Missing from Occupy Wall Street: Barack Obama

Flickr/_PaulS_

Flickr/_PaulS_ This story originally appeared at MotherJones.com. At Zuccotti Park, the shoebox-shaped spit of land in lower Manhattan that for three weeks Occupy Wall Street has called home, there are signs everywhere—strewn on the ground, taped to trees, thrusted skyward, hand-painted on the bulging belly of a pregnant mom. Their messages run the gamut: “We Are the 99%,”... Read More

The Right-Wing Network Behind the War on Unions

wisco-protest-capitol-vaxomatic

From New Hampshire to Alaska, Republican lawmakers are waging war on organized labor. They’re pushing bills to curb, if not eliminate, collective bargaining for public workers; make it harder for unions to collect member dues; and, in some states, allow workers to opt out of joining unions entirely but still enjoy union-won benefits. All told, it’s one of the largest... Read More

Inside Big Labor’s Epic Battle in Wisconsin

wisc-slider-feb26

Thousands of protesters jam inside the rotunda of the Wisconsin state capitol. Originally published at MotherJones.com. They piled off of buses and out of cars, filling the streets of Madison, Wisconsin, and surrounding the towering Capitol. Thousands crowded inside the building’s beautiful rotunda, their cheers echoing throughout the domed structure. An estimated 100,000 people... Read More

The GOP’s Campaign Finance “Sneak Attack”

Originally published at MotherJones.com On Wednesday, House Republicans plan to rush to the floor a bill that would eliminate the federal government’s presidential financing system—in the process, violating recent pledges by the GOP’s leadership of increased transparency and debate in Congress. Not one hearing has been held on the legislation, nor has a single commitee... Read More

Fannie and Freddie’s Foreclosure Barons

My latest investigative piece at MotherJones.com. A few days after this story came, the Florida Attorney General’s Economic Crime division opened an investigation to the David Stern law firm. Read more about that here. *** LATE ONE NIGHT IN February 2009, Ariane Ice sat poring over records on the website of Florida’s Palm Beach County. She’d been at it for weeks,... Read More

Bank Lobby Blitz Targets Elizabeth Warren

Here’s my latest from MotherJones.com, on the bank lobbying quietly underway to block Elizabeth Warren, the consumer advocate and bailout watchdog, from leading the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (which, of course, was her idea). *** “She Will Build That Agency In Her Image” That’s why banking industry reps are lobbying against Elizabeth Warren,... Read More

Lawyers, Guns, and Money: How Banks Snooze and Arms Dealers Profit

CROSS-POSTED FROM MOTHERJONES.COM Among Bank of America’s 50 million customers, Pierre Falcone was far from ordinary. An infamous global arms dealer who unlawfully sold weapons to Angola for its civil war and an international fugitive, Falcone was convicted of tax fraud and illegal arms dealing in 2007 and 2009 and is currently serving six years behind bars. Yet for nearly two... Read More

The Taliban Trust Fund and the Infinite Af-Pak War

At a major conference in London today, Afghan president Hamid Karzai rolled out his much anticipated Taliban “reintegration” or buyout plan, an initiative for which Afghanistan’s allies have pledged $500 million to pay mid- or lower level fighters to stop fighting and reintegrate into Afghan society. The money could include resettling former Taliban fighters and... Read More

Has Obama Won in Iraq?

Flickr/ The U.S. Army (Creative Commons) On a day when there’s nothing but dismal, depressing news on the Obama front, Juan Cole credits the president for what Cole deems his first major foreign policy success: the US drawdown in Iraq. While he acknowledges the presence of US bases there (which will likely never leave), Cole credits Obama for his adherence to a strict timetable... Read More

Michigan’s Brain Drain Continues…

Via The New York Times: Maine, Michigan, North Dakota and Vermont had net losses of about one in 10 of their young people from 2000 to 2009, as the populations of Northeastern and Midwestern states continued to age faster than those in the Sun Belt, according to new Census Bureau data. Since 2000, half the states registered a decline in the number of people younger than 18. Michigan’s... Read More