Tonight, the CW's long running drama on the secret lives of New York's Upper East Siders, Gossip Girl, will air its final episode. Over its six seasons on the air, the cult favorite, which New York Magazine fondly dubbed the "Greatest Show of Our Time" has never shied away from controversy. Last season, ruthless billionaire Bart Bass came back from the dead. This season, we learned that he went underground to avoid FBI prosecution for violating United States government sanctions prohibiting oil trade with the Sudan. Although his son Chuck has spent millions of dollars and countless hours trying to find the evidence to link Bart to his illegal oil dealings, he was unsuccessful. In the end, he needed his on-again-off-again girlfriend Blair to help him scheme one of her infamous "takedowns" to find the proof necessary to confront his family about his father's checkered past.
Although some of Gossip Girl's plot lines may seem far fetched, this one is "realer than Humphreys wanting to be Basses." For the past 15 years, the United States has maintained the strictest sanctions in the world on the government of Sudan. On November 1, 2012, President Obama renewed those sanctions, affirming that the Sudanese government's violations of the human rights of its own people is a vital reason to continue restricting U.S. trade with them, particularly since the lucrative state-owned oil funds Khartoum's wars in the country's periphery. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, ...
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