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Viewing Corporatism NEWS articles 226 through 300 of 380
- Wal-Mart, which was fined earlier this year for violating child labor laws in Connecticut, agreed to pay $600,000 in civil penalties for alleged violations of clean-water laws at 22 stores.
- Exxon Mobil upped its capital and exploration budget last quarter, but it spent nearly as much buying back its own shares, bolstering its stock price. This quarter, the company said, it will spend even more -- $5 billion -- repurchasing shares. If only drivers could fill their tanks with stock certificates.
- Call it, if you will, the crack cocaine of state and local governments' economic-development practices — their endless flow of tax breaks and outright gifts to private corporations they want to land, or figure they have to pay off to stay put. - The "everyday low prices" superchain refuses to carry books and music that dare criticize conservative values.
- U.S. looking into Carlyle Group links to teacher funds
- Activists who are fed up with waiting for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take proper action to protect the public from dangerous psychotropic drugs, are holding a three-day rally in front of the White House to condemn the FDA's failure to act on the matter.
- All the ways big business is intruding on your campus – from the Kmart Chair of Marketing to threats to U.S. Innovation. - So as we fight to bring liberal democracy to quasi-feudal backwaters in distant lands, we might remember that the fight for individual rights in the American workplace -- and now, beyond it -- is itself a long way from a victorious conclusion. And thanks to the NLRB, it just got longer - It's easy to forget sometimes - amidst all the lofty talk of geopolitics, of apocalyptic clashes between good and evil, of terror, liberty, security and God - that the war on Iraq is "largely a matter of loot," as Kasper Gutman so aptly described the Crusades in that seminal treatise on human nature, The Maltese Falcon. And nowhere is this more evident than in the festering, oozing imposthume of corruption centered around the Gutman-like figure of Dick Cheney. - It's the Great American Jobs Scam: an intentionally constructed system that enables corporations to exact huge taxpayer subsidies by promising quality jobs - and then lets them fail to deliver. The other benefit often promised - higher tax revenues - often proves false or exaggerated as well. - The two largest U.S. teacher unions joined a "back-to-school" boycott against Wal-Mart Stores Inc., targeting one of the year's busiest shopping seasons to protest the retailer's labor practices.
- Unfortunately, children for the most part trust that what they learn in school is true. When a brand name is presented to them in that context, it has almost unassailable credibility. The regrettable result of the corporate invasion of our schools is that kids begin to believe that Coke quenches your thirst, McNuggets make a great lunch and conserving energy is not important. - Monsanto's announcement of their plans to purchase Seminis, the largest fruit and vegetable seed producer in the world, was quickly followed by a statement that Monsanto does not intend to apply biotech to develop these seeds-at least not yet. This is a curious assertion from a dominant biotech company.
- Others besides Bunnatine Greenhouse have testified that Halliburton, the biggest holder of American rebuilding contracts in Iraq, has deceived the government and cheated taxpayers.
- ExxonMobil and other oil giants will receive benefits under
energy bill beyond direct federal financial help. The bill also
loosens environmental protections and limits states' rights on
siting and constructing liquified natural gas (LNG) facilities
and pipelines, potentially giving ExxonMobil more sway over
these decisions.
- The news from Exxon Mobil established that the pattern was industry-wide. Royal Dutch Shell, the world's third-largest oil company, reported second-quarter profits up 34 percent. BP's (British Petroleum) were up 29 percent. ConocoPhillips, America's third-largest, reported profits that skyrocketed by 51 percent. But this front-page-worthy news wound up buried by the news media. - Nigerian soldiers guarding Chevron oil rigs billed the company for $109.25 a day after they allegedly attacked two villages in the volatile country, killing four people and setting fire to homes. The company paid.
- Scandal-plagued Halliburton, the oil services company once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, was secretly working with one of Iran's top nuclear program officials on natural gas related projects and, allegedly, selling the official's oil development company key components for a nuclear reactor, according to Halliburton sources with intimate knowledge into both companies' business dealings.
- The US is increasingly viewed as a "culture-free zone" inhabited by arrogant and unfriendly people, according to study of 25 countries' brand reputations.
- Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, reported a 32 percent increase in second-quarter profits as it reaped the benefits of soaring oil and natural gas prices.
