Buried in the flood of journalistic spam, however, there was real news, often buried in the back pages of newspapers or in arcane publications. No news anchor interrupted your regularly scheduled programming for these stories, nor did any newspaper editors place them on page one under screaming headlines. These are the news flashes that should have been, the ones that got away.

Here, in chronological order, is a list of the top 20 stories of 2004 you haven't heard about.

1.) Bush officials advise companies on how to pay employees less

Jan. 6—The Bush Labor Department is offering advice to corporations on how they can avoid paying overtime to 1.3 million low-wage workers under this year’s rule changes, the Associated Press reported.

The department suggested that companies could cut workers’ hourly wages and add the overtime to equal the original salary, or raise salaries to the new $22,100 annual threshold, making them ineligible for overtime.

When criticized for the tip sheet Labor Department spokesman Ed Frank told AP, “We’re not saying anybody should do any of this.”

Frank used to represent one of the largest business association lobbying groups in Washington, the National Federation of Independent Business, which has been aggressively lobbying for this very rule change.

Source = MSNBC.MSN.com


2.) Up to one-third of all terrestrial life could go extinct

Jan. 7—Climate change could drive as much as 37 percent of land animals and plants into extinction, according to a major new study published in this date’s edition of the journal Nature.

The study estimates that the climate change expected between now and 2050 will place 15 to 37 percent of all species in several sampled regions, and presumably the rest of the world, at risk of extinction.

“This study makes it clear that climate change is the most significant new threat for extinctions this century,” said co-author Lee Hannah, Climate Change Biology Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science (CABS) at Conservation International (CI). “The combination of increasing habitat loss, already recognized as the largest single threat to species, and climate change, is likely to devastate the ability of species to move and survive.”

If people work together to cut consumption and slow the climate change, the study found that as little as 18 percent of the world’s species would go extinct. Climate change is primarily caused by the emission of pollutants like carbon dioxide and methane that trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Source = CommonDreams.org

3.) Texas terrorists try to build weapons of mass destruction

Jan. 9—One evening two winters ago, a man in Staten Island, N.Y., absent-mindedly flipped through his mail. Inside one envelope was a stack of fake documents, including United Nations and Defense Department identification cards, and a note: “We would hate to have this fall into the wrong hands.”

It had. The package, intended for a member of a self-styled militia in New Jersey, had been delivered to the wrong address.

From that lucky break, the Seattle Times reported, federal officials believe they may have uncovered a massive terrorist plot by white supremacists. If the anti-Jewish and anti-black groups had succeeded, law enforcement agents said, they could have killed everyone inside a large auditorium.

Several commentators criticized the mainstream media and Bush administration officials for paying little attention to the incident, and allegedly focusing only on politically useful threats, the report said. A similar plot was discovered in Somerset County, N.J. July 13.

Source = SeattleTimes.nwSource.com & DNeiwert.BlogSpot.com

4.) GOP Senate staff hacked Democrats’ e-mails

Jan. 22—Republican staff members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee infiltrated the computer files of the Democratic Party for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, the Boston Globe reported.

From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight and with what tactics.

The office of the Senate sergeant-at-arms, with the help of the Secret Service, has seized several taxpayer-funded servers used to steal files, including the server for the office of GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

Democrats said some of their private memos were leaked to right-wing columnist Robert Novak in February 2003. Novak is also at the center of an investigation after he “outed” a CIA agent whose husband contradicted the Bush administration.

Source= Boston.com & Atrios.BlogSpot.com

5.) Bosses’ pay increased to 500 times employee pay

Feb. 18—Executive pay at U.S. companies is out of control, Reuters News Service reported. U.S. CEOs now get paid more than 500 times what the average worker earns, according to a survey by Towers Perrin, compared to about 10 times in Japan. In 1980 it was only about 40 times.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average worker took home $517 in their weekly paycheck in 2003; the average large company CEO took home $155,769 in their weekly pay. If the minimum wage had increased as quickly as CEO pay since 1990, it would today be $15.71 per hour, more than three times the current minimum wage of $5.15 an hour.

In related news, the human-rights group United for a Fair Economy released a study in September that found that CEOs at companies that outsource the most U.S. jobs get the biggest raises. Political contributions also pay: The 38 CEOs who have personally raised at least $100,000 for either the Bush or Kerry presidential campaigns received 86 percent more than the average large company CEO.

