliable sources.
The most disturbing trend in the financing of American political campaigns is not the magnitude of the money being spent. Its that more and more of that money is not going through the campaigns themselves where donations must be disclosed and limited but from nonprofit groups that are being set up for the express purpose of frustrating any attempt to identify their funders. This infusion of dark money all but obliterates the post-Watergate notion that Americans have a right to know who is behind ... candidates. In this new world order, various players are operating under different sets of rules and some seem to be creating their own, aware that this Supreme Court seems disinclined to stop them. We know, for example, that billionaire investor Tom Steyer spent $74 million on behalf of Democratic candidates who were committed to doing something about climate change. There is no exact figure on how much was spent at the other end of the spectrum by the Koch brothers, the conservative oil barons who funnel much of their donations through nonprofits that are not required to list their funding sources under the tax code. A memo by the Koch brothers main political arm, leaked to Politico in May, forecast a budget of $125 million in this election. Such obfuscation is becoming more commonplace. The average voter is left without knowing who really is behind these campaigns. But make no mistake: Our elected officials are well aware of their benefactors and their expectations.
Note: For more along these lines, see these summaries of deeply revealing election news articles from reliable sources.
How can ISIS, cut off from the rest of the world by financial and trade sanctions, and under daily aerial and land bombardment by some of the richest countries in the world, afford to maintain a well-armed military and pay other bills? The terrorist group relies on ... cash, crude oil and contraband. The ISIS economy and its fighters predominantly rely on the production and sale of seized energy assets - Iraq has the fifth-largest proven crude oil reserves in the world. ISIS also depends on the steady income it extracts from private donors, the heavy taxation and extortion it levies on its captive population, the seizure of bank accounts and private assets in the lands it occupies, ransoms from kidnappings and the plundering of antiquities excavated from ancient palaces and archaeological sites. Grossing as much as $40 million or more over the past two years, ISIS has accepted funding from government or private sources in the oil-rich nations of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait - and a large network of private donors, including Persian Gulf royalty, businessmen and wealthy families. Only after widespread criticism ... did Saudi Arabia pass legislation in 2013 criminalizing financial support of terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra and ISIS. The lootings, ransoms and extortion ... provide a steady cash flow. But this is nothing compared to what oil trafficking provides.
Note: A carefully researched report on the covert origins of ISIS suggests the creation of terrorists is useful for Washington's elite. And isn't it interesting that Saudi Arabia has been chosen to a UN panel on human rights? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing terrorism news articles from reliable major media sources.
[Alayne] Fleischmann is the central witness in one of the biggest cases of white-collar crime in American history, possessing secrets that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon late last year paid $9 billion ... to keep the public from hearing. In 2006, as a deal manager at the gigantic bank, Fleischmann first witnessed, then tried to stop, what she describes as "massive criminal securities fraud." This past year she watched as Holder's Justice Department struck a series of historic settlement deals with Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America. The root bargain in these deals was cash for secrecy. The idea that Holder had cracked down on Chase was ... fiction. The settlement, says Kelleher, "was ... crafted to bypass the court system. The DOJ and JP-Morgan were trying to avoid disclosure of their dirty deeds." Chase emerged with barely a scratch. The settlement put you, me and every other American taxpayer on the hook. Chase was allowed to treat some $7 billion of the settlement as a tax write-off. The bank's share price soared six percent on news of the settlement. Chase actually made money from the deal. What's more, to defray the cost of this and other fines, Chase last year laid off 7,500 lower-level employees. But no one made out better than [Chase CEO Jamie] Dimon. The board awarded [him] a 74 percent raise. The people who stole all those billions are still in place. And the bank is more untouchable than ever. Mary Jo White and Andrew Ceresny, who represented Chase for some of this case, have since been named to the two top jobs at the SEC.
Note: Read this entire, fascinating article to understand just how corrupt both the banks and our government are. For more along these lines, see these concise summaries of deeply revealing articles about widespread corruption in government and banking and finance. For additional information, see the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Banking Corruption Information Center.
