Category: 13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption

  • Matt Taibbi on Peasant Mentality

    But actual rich people can’t ever be the target. It’s a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the master’s carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields. You know you’re a peasant […]

  • Press Accuracy Rating at 20-Year Low

    The public’s assessment of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than two decades of Pew Research surveys, and Americans’ views of media bias and independence now match previous lows. Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories […]

  • Conde Nast Assists in Blackout of Putin Expose

    “Conde Nast management has decided that the September issue of U.S. GQ magazine containing Scott Anderson’s article ‘Vladimir Putin’s Dark Rise to Power’ should not be distributed in Russia,” Birenz wrote. He ordered that the article could not be posted to the magazine’s Web site. No copies of the American edition of the magazine could […]

  • AIG CEO Defends Holiday Villa Overlooking Adriatic

    Wearing flip-flops, khaki shorts and a green polo shirt, the new chief executive of bailed-out insurer American International Group Inc says he’s getting a lot of work done from his massive villa overlooking the Adriatic. “People criticize me for being on vacation. I actually started work a week before I was actually supposed to,” Robert […]

  • Goldman Sachs Tells Highest Paying Clients the Real Tips

    The report said that the firm’s  researchers hold weekly meetings, referred to as the “trading huddle,” at which analysts discuss their latest views of individual stocks, and that those views are passed on to the firm’s top clients and Goldman traders who run the firm’s own money. The paper, citing company documents, said few of […]

  • Leaked Memo Proves DEP Head Lied to Congress About Mountaintop Removal

    Though everything seemed to contradict the words of Huffman, it was inconceivable that he would be lying. After all, he was under oath and wouldn’t dare commit perjury. Or we thought until a package arrived at reporter Ken Ward’s office, mailed anonymous with no return address, within it an internal memo written by a respected […]

  • How the Prison Guard Union Controls California Prisons

    In three decades, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association has become one of the most powerful political forces in California. The union has contributed millions of dollars to support “three strikes” and other laws that lengthen sentences and increase parole sanctions. It donated $1 million to Wilson after he backed the three strikes law. And […]

  • You'll Never Guess Who's Funding the Taliban – Nah You Will

    Virtually every major project includes a healthy cut for the insurgents. Call it protection money, call it extortion, or, as the Taliban themselves prefer to term it, “spoils of war,” the fact remains that international donors, primarily the United States, are to a large extent financing their own enemy. via Who is funding the Afghan […]

  • Me-First, Screw Everyone

    What they will scream: But the rich still “pay close to 60 percent of this nation’s taxes!” What you should say: Such statistics refer only to the federal income tax. When considering all of “this nation’s taxes” including payroll, state and local levies, the top 5 percent pay just 38.5 percent of the taxes. What […]

  • Republicans Can't Compute This

    They can’t compute that their white man-led conservative revolution is dead. They can’t reconcile their idea of themselves with the fact that white men like them don’t run the country any more — and never will again. To them the black president is leading a column of the “other” into their promised land. Gays, immigrants, […]