Article Trunk



Posts Tagged ‘corruption’

Doctors who take pharma industry freebies prescribe more of their benefactors’ drugs

Doctors who accept pharma industry gifts (which can range from free coffees to lavish dinners to six-figure speaking fees) claim that they're not influenced by these bribes/gifts, which is possibly why doctors are taking more pharma bribes than ever.

Now, an empirical study by Propublica draws on mandatory disclosure data on pharma gifts as ...

New Jersey AG says 5 politicians took thousands in cash bribes via envelopes, paper bags, coffee cups

Well, it's nothing if not on brand for New Jersey politics.

Five politicians in New Jersey have been charged in a bribery case with taking thousands of dollars in cash that was delivered in envelopes, paper bags and a coffee cup.

The revelations are the result of a state public-corruption investigation from Attorney General’s office.

Here is the ...

Foxconn wants Wisconsin to keep paying it billions, but it won’t disclose what kind of factory it will build

When Donald Trump and then-Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker announced a plan to give billions of dollars to the notorious Taiwanese sweatshop operator Foxconn to build a super-factory in Wisconsin, knowledgeable people were alarmed.

That's because Foxconn has a long history of defrauding governments by promising to build big ambitious factories in their territories, ...

Citing the Panama Papers, Elizabeth Warren proposes sweeping anti-financial-secrecy rules

The whistleblowers who brought us The Paradise Papers and The Panama Papers risked their freedom and even their lives (Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated for reporting on the stories). Years later, financial secrecy havens are still on the rise, and it's easy to think that all that blood and ...

Private equity firms should be abolished

In his latest BIG newsletter, Matt Stoller (previously) relates the key moments in the history of private equity, from its roots in the notorious "leveraged buyouts" of the 1980s, and explains exactly how the PE con works: successful, productive business are acquired through debt financing, drained of their cash and assets, and then killed, ...

ICANN hits pause on the sale of .ORG to Republican billionaires’ private equity fund

Here's what's happened: first, ICANN (the legendarily opaque US corporation that runs the internet's Domain Name System) approved a change in pricing for .ORG domains, run by the nonprofit Internet Society (ISOC) through its Public Interest Registry (PIR), allowing the registry to raise prices. The change was done entirely by staff, without board approval.

Next, several ...

Lawmaker admits not independently researching lobbyist’s claim that ectopic fetuses could be reimplanted in the ******, blames medical journals

Ohio lawmakers introduced legislation that would see women and doctors charged with ****** if they did not re-implant fetuses from ectopic pregnancies in women's uteruses, a procedure that does not exist and is impossible.

Now we're getting some insight into how legislators came to introduce this bizarre bill: according to State Rep John Becker [R-Gilead/

South Carolina’s feudal magistrate system may take a modest step toward modernization

Propublica's blockbuster report on the magistrate judges in South Carolina revealed a system of patronage, cronies, and gross miscarriages of justice, with judges appointed on the say-so of a single state senator, without regard to whether they had any legal experience (some judges took the bench after working construction, or as pharmacists, or as ...

Woman whose ***** was probed by Burbank TSA “officers” who ignored her refusal sues

Last September, Jessica Lundquist passed through a body-scanner at Burbank airport and was told by a TSA screener that they wanted to conduct a "groin search" on her.

Lundquist refused to allow the screener to touch her *****, whereupon the screener summoned two colleagues. The "officers" (the TSA styles its employees as "officers" even though they ...

The Supreme Court just heard the State of Georgia’s argument for copyrighting the law and charging for access to it

For years, rogue archivist Carl Malamud (previously) has been scanning and posting proprietary elements of the law, such as standard annotations or building and safety codes developed by outside parties and then incorporated into legislation, on the theory that if you are expected to follow the law, you must be able to read, write ...