The U.S. Army has been slow to investigate hundreds of millions of dollars in missing weapons systems, vehicles, electronics and communications gear in Afghanistan, according to the Pentagons inspector general. The Army field support brigade in Afghanistan responsible for managing gear being shipped out of the country failed to report in a timely manner 15,600 pieces of unaccounted gear valued at as much as $419.5 million, according to a report labelled For Official Use Only that reviewed major lost-property reports from fiscal 2013. Some of the missing gear eventually may turn up as the U.S. completes the bulk of its withdrawal, Army officials said in a response to the inspector general. Yet with the closing of 309 bases since 2010, only a fraction of the items from previous reviews of unaccounted property has been recovered, according to the audit dated Oct. 30. Due to the significant delays in reporting inventory losses the Armys Rock Island, Illinois-based Sustainment Command, which oversees the effort, does not have accurate accountability and visibility of its property," said Michael Roark, assistant inspector general for contract management, who signed the report. There is a risk that missing property will not be recovered and no one was held financially responsible for the property losses or accountable for missing reporting deadlines, the report found. The audit disclosed ... 133,557 lost items valued at $238.4 million.
Note: Do you really think this equipment was just lost? Would the military just leave expensive and sensitive equipment carelessly? Could it be that it is meant to fall into enemy hands in order to keep the war machine pumping its huge profits into the pockets of certain elite groups? For more along these lines, see these concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable sources.
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate is a book of such ambition and consequence that it is almost unreviewable. Kleins fans will recognize her method. To call This Changes Everything environmental is to limit Kleins considerable agenda. There is still time to avoid catastrophic warming, she contends, but not within the rules of capitalism as they are currently constructed. Which is surely the best argument there has ever been for changing those rules. Many share Kleins sentiments. Klein diagnoses impressively what hasnt worked. No more claptrap about fracked gas as a bridge to renewables. Enough already of the ... nonbinding agreements that bind us all to more emissions. Klein dismantles the boondoggle that is cap and trade. She skewers grandiose command-and-control schemes to re-engineer the planets climate. No point, when a hubristic mind-set has gotten us into this mess, to pile on further hubris. In democracies driven by lobbyists, donors and plutocrats, the giant polluters are going to win while the rest of us, in various degrees of passivity and complicity, will watch the planet die. Any attempt to rise to the climate challenge will be fruitless unless it is understood as part of a much broader battle of worldviews, Klein writes. This Changes Everything is ... the most momentous and contentious environmental book since Silent Spring.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing global warming news articles from reliable major media sources.
A destructive Trojan Horse malware program has penetrated the software that runs much of the nations critical infrastructure and is poised to cause an economic catastrophe, according to the Department of Homeland Security. National Security sources told ABC News there is evidence that the malware was inserted by hackers believed to be sponsored by the Russian government. The hacked software is used to control ... oil and gas pipelines, power transmission grids, water distribution and filtration systems, wind turbines and even some nuclear plants. The hacking campaign has been ongoing since 2011, but no attempt has been made to activate the malware. DHS sources ... fear that the Russians have torn a page from the old, Cold War playbook, and have placed the malware in key U.S. systems as a threat, and/or as a deterrent to a U.S. cyber-attack on Russian systems. The hack became known to insiders last week when a DHS alert bulletin was issued. The bulletin said the BlackEnergy penetration recently had been detected by several companies. DHS said BlackEnergy is the same malware that was used ... to target NATO and some energy and telecommunications companies. The hacked software is very advanced. It allows designated workers to control various industrial processes through the computer, an iPad or a smart phone, sources said.
Note: For an example of a computer-based attack on industrial infrastructure, read how a malware called Stuxnet targeted Iranian nuclear facilities. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.
