In China last week, independent journalist Zhang Zhan was released from prison after serving four years on charges related to reporting on the Covid outbreak in Wuhan. Zhang Zhan Zhang was sentenced to prison on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” Emily Kopp, a reporter for US Right to Know in Oakland, California, has been doing the same kind of poking around the Covid origins story here in the United States. One difference is that here is the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which helps reporters dig out the dirty little secrets of the corporate state. For more than two yea ..read more

The Charleston County Coroner and the City of Charleston Police Department released reports on May 17, 2024 that concluded that John Barnett, a whistleblower and former Boeing employee known for being a champion of safety in aviation, took his own life. John Barnett’s note (Charleston Police Department) The reports note that Barnett had been suffering from PTSD and anxiety and panic attacks. His mental condition was a result of the retaliation and hostile work environment he was subjected to in response to his complaints that Boeing senior management was pressuring workers to disregard process ..read more

The passage into UK law last year of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act marks the first time the UK has made significant changes to the common law principles of corporate criminal liability.  Jeremy Horder For fault-based crimes, the 2023 act extends the common law practice of identifying a company with the criminal acts of its directors.  Under the new law, a company may now also be identified with fault-based criminal acts engaged in by its senior managers below the level of director.  The law also creates a new corporate offense of failing to prevent economic c ..read more

Our healthcare system is really good at treating acute illness, but really bad at controlling chronic diseases.  That’s because our culture and Congress are dominated by health care, pharmaceutical and food industries that profit off of us getting sick.  Like most doctors, Casey Means went to medical school to help people get better.   But she soon realized that the system was off the rails. She left mainstream medicine and decided to attack the problem of chronic illness head on.  Her first effort – a book co-authored with her brother Calley Means titled Good Energy ..read more

For most of his life, Dr. John Geyman has been a practicing family doctor. Dr. John Geyman He retired 25 years ago to write books on how corporations have taken over the medical establishment. In recent years, he has been writing about the growing power of increasingly monopolistic corporations.  He advocates for a single payer national health insurance system that would replace private health insurance. But Geyman says that insurance companies are now being joined by a new set of corporate middlemen asserting control over American care.  Geyman quotes Dr. Don Berwick, former adminis ..read more

Nadia Milleron is running as an independent against the corporate Democrat Congressman Richard Neal in western Massachusetts. There is no Republican in the race. If the House of Representatives flips in November, Neal will retake the gavel as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.  “Corporate lobbyists inside the beltway will rejoice,” the Capitol Hill Citizen reported in its May/June 2024 issue. “As the top Democrat on the tax writing committee in the House, Neal was in a position to remake Trump’s tax cuts and make major corporations pay their fair share of taxes. But it was n ..read more

The Department of Justice has determined that Boeing breached its 2021 agreement that deferred criminal charges against Boeing for the deaths of 346 in two 737 MAX plane crashes more than five years ago. In a letter dated May 14, 2024 to victims’ families, the Department said it had determined that Boeing had breached its obligations under the deferred prosecution agreement by “failing to design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the U.S. fraud laws throughout its operations” and as a result Boeing is now subject to criminal prosecution ..read more

Postmaster Louis DeJoy’s ten year plan for United States Postal Service (USPS) has resulted in slower mail, higher prices, and fewer hours at rural post offices. Porter McConnell Save the Post Office Coalition To help us understand what’s happening at the post office, we dialed up Porter McConnell of the Save the Post Office Coalition, which is hosted by Take on Wall Street.  The Save the Post Office Coalition includes about 300 organizations that run the gamut from unions, faith groups, to retired postal workers, Indivisible chapters, MoveOn, Color of Change –  pretty much every gro ..read more

Government appointed monitors in corporate crime cases are increasingly rare these days.  Johnny Frank Partner StoneTurn New York One reason? The rise of the voluntary monitor. In the wake of serious misconduct, corporations are appointing voluntary monitors to avoid one imposed and selected by the government. StoneTurn is perhaps the only firm in the country focusing on monitorships. Jonny Frank is a partner at StoneTurn in New York. He has been a government appointed or approved monitor by the Department of Justice, or the Securities and Exchange Commission or the New York Department of ..read more

The Justice Department must decide by July 7 whether to reinstate the criminal charges against Boeing for the deaths of 346 in two 737 MAX plane crashes more than five years ago. Glenn Leon Chief Fraud Section Criminal Division Department of Justice The Department will be meeting with the victims’ families in Washington, D.C. on April 24. Naoise Connolly Ryan, who lives in Ireland with her two young children, lost her husband Mick Ryan in the Ethiopian crash in 2019. “We assume that the Department of Justice will ask for the charges against Boeing to be dismissed,” Ryan told Corporate Crime Re ..read more