- Since 2000, the number of federal inmates in private facilities — prisons and halfway houses — has increased by two-thirds to more than 24,000. Thousands more detainees not convicted of crimes are confined in for-profit facilities, which now hold roughly 14 percent of all federal prisoners, compared to less than 6 percent of state inmates. - Long sought by the gun lobby, the Senate measure - approved 65 to 31 - would prohibit lawsuits against gun makers and distributors for misuse of their products during the commission of a crime. - The U.S. petroleum industry, already enjoying record profits from skyrocketing oil and natural-gas prices, lobbied aggressively for the legislation and received billions in tax breaks partly designed to encourage new drilling. - Occidental Petroleum Corp says it has become the first US oil company to resume production in Libya since the US imposed economic sanctions nearly two decades ago over the country's alleged support to terrorism.
- "Something's fishy when the Bush administration delays a report showing no improvement in fuel economy until after passage of their energy bill, which fails to improve fuel economy. It's disturbing that despite high gas prices, an oil war and growing concern about global warming pollution, most automakers are failing to improve fuel economy."
- Halliburton announced on Friday that its KBR division, responsible for carrying out Pentagon contracts, experienced a 284 percent increase in operating profits during the second quarter of this year.
- When major oil companies report their quarterly profits next week, they're once again expected to post record numbers. With crude trading around $60 a barrel, the oil industry is enjoying one of the biggest windfalls in its history. But as the industry looks for places to put that cash, it's finding it harder and harder to put funds to work finding new deposits of oil and natural gas.
- In Georgia, there are already 93 Wal-Mart Supercenters and 19 regular-sized Wal-Marts. So why do the boys in Bentonville keep planning to open more?
- NBA and NFL jerseys are being manufactured in a Honduran factory where workers who earn 19 cents per garment in sweatshop conditions are producing $75 jerseys, a human rights organization asserted yesterday.
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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is again trying to get into the banking business, after being stymied in two previous attempts since 1999. - America remains One Nation Under Fraud
- A 527 helps Alaska's push to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
- Among other things, holding companies would be free to raid the assets of utilities to feed speculative investments in completely unrelated businesses - just the kind of behavior that Enron engaged in with such disastrous results.
- The FOIA records show that the insurance-fraud case brought against the Lampazianies was started not by the FBI, but rather by a private company, an insurance-industry-funded group called the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB).
- Forty-four government scientists who also worked as consultants for drug companies violated agency regulations designed to prevent conflicts of interest, a review by the National Institutes of Health shows.
- The billboard features the ubiquitous red Coca-Cola wall painting, commonly found across India. Directly preceding the Coca-Cola ad, and part of the billboard, is a dry water hand-pump, with empty vessels waiting to be filled up with water - a common scene in India, particularly in Chennai. - "It's akin to the foxes guarding the henhouse. These are public lands and there clearly is a quid pro quo expected here, that there is going to be faster permitting, faster approval rates, and instead they really should be taking their time to make sure they're doing it right."
- A coalition of environmental and liberal lobbying groups is planning to boycott Exxon Mobil products to protest the company's challenges to warnings about global warming and its support for oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
- Special-interest groups have found ways to buy government favors at all levels, and our elected representatives no longer even pretend that ethics matter.
- The pharmaceutical and health products industry has spent more than $800 million in federal lobbying and campaign donations at the federal and state levels in the past seven years, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found. Its lobbying operation, on which it reports spending more than $675 million, is the biggest in the nation. No other industry has spent more money to sway public policy in that period.
- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., trying to fend off lawsuits claiming it illegally fired corporate whistle-blowers, has hired the former chief lawyer for the Department of Labor, Eugene Scalia, and has begun to fire back at its accusers
- Of course, poverty, contaminated water supplies, hunger, stolen agricultural lands---none of this will be eliminated.
- Live8. There hasn't been anything like it since... well since the last Pharma-inspired major world PsyOp: the so-called SARS epidemic which 'raged' at exactly the time the U.S. wanted to turn eyes away from Iraq -and yet maintain the elevated sense of threat which the Iraq invasion had created.
- None of this should be a shock - as I have written before, the media regularly misses the real story about how Big Money runs the show in Washington, D.C. Reporters seem to prefer the fake storyline of "conservative" vs. "liberal" as opposed to the real storyline of "Big Money" vs. "Ordinary Americans."
- How the Drug War and the Prison-Industrial Complex connect in a vicious cycle of violence, vice, and profit
- The next road you travel -- and pay a toll to use -- could be privately owned.
- It has destroyed 100,000 small businesses, is breaking the union movement, has shipped massive amounts of jobs overseas, and has the news media in it's pocket. They are a version of the Pullman Company, but much more dangerous.
