Bill Gates Gave $319 Million To Top Mainstream Media Outlets

GatesAlan Macleod – Up until his recent messy divorce, Bill Gates enjoyed something of a free pass in corporate media. Generally presented as a kindly nerd who wants to save the world, the Microsoft co-founder was even unironically christened “Saint Bill” by The Guardian.

While other billionaires’ media empires are relatively well known, the extent to which Gates’s cash underwrites the modern media landscape is not. After sorting through over 30,000 individual grants, MintPress can reveal that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has made over $300 million worth of donations to fund media projects. Continue reading

Rob Rosenstein Should Recuse Himself From The Mueller Probe

rosensteinJonathan Turley – One of the most glaring irregularities in the special counsel investigation has been the conflicted ethical position of top officials at the Justice Department. President Trump has long borne a deep resentment over the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, which many of us viewed as a necessary ethical step. The problem was not the recusal of Sessions but the fact that it was not immediately followed by the recusal of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The precarious ethical position of Rosenstein just became far more acute with a new report that he ignored demands within the Justice Department to remove himself in 2017.

The report alleges that a heated argument over his conflicts arose soon after the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller within the Justice Department. Rosenstein rejected the demands of then acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe that his supervision of Mueller was a glaring conflict, while he demanded McCabe’s recusal on different conflicts.

The confrontation of Rosenstein over his dubious ethical position is no surprise. In 2017, I argued that both Mueller and Rosenstein had serious conflicts in performing any role in a special counsel investigation. Continue reading

GAO Report: Federal Reserve Is Riddled With Corruption And Conflicts Of Interest

by Daily Bail | October 25, 2011

Bernie SandersWASHINGTON, Oct. 19 – A new audit of the Federal Reserve released today detailed widespread conflicts of interest involving directors of its regional banks.

“The most powerful entity in the United States is riddled with conflicts of interest,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said after reviewing the Government Accountability Office report. The study required by a Sanders Amendment to last year’s Wall Street reform law examined Fed practices never before subjected to such independent, expert scrutiny.

The GAO detailed instance after instance of top executives of corporations and financial institutions using their influence as Federal Reserve directors to financially benefit their firms, and, in at least one instance, themselves. “Clearly it is unacceptable for so few people to wield so much unchecked power,” Sanders said. “Not only do they run the banks, they run the institutions that regulate the banks.”

Sanders said he will work with leading economists to develop legislation to restructure the Fed and bar the banking industry from picking Fed directors. ”This is exactly the kind of outrageous behavior by the big banks and Wall Street that is infuriating so many Americans,” Sanders said.

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