Democrats, Republicans awash in funds from corporate criminals
Thirty-one corporate criminals gave more than $9 million to the Democratic and Republican parties during the 2002 election cycle, according to a report released by Corporate Crime Reporter.
Corporate criminals gave $7.2 million to Republicans (77 percent) and $2.1 million to Democrats (23 percent), the report found.
The report, “Dirty Money: Corporate Criminal Donations to the Two Major Parties,” was released July 3.
The top five corporate criminal donors in the 2002 election cycle are:
1. Archer Daniels Midland ($1.7 million)
2. Pfizer ($1.1 million)
3. Chevron ($875,400)
4. Northrop Grumman ($741,250)
5. American Airlines ($655,593)
The report checked the political contributions of more than 100 major companies convicted of crimes from 1990 to this year.
The report listed the crimes of the 31 companies, and each of their contributions to the Republicans and Democrats during the 2002 election cycle. (Corporate Crime Reporter)

Police brutalize VA Critical Mass
On June 27 a monthly Critical Mass bike ride in Richmond, VA was disrupted when two police officers sprayed a substance on bike riders and shoppers.
According to participants, once the afternoon ride of 20-30 people reached the Main Street and Boulevard intersection, two cops standing on the side of the road began spraying either pepper spray or mace at the wheels of the bikes, but the group proceeded up Main Street where the two cops met them once again and chased the group onto Cary Street and sprayed them again.
One female shopper got a face full of spray.
“One cop had this sick grin on his face, like in all of his ten years of being a cop he had never had a chance to brutalize anyone,” said one Critical Mass rider.
No arrests were made.
The bike ride is held monthly to promote bicycles as a form of transportation. (Richmond Indymedia)

Federal judge resigns, quits ‘unjust’ system
Federal judge John S. Martin announced his resignation on June 24, quitting what he called an “unjust criminal justice system,” and being fed up with Congress’ quest to boost prison sentences and prevent judges from deciding how long someone is imprisoned.
“Congress is mandating things simply because they want to show how tough they are on crime with no sense of whether this makes sense or is meaningful,” Martin said.
The result, he said, is a slew of lengthy prison sentences for low-level drug dealers “who society failed at every step.”
Martin conceded he also wants to make more money after serving for 13 years in a judgeship that pays less than what second-year associates make at many law firms.  Federal judges earn $154,700.
But he said the prime motivation came when president Bush signed into law Apr. 30 a bill that forces federal judges to strictly follow sentencing guidelines. (AP)

Web site turns tables on government officials
Annoyed by the prospect of a massive new federal surveillance system, two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) celebrated the Fourth of July with a new internet service that will let citizens create dossiers on government officials.
The system will start by offering standard background information on politicians, but then go one bold step further, by asking users to submit their own intelligence reports on government officials — reports that will be published with no effort to verify their accuracy.
Chris Csikszentmihalyi, assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab and graduate student Ryan McKinley created the Government Information Awareness (GIA) project as a response to the US government’s Total Information Awareness program (TIA).
McKinley and Csikszentmihalyi use video cameras to capture images of people appearing on C-Span, which generally includes the names of people shown on screen. A computer program “reads” each name, and links it to any information about that person stored in the database. By clicking on the picture, a GIA user instantly gets a complete rundown on all available data about that person.(Boston Globe)

States face financial crisis
California, with a $32 billion deficit, is bust and a crisis which could lead to mass lay-offs and collapse of the public education system is in the offing.
Democrats, who control both the state senate and assembly, want to add half a cent to the sales tax and make cuts in public services.
Republicans are pushing an alternative which would mean mass lay-offs of public employees, closure of college courses, and moving back by a year the age for entering kindergarten.
Nevada is facing a deficit of up to $1 billion and to deal with the shortfall, it is introducing a live entertainment tax of ten percent, which will apply to the state’s brothels.
New York’s police officers are leading the drive to plug a potential $4 billion deficit in the city’s budget, fining anyone they can for anything they can think of.
One man was ticketed for sitting on a milk crate outside a shop; the citation was “unauthorized use of a crate.”
There are also budget crises in Oregon, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
Growing unemployment, which reached a national nine-year high of 6.4 percent in June, means people are buying less, thus cutting sales tax revenues. And most states have used up their “rainy day” funds over the past two years. (Guardian (UK))