Impunity

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg Fired Over 737 MAX Disasters, Keeps $62 Million Despite 346 Deaths

| Importance: 9/10

Boeing’s Board of Directors fired CEO Dennis Muilenburg on December 23, 2019, over his handling of the 737 MAX crisis that killed 346 people in two crashes. Despite presiding over the deadliest corporate safety scandal in aviation history, Muilenburg departed with approximately $62 million in …

Dennis Muilenburg Boeing Board of Directors David Calhoun 346 crash victims Victims' families boeing executive-compensation impunity 737-max corporate-crime +1 more
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Trump Nominates Gina Haspel as CIA Director Despite Role in Torture Program and Evidence Destruction

| Importance: 9/10

President Donald Trump announces his nomination of Gina Haspel to serve as CIA Director, making her the first woman nominated for the position despite her direct involvement in the CIA’s torture program and destruction of interrogation videotapes. Haspel ran the CIA’s “Cat’s …

Gina Haspel Donald Trump Mike Pompeo CIA John Kiriakou torture cia trump black-sites impunity +2 more
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Obama Releases CIA Torture Memos But Promises No Prosecutions for Torturers

| Importance: 9/10

President Barack Obama authorizes the Department of Justice to release four previously classified memos from the Office of Legal Counsel written between 2002 and 2005 that authorized CIA torture techniques including waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and confinement in coffin-sized …

Barack Obama Eric Holder CIA John Yoo Jay Bybee +2 more torture cia obama impunity war-crimes +2 more
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Obama Admin Prosecutes Zero Wall Street Executives Despite Crisis Fraud

| Importance: 8/10

Despite widespread evidence of fraud in the 2008 financial crisis, the Obama administration prosecuted zero major Wall Street executives, contrasting starkly with the Savings and Loan crisis when 1,706 bankers were sent to prison. Instead, the DOJ pursued civil settlements totaling tens of billions, …

Eric Holder Department of Justice Wall Street Banks Lanny Breuer Covington & Burling financial-crisis wall-street impunity revolving-door too-big-to-fail
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CIA Detainee Gul Rahman Froze to Death at Black Site - No One Prosecuted for Homicide

| Importance: 8/10

Gul Rahman, an Afghan detainee, dies of hypothermia at a CIA black site in Afghanistan known as the “Salt Pit” after being shackled half-naked to a concrete floor in a freezing cell overnight. Rahman’s death is ruled a homicide by the CIA’s medical examiner, yet no one is …

Gul Rahman CIA Afghanistan torture cia black-sites war-crimes homicide +2 more
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Purdue Pharma Pleads Guilty to Criminal Misbranding, $600M Fine, Zero Executives Jailed

| Importance: 10/10

On May 10, 2007, Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to a felony charge of illegally misbranding OxyContin in an effort to mislead and defraud physicians and agreed to pay $600 million—representing approximately 90 percent of OxyContin profits during the offense period. The company admitted to misleading …

Purdue Pharma Michael Friedman Howard R. Udell Paul D. Goldenheim U.S. Department of Justice opioid-crisis corporate-crime accountability-failure deferred-prosecution regulatory-capture +1 more
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Balangiga Massacre Triggers Samar Pacification - Scorched Earth Retaliation

| Importance: 8/10

Filipino resistance fighters in Balangiga, Samar conduct a surprise attack on Company C of the U.S. 9th Infantry Regiment, killing 54 American soldiers in what becomes described as the “worst defeat of United States Army soldiers since the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.” The …

Jacob H. Smith Littleton Waller Adna Chaffee Theodore Roosevelt Filipino civilians +1 more imperialism war-crimes military-atrocities philippines counterinsurgency +1 more
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Embalmed Beef Scandal - War Profiteering and McKinley Administration Negligence

| Importance: 7/10

The Spanish-American War’s largest scandal erupts as U.S. Army soldiers receive widespread distribution of extremely low-quality, heavily adulterated beef products from Chicago meatpacking corporations. General Nelson Miles denounces the meat as “embalmed beef,” describing how …

Russell A. Alger William McKinley Armour & Co Swift & Co Morris & Co +2 more gilded-age corruption war-profiteering spanish-american-war corporate-negligence +1 more
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Lattimer Massacre - 19 Unarmed Immigrant Strikers Killed by Sheriff's Posse

| Importance: 8/10

Sheriff James Martin and 150 armed deputies open fire on 300-400 unarmed striking coal miners marching to support a newly formed United Mine Workers union at Calvin Pardee’s Lattimer mine near Hazleton, Pennsylvania. The peaceful demonstration consists mostly of Polish, Slovak, Lithuanian, and …

Sheriff James Martin Luzerne County deputies United Mine Workers Immigrant miners Pennsylvania National Guard +1 more labor-suppression gilded-age police-violence immigration mining-industry +1 more
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Sand Creek Massacre - Colorado Militia Slaughters 150 Peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho Under Protection Flag

| Importance: 10/10

A 675-man force of the Third Colorado Cavalry under the command of U.S. Volunteers Colonel John Chivington attacks and destroys a peaceful village of approximately 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho people camped at Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado Territory. The village, consisting of around 100 lodges …

Colonel John Chivington Third Colorado Cavalry Black Kettle (Cheyenne Chief) Colorado Territory Captain Silas Soule +1 more indigenous-genocide war-crimes military-atrocities impunity institutional-corruption
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Abolitionist Editor Elijah Lovejoy Murdered by Pro-Slavery Mob; No Prosecutions Follow

| Importance: 8/10

Presbyterian minister and abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah Parish Lovejoy is murdered by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois, struck by five bullets while defending his printing press from destruction. The murder of Lovejoy—whose fourth printing press had been hidden in a warehouse owned by …

Elijah Parish Lovejoy Pro-slavery mob Alton, Illinois authorities John Quincy Adams John Brown +1 more anti-abolition-violence press-freedom mob-violence slave-power impunity +1 more
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