When I worked in Russia, there were two sets of laws–one for Kremlin favorites and oligarchs, who never worried about paying for their crimes; and laws for everyone else, who paid no matter what. Here, it’s starting to get even worse than in Russia: Not only has there not been a single banker arrested since they destroyed the entire economy and looted trillions (while at the same time a mother who fudges her address to get her child in a better school district gets jail time), but even worse than that, judges think it’s more important to punish peaceful protesters with obscene bail demands than to isolate a serial child-rapist, who was let out without having to post a single penny.
Last week, as I reported, the LAPD arrested and detained nearly 300 peaceful protesters during the paramilitary eviction raid on Occupy LA. Charged with minor, non-violent misdemeanor offenses (“failing to disperse”), the majority of those arrested were nonetheless forced to spend three full nights in jail. The reason they spent so much time (I was there for two nights) behind bars? They could not afford the bizarrely punitive $5,000 to $10,000 bail set by the City of Los Angeles, which had jacked up the bail amount in order to punish and keep Occupy LA protesters in jail–a potentially illegal practice, according to the National Lawyers Guild. (more…)
Exiled editor Mark Ames went on RT’s “The Alyona Show” on Wednesday to spread his message of hopelessness, so long as America remains in the grip of a failed oligarchy and their failed free-market ideology. Watch the clip here:
Slate’s David Weigel is one of the few libertarian media figures who at least has had the courtesy to disclose, on occasion, his past relationships with Koch-funded outfits (Institute for Humane Studies, Reason Magazine…). But half-disclosures can be deceiving. The…
Urgent update, folks! Andrew Breitbart’s