- Thousands of low-wage Wal-Mart workers are on public assistance. Many state lawmakers say it's time the megastore was forced to provide affordable employee health insurance. - Local actions around GMOs, in particular, are designed to address important gaps in federal and state policy, and mitigate potentially serious threats to public health, the environment, and survival of local farm economies.
- Lobbying Firms Hire More, Pay More, Charge More to Influence Government
- Experts say firm may have built secret camps - French and U.S. officials have been probing for some time allegations of millions of dollars in kickbacks in a Nigerian oil project that involved Halliburton and the French company Technip between 1995 and 2002. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was an executive of Halliburton during much of that period.
- In tallying the corporate criminals, the weekly newsletter did not include crimes committed by joint venture companies or subsidiaries of the 30 corporations.
- "Job cuts will save the automakers big bucks, but it's a bloodletting for the rank and file and euthanasia for the union. Anyone who has worked the line knows job cuts mean speedup, overload, excessive overtime, and health and safety hazards. Production doesn't slow down when the workforce is reduced. The jobs just get harder, faster, longer and more dangerous."
- In what will be a landmark human rights case in the UK, the farmers allege that the pipeline destroyed their land and forced them into destitution.
- The Bush administration altered critical portions of a scientific analysis of the environmental impact of cattle grazing on public lands before announcing Thursday that it would relax regulations limiting grazing on those lands, according to scientists involved in the study.
- A Halliburton Co. unit will build a new $30 million detention facility and security fence at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States is holding about 520 foreign terrorism suspects. - They're on the government payroll, but some of President Bush's top aides have millions of dollars in stocks, real estate and other investments, according to financial disclosure forms released Wednesday. - Gunmen who seized two German and four Nigerian oil workers are demanding petroleum giant Royal Dutch/Shell honor promises of jobs and benefits in the oil-rich south, a company spokesman said Thursday. - German Wal-Mart employees will be able to keep flirting with each other after a German court on Thursday ruled that the supermarket chain's code of conduct that banned relationships between workers was illegal.
- Government censors redacted 45 names from a report charging that Pentagon officials broke laws in negotiations with aircraft manufacturer Boeing. Based on the context in which the blacked-out names appear, some could be White House officials.
- A former White House official and one-time oil industry lobbyist whose editing of government reports on climate change prompted criticism from environmentalists will join ExxonMobil Corp., the oil company said Tuesday.
- New rule requires workers to work any shift or be fired
- Bad faith insurance is where an insurance company decides to wrongfully deny legitimate claims.... "all they have to do is deny a small percentage of legitimate claims, and they're up a cool $1 billion a year."
- Large corporations are in full retreat from paying their fair share of taxes. In 2003, corporations paid just 7% of the cost of the US government, according to a study by Citizens for Tax Justice.
- Former executives of Custer Battles -- an American firm accused of stealing millions from Iraq reconstruction projects and banned from further government contracts -- have continued doing contracting work and have formed new companies to bid on such projects. - Nearly two dozen states have passed legislation allowing their transportation systems to operate toll roads and okaying private firms to build and run them. Converting existing roads to toll corridors – thereby forcing taxpayers to pay each time they use roads for which they’ve already paid.
- While wandering down the isles of this megastore...I discovered a wall of porn!.. not segmented by curtains or velvet ropes, but literally right above the children's movies... - Halliburton’s Kazakhstan operations reportedly violated customs laws by shifting imported equipment to operations that were not exempt from customs duties.
- Foreign capitalists are getting rich, and intend to go on getting rich, from these resources. They restrict the possibilities that this wealth, which should belong to us, might be used to benefit the lives of all Bolivians. The capitalists, whether local or foreign, puts profits and her or his own personal benefit above the collective and national interest.
- "Big tobacco is one of the top donors to Republicans and it is getting what it paid for." - In what could be the most business-friendly climate since the days of President McKinley, President Bush and the GOP-controlled Congress are moving to extend corporate tax breaks, pass pension reforms, allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and limit lawsuits - including a settlement of asbestos litigation that has driven 70 companies into bankruptcy.
- The Justice Department has decided that most health care employees can't be prosecuted for stealing personal data under a privacy law intended to protect medical information. "It looks like they decided on the outcome for political reasons, namely the health care industry's desire to get out from criminal prosecution."
- As is the case in other industries, meatpacking and poultry workers have suffered the impact of the Bush administration's collusion with industry giants like Tyson, a fact that has permitted "government agencies themselves [to] give production priority over worker safety."
- President's George Bush's decision not to sign the United States up to the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil, the world's most powerful oil company, and other industries.
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