The Division III basketball game between Mount St. Joseph's and Hiriam College ... was special because of one freshman forward, number 22, Lauren Hill, who made her college basketball debut while battling an inoperable brain tumor that has given her just months left to live. Hill had long dreamed of playing college basketball, of fulfilling a hope she had had since middle school. The freshman forward made an uncontested left-handed layup for the opening basket. Her shot brought a standing ovation from a sellout crowd at Xavier University's 10,000-seat arena. Her coach said normally 50 people attend their games. Hill has a brain tumor the size of a lemon, and it is growing daily. She was diagnosed last fall after suffering from vertigo and dizziness while playing for her high school team. Despite her condition, she committed this year to playing basketball, a game she first fell in love with in the 6th grade. "She's chasing a dream," her father, Brent Hill, told CBS News' Steve Hartman. "And she wants people to see that - that they can do that." Her parents said she actually asked the doctor: "Can I at least still play basketball?" Her attitude is remarkable -- the only tears a CBS News crew ever saw when interviewing her were of joy when she read about all the people who were supporting her charity called the "The Cure Starts Now." Curing pediatric brain cancer is one of her two top priorities. The other [was] simply to live long enough to play in her first college game.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
There is a certain genius in how we snug Election Day up against Halloween on the calendar. We scare each other for fun and profit on the last day of October every year. In even-numbered years ... we scare each other on the first Tuesday thereafter, too. This year, the closing argument from the Republican side is a whole bunch of ghastly fantasies: Ebola, the Islamic State, vague but nefarious aspersions about stolen elections and a whole bunch of terrifying fantasies about our border with Mexico. On the other side, Democrats want to keep control of the Senate, so their best fear pitch is that if Republicans take over, things in Washington will suddenly get worse. Thats a little hard to take as we coast into the closing days of what is literally the least productive Congress in the modern history of Congress. For all the politicking on the threat posed by the Islamic State, Congress decided to neither debate nor vote on the U.S. military fight against the group in Iraq or Syria. As the president announced expanded military deployments in the region, Congress cancelled its remaining workdays in October and November, until after the election. Congress thinks its more advantageous to run ads about how scary the Islamic State is than to face the real threat of actually taking a vote on what to do about that threat. Halloween is over, but the most deeply craven, vacuous political season in years has followed down its ghostly trail.
Note: For more along these lines, see these summaries of deeply revealing election news articles from reliable sources.
Imagine discovering a plant that has the potential to help alleviate post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal thoughts and paralyzing anxiety. That's what some believe ayahuasca can do, and this psychedelic drink is attracting more and more tourists to the Amazon. War vets are seeking it for PTSD. Former Marine Lance Cpl. Ryan LeCompte organizes trips to Peru for war veterans, like himself, who are seeking ayahuasca as a possible treatment for PTSD and other emotional and mental trauma suffered after multiple combat deployments. "Ayahuasca is a way to give relief to those who are suffering," says LeCompte, who says many veterans are not satisfied with the PTSD treatment they receive when they return from combat. Libby ... is one of the veterans who accompanied LeCompte to Peru to try ayahuasca for her PTSD diagnosis, which includes sexual trauma while on active duty. She says antidepressants made her more suicidal. "I would like to wish not to die all the time," she said, when asked why she was seeking ayahuasca. "I want that to go away." Those of have tried ayahuasca say that any benefits - like with other drugs or medicine - must be combined with therapy. There are efforts to study the medicinal benefits of ayahuasca, explains Rick Doblin, executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies. "At a time when drug policy is being reevaluated ... how ayahuasca should be handled in a regulatory context is really up in the air," Doblin said.
Note: Watch the full CNN documentary on an ayahuasca ceremony in Peru. For more along these lines, see these concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about mind altering drugs from reliable sources.
War was the leading cause of death in the military nearly every year between 2004 and 2011 until suicides became the top means of dying for troops in 2012 and 2013, according to a bar chart published this week in a monthly Pentagon medical statistical analysis journal. For those last two years, suicide outranked war, cancer, heart disease, homicide, transportation accidents and other causes as the leading killer, accounting for about three in 10 military deaths each of those two years. Transportation accidents, by a small margin, was the leading cause of military deaths in 2008, slightly more than combat. The fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan accounted for anywhere from one out of three deaths in the military in 2005 and 2010 to more than 46 percent of deaths in 2007, during the height of the Iraq surge, according to the chart. More than 6,800 troops have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11 and more than 3,000 additional service members have taken their lives in that same time, according to Pentagon data.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing articles about corruption in the military and the medical industry.
The topic of Satanic Ritual has long been taboo. Criminal cases are rare. One former Idaho woman says she was a victim of Satanic Ritual abuse while growing up in Eastern Idaho. Teal Swan says her life consisted of abuse, both physically and sexual - and murder. What Teal shared ... is the focus of dozens of investigations around the country. A Department of Justice report on cult rituals ... admits these crimes are hard to prove, but says it is imperative the cases be solved. In most documented cases of ritual abuse, the FBI says it is often a close friend or family who commits the crime. Teal [said] that she truly believes what she shared happened to her. She was taken in at age six. She escaped during a ritual in Eastern Idaho when she was 19. She left the state and found refuge with her friend in Utah. Teal says things started to turn around from there, but it took time. "It is because you have been traumatized and you have no option. It is too difficult to talk to someone who has been in a space of freedom. You can't explain to them what it is like to be in a situation where you would do anything you were told to do because you don't have another option," she [said]. Teal now lives in Utah and refuses to step foot back in Idaho. She spends much of her time providing assistance to those who claim to have been a part of cult.
Note: It is very rare that the major media will report on Satanic abuse. Watch the full, 10-minute news report. For powerful evidence that satanic abuse is real from reliable sources, watch this video to hear U.S. army colonel Michael Aquino defend his being a satanist. If you are open to more, read this essay by a professor who exposed the destruction being caused by these groups only then to be shut down. Then explore the reliable, verifiable sources in our Mind Control Information Center.
A scientist who apparently worked in some capacity for Lockheed Martin has claimed aliens on Earth are real and have made contact with Earth in a video posted shortly before his death. Boyd Bushman apparently drew on his own personal experiences to reveal that extraterrestrials were in Area 51. And in a bizarre interview he also claims anti-gravity is one of several technologies being hidden by the government. The controversial video was apparently made shortly before Mr Bushman died on 7 August 2014. He had several patents attributed to him that were assigned to Lockheed Martin, and he was apparently also a senior scientist at the company - although that claim is disputed. These patents include a magnetic drive, an light beam to find objects, a thermally energised electrical power source and a heat radiation detection system. Was Bushman delusional or telling the truth? Certainly, Bushman believed in what he was saying. As long ago as 2008 he passed a polygraph test, during which he claimed he had worked on antigravity projects, alien technologies and had even met and photographed an alien, and examined at least eight different types of alien spacecraft. Bushman also revealed that he had received death threats and that security personnel had attempted to discredit him and tried to keep him from talking to the public.
Note: Read about some of Mr. Bushman's inventions while working at Lockheed on this webpage. And don't miss the intriguing interview with him. For lots more verifiable evidence that UFOs are real, see our UFO Information Center.
The oil and gas industry ... must be prepared to employ tactics like digging up embarrassing tidbits about environmentalists and liberal celebrities, a veteran Washington political consultant told a room full of industry executives in a speech that was secretly recorded. The blunt advice from Richard Berman, the founder and chief executive of the Washington-based Berman & Company consulting firm, came as Mr. Berman solicited up to $3 million from oil and gas industry executives to finance an advertising and public relations campaign called Big Green Radicals. Executives ... must be willing to exploit emotions like fear, greed and anger and turn them against the environmental groups. And major corporations secretly financing such a campaign should not worry about offending the general public. Think of this as an endless war, Mr. Berman told the crowd ... whose members include Devon Energy, Halliburton and Anadarko Petroleum, which specialize in extracting oil and gas through hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. I get up every morning and I try to figure out how to screw with the labor unions, Mr. Berman said in his speech. People always ask: "How do I know that I wont be found out as a supporter of what youre doing?" Mr. Berman told the crowd, We run all of this stuff through nonprofit organizations that are insulated from having to disclose donors. There is total anonymity. People dont know who supports us.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing stories about manipulation of mass media and corporate corruption from reliable sources.
Within hours of Superstorm Sandy slamming the East Coast two years ago, Americans opened their wallets to help donating millions to the first charity that came to mind: the American Red Cross. In the months after the disaster, the Red Cross touted its success in delivering food, clothes and shelter to tens of thousands of people left homeless by the storm. The venerable charity's track record in dealing with the megastorm is now being challenged. Multiple internal documents obtained by NPR and ProPublica along with interviews with top Red Cross officials ... depict an organization so consumed with public relations that it hindered the charity's ability to provide disaster services. Among NPR and ProPublica's findings: The Red Cross national headquarters in Washington "diverted assets for public relations purposes." A former Red Cross official managing the Sandy effort says 40 percent of available trucks were assigned to serve as backdrops for news conferences. Distribution of relief was "politically driven instead of [Red Cross] planned." Relief organizers were ordered to produce 200,000 additional meals one day to drive up numbers. They did it at extraordinary cost, even though there was no one to deliver them to and most went to waste. It wasn't just Sandy. When Isaac hit Mississippi and Louisiana earlier in 2012 ... one Red Cross official had 80 trucks drive around empty or largely empty "just to be seen," as one of the drivers recalls.
Note: The above story follows up on this Salon/ProPublica article, where the Red Cross called its spending habits a "trade secret". For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing stories about corporate corruption from reliable 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.