Source = CommonDreams.org & CommonDreams.org

6.) Bush official calls teachers’ union ‘terrorist organization’

Feb. 23—Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation’s largest teachers’ union a “terrorist organization” during a White House meeting with governors on Monday. The National Education Association has long been a proponent of better teachers and schools and an opponent of the Bush administration.

When asked to apologize, Paige said that “it was an inappropriate choice of words to describe the obstructionist scare tactics the NEA’s Washington lobbyists have employed against No Child Left Behind’s historic education reforms.”

In related news, White House aide Karen Hughes invoked terrorism when referring to Planned Parenthood on Larry King’s April 25 program. Hughes said that opposition to abortion is “really the fundamental difference between us and the terror network we fight.”

Source = CNN.com & House.gov



7.) Army Sent Mentally Ill Troops to Iraq

March 13—The Army appears to have “inappropriately” deployed soldiers to Iraq who already were diagnosed with mental problems, according to documents obtained by United Press International.

More than two dozen suicides by U.S. troops in Iraq, and hundreds of medical evacuations for psychiatric problems, have raised concerns about the mental health of soldiers in Operation Iraqi Freedom. An Army Medical Department after-action report obtained by UPI suggests that the Army sent some soldiers to war who were mentally unfit in the first place.

Veterans’ advocates told UPI they were shocked by widespread mental problems among soldiers from Iraq, and that one in 10 soldiers evacuated from the war on terror to an Army hospital in Germany were sent solely for mental problems.

In related news, a returning Iraq veteran told UPI on March 2 that Army officials refused to treat him after he complained about the poor care at the base. Fourteen-year veteran Lt. Jullian Goodrum’s complaints helped spark hearings in Congress, but after speaking out, Goodrum was locked for two weeks in the base’s psychiatric ward. He was then charged $6,000 for his stay upon his release, UPI said.

Source = UPI.com & UPI.com


8.) Al Qaeda allies endorse Bush

March 18—The Islamic militant group that claimed responsibility for the Madrid train bombings released a statement endorsing George W. Bush for president, the Associated Press reported.

The statement of “The Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri,” a group believed to be linked to Al Qaeda, needs what it called Bush’s “idiocy and religious fanaticism” because they would “wake up” the Islamic world.

“We are very keen that Bush does not lose the upcoming elections,” the statement said.

In related news, the Washington Times on Oct. 13 quoted Mowafaq Al-Tai, a London-educated Iraqi, as saying that Iraqis were split on the U.S. presidential election. The most pro-Kerry, he said, are the former Saddam Hussein loyalists—Ba’ath Party members and others who think Washington might scale back its ambitions for Iraq if Mr. Kerry wins, allowing them to re-enter civic life.

The most pro-Bush, he said, are the foreign extremists, terrorist groups who have entered Iraq to fight U.S. troops.

“They prefer Bush, because he’s a provocative figure, and the more they can push people to the extreme, the better for their case,” he said.

Source = FoxNews.com & PNIonline.com

9.) Bush campaign sold illegal merchandise

March 19—George W. Bush’s re-election campaign sold paraphernalia made in the military dictatorship of Myanmar, which is illegal under U.S. law, the Baltimore Sun reported.

The merchandise sold on GeorgeWBushStore.com includes shirts made in Myanmar, where workers labor for 7 cents an hour under brutal conditions, and child labor and sexual slavery are common, the article said. Other items were manufactured in other Third-World countries.

Bush last July signed into law the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act, saying “The United States will not waver from its commitment to the cause of democracy and human rights in Burma.”

Source= Atrios.BlogSpot.com & BaltimoreSun.com

10.) Cult leader crowns self U.S. ruler as Congressmen look on

March 23—Ex-convict, billionaire and cult leader Sun Myung Moon declared himself "Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent” of the United States in a coronation ceremony in a Senate office building on this date as several Congressmen looked on, according to an article in Salon.com.

Moon, 84, is the owner of a media empire that includes the Washington Times and United Press International, and is a major ally of the Republican Party and the Bush family. He is also the leader of the Unification Church, and marries its members in mass weddings held in Madison Square Garden, giving them strict instructions on what sexual positions they are to assume during coupling.

The cult leader is frank about his desire to destroy democracy and the Constitution, replacing them with “Godism,” ruled by him. He calls the United States “Satan’s Harvest,” said that gay people—whom he calls “dung-eating dogs”—should be “eliminated” and said that the Holocaust was punishment upon the Jews for the killing of Christ. He said in a speech on Jan. 28, 1993, that “my enemies are America and Christianity” and his latest campaign, documented by journalist John Gorenfeld, was to persuade pastors to destroy the Christian cross.

U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) brought Moon his crown at the ceremony, according to the articles and video footage of the event. Other Congressmen who attended the coronation included Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA.), Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah), Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) and Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.).

At least four longtime “Moonies” have received more than $350,000 in government grants to promote “healthy marriage” under the Bush administration’s “faith-based” programs, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday.

Source = Salon.com, GadFlyer.com & TParents.org

11.) Media superstar calls for ‘final solution’ in Iraq

March 30—Media superstar Bill O’Reilly, discussing with two military officers the fighting in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, proposed a “final solution” for the city’s 500,000 inhabitants.

“I don’t care about the people of Fallujah,” O’Reilly said. “You’re not going to win their hearts and minds … So let’s knock this place down … we know what the final solution should be … this isn’t a big town. We’re not talking about Cincinnati here. Right? It’s not a big town?”

U.S. Census figures state that as of July 2003, Cincinnati had a population of 317,361, compared with Fallujah’s 500,000.

One week earlier, O’Reilly hosted a program about white people becoming a minority by the mid-21st century, and said that by then “we’ll all be dead. Thank God, right?”

Source = Atrios.BlogSpot.com & ATimes.com

12.) 60% of U.S. corporations paid no taxes in 1996 through 2003

April 6—More than 60 percent of U.S. corporations paid no federal taxes for 1996 through 2000, years when the economy boomed and corporate profits soared, the General Accounting Office reported.

An even greater number of foreign companies—70 percent—paid no taxes in that same time frame, the GAO found.

Corporate tax receipts have shrunk as a share of overall federal revenue in recent years, and had fallen to just 7.4 percent of overall federal receipts by 2003, the lowest rate since 1983 and the second-lowest rate since 1934, federal budget officials said in the Wall Street Journal.

The basic federal corporate-tax rate for big corporations is 35 percent, but many companies exploit numerous credits and loopholes, as well as offshore accounts to circumvent paying taxes.

Source = GAO.gov

13.) Fundamentalist reporter had history of fraud

April 23—While the fake stories of young reporters like Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair have become famous in recent years, the media paid little attention to this year’s revelation that 20-year USA Today writer Jack Kelley built his career on fabrications.

A Christian fundamentalist, Kelley said “God has called me to proclaim truth,” and his worldwide dispatches made him a journalistic star, according to a profile in Salon.com. His stories played on Arab and other ethnic stereotypes, especially after 9-11, the article said. His visit with Elian Gonzalez’s father in Cuba in 2000, his visit to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist camps in Afghanistan in 2001 and his linking of two Chicago-based Islamic charities to Al-Qaeda were partly or totally made up.

Asked about his ability to get such dramatic stories, Kelley had said, “stories just fall into my lap when I’m in tune with the Lord.”

More recently, Kelley was listed as a journalism teacher for the World Journalism Institute, a fundamentalist school that trains its acolytes to report news from a far-right perspective.

Source = WashingtonPost.com, Salon.com & WorldJI.com

14.) Children tortured at Abu Ghraib

July 5—The International Red Cross found at least 107 children imprisoned at Abu Ghraib and other U.S. prisons in Iraq, the German television program Report Mainz reported.

The reports were confirmed by UNICEF in a June 2004 report and by U.S. Army Sgt. Samuel Provance, who was stationed for six months at Abu Ghraib and described the torture of a teenage boy in order to get his father to talk. Some 70 percent to 90 percent of such prisoners were found to be innocent, according to intelligence officers cited in a Red Cross report disclosed May 10.

In December 2002, the United States ratified a treaty that establishes 18 as the minimum age for any compulsory participation in armed conflict and obliges governments to help rehabilitate child soldiers.

Source = FromTheWilderness.com, DailyStar.com & SWR.de

15.) FOX broadcasts fictitious Kerry story

Oct. 6—A report by FOX News reporter Jane Roh on a group called Communists for Kerry turned out to be a hoax, according to a retraction by the network.

Roh quoted a man calling himself Komoselutes Rob of Communists for Kerry as saying, “We’re trying to get Comrade Kerry elected and get that capitalist enabler George Bush out of office.”

A Google search reveals that the group is a fictional creation of the real “Hellgate Republican” group, found at HellGate.org.

In related news, FOX also admitted that political correspondent Carl Cameron’s recent interview with John Kerry was completely fabricated. The article included fictitious quotes in which the Massachusetts senator gushed over his “metrosexual” appearance.

“Didn’t my nails and cuticles look great?” the article read, purportedly quoting Kerry. “Women should like me! I do manicures.”

FOX News Channel hosts and contributors quickly picked up on Cameron’s report, discussing the reported manicure five separate times in the three hours preceding the debate. Cameron continued to cover the Kerry campaign.

Source = MediaMatters.org & Atrios.BlogSpot.com

16.) Colorado voting director calls blacks ‘Sambo’

Oct. 18—As the head of the Help America Vote Act in Colorado, Drew T. Durham has the vital role of ensuring that residents of that swing state, especially minorities, are treated fairly. There is only one problem: Durham is a racist.

According to a profile in Texas Lawyer magazine, Durham referred to a black attorney in his office as “our new Sambo,” told “nigger jokes” and told state attorney general Dan Morales that “where I come from, Mexicans work for white people, not the other way around.”

The article states that, speaking to an anti-conservation group, Durham bragged, “There’s no endangered species in Sterling County because...we killed them all.”

Source = RMPN.org

17.) 1.7 million veterans without health coverage

Oct. 19—Nearly 1.7 million military veterans have no health insurance or access to government hospitals and clinics for veterans, according to a report by a doctors’ organization.

An additional 235,000 veterans have lost coverage since 2000, meaning they are losing health insurance at a faster rate than the general population, said Physicians for a National Health Program. About 45 million Americans have no health insurance, including five million who lost coverage during the past four years, according to the Census Bureau.

The report traced some of the increase to the Bush administration’s decision last year to suspend health care services for higher-income veterans in order to reduce waiting times for doctor’s appointments.

Physicians for a National Health Program urges the United States to adopt a universal public health program.

Source = USAToday.com

18.) 50,000 kids poisoned after EPA removes safeguards

Nov. 9—In 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency authorized the removal of childproofing ingredients from rat poison, resulting in the poisoning of 50,000 children last year, according to an article in the conservative Los Angeles Times.

Traditional regulations required companies that make rat poison pellets to include an ingredient that makes the candy-like pellets bitter to small children, to encourage them to spit it out, and a dye that makes it easy for parents to see when a child has ingested the poison.

According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, the EPA met five times behind closed doors with representatives of the chemical industry, which ultimately resulted in the removal of the safety regulations.

As a result of no longer requiring those safety additives, the OCA charges, the nation is now seeing a record number of children poisoned by the toxic pellets. Last year more than 50,000 children were poisoned by rodenticides, which is three times as many as were affected prior to the removal of safety regulations.

Source = CommonDreams.org

19.) Corporation announces skin-searing weapon for crowd control

Dec. 1—Government defense giant Raytheon Co. has developed a heat beam to repel enemies, a Pentagon official told the Boston Business Journal.

Raytheon, the world’s largest missile maker, delivered a prototype to the U.S. military last month, the article said. Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department commander and Rayethon advisor Charles Heal said the device compares the effect to having a hot iron placed on the skin.

“It will likely be in Iraq in the next 12 months,” Heal told the Journal. “They are very, very close.”

A U.S. Air Force fact sheet said the weapon would be mounted on a Humvee vehicle and would project a “focused, speed-of-light millimeter wave energy beam to induce an intolerable heating sensation.”

Heal told Bloomberg Business News that Raytheon could expand the market by selling a smaller version to law-enforcement agencies. The company is working on a smaller, tripod-mounted version for police forces.

Source = de.afrl.af.mil & Boston.BizJournals.com

20.) Document indicates Bush personally ordered torture

Dec. 20—The American Civil Liberties Union obtained a document that suggests that George W. Bush personally ordered the torture of civilians in Iraq, the human-rights agency said. The document and several e-mails were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act after a court battle.

The two-page e-mail references an Executive Order by George W. Bush, saying that Bush directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs and “sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc.”

The human-rights organization also obtained Defense Department e-mails, including a December 2003 e-mail that described Defense Department interrogators impersonating FBI agents while torturing prisoners. The e-mail concludes, “If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done [sic] the ‘FBI’ interrogators. The FBI will [sic] left holding the bag before the public.”

Another e-mail described prisoners at Guantánamo military base who were shackled hand and foot in a fetal position on the floor and kept in that position for 18 to 24 hours at a time, until most had “urinated or defacated [sic]” on themselves. On one occasion, the agent reports having seen a detainee left in an unventilated, non-air conditioned room at a temperature “probably well over a hundred degrees.” The agent notes: “The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night.”

Several prisoners at Guantánamo were sent back to their native England after the British government pressured the U.S. military to release them. Upon their return, they were found innocent and released.

Source = ACLU.org ||