| | | | June 30, 2011 | | Military’s K-12 Schools Falling Apart | |  Share on Facebook |  Share on Twitter | |  At least three in four school buildings on military installations attended by the children of America’s war fighters are so decrepit they do not meet the military’s own standards, a new investigation by iWatch News has found. The decay is just an additional burden for students experiencing the stresses of long, frequent parental deployments. Roof leaks, tainted water, fouled air, and crumbling tiles exemplify conditions at many of the 353 schools on military posts worldwide. Cockroaches navigate walls and electrical sockets at some. Heat and air conditioning outages are commonplace at others, while overcrowding is so severe that one teacher made a boiler room her workplace sanctuary. A version of the story was co-published in Newsweek.
| | | | | | Pawlenty’s Powerful Friend | | Share on Facebook | Share on Twitter | |  Tim Pawlenty may not have great name recognition but he does have one very important thing for a presidential candidate: a hand in the pocket of Texas billionaire Bob J. Perry. iWatch News this week looks at Perry’s reputation for financing negative ads. He made national headlines in 2004 with his contributions to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which ran a controversial as campaign that questioned Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s service in Vietnam. Perry contributed $4.45 million to underwrite the attack ads that helped sink Kerry’s presidential bid. Perry also helped derail Mike Hatch, the Democratic challenger to Minnesota Governor Pawlenty in 2006.
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| | Another Obama Fundraiser Wins Ambassadorship | | Share on Facebook | Share on Twitter | | Patronage-job handouts continue apace in the Obama administration. Robert Mandell has been nominated to become U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg. Like his predecessor, he is a campaign bundler, one of an elite corps of fundraisers who collect from $50,000 to more than $500,000 from friends and business associates. Mandell raised more than $200,000 for the 2008 Obama campaign, records show. He has no prior diplomatic experience. What’s wrong with this picture? The Center has been keeping a close eye on Obama’s cozy relationships with his big funders.
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| | International Web of Shell Companies | | Share on Facebook | Share on Twitter | |  Gerard Ryle spins a fascinating tale of drugs, illegal arms and money in this story originally published in The Canberra Times. It all revolves around a shady business man named Geoffrey Taylor, who by any measure is an international fraud – but highly successful at creating and managing thousands of shell companies to capitalize on illicit trade. Even more amazing, all of Taylor’s activities appear to be technically legal, much to the frustration of law enforcement authorities. Ryle is the incoming director of our International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and we are very impressed with his work.
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Until next week,
  Bill Buzenberg
Executive Director | | | |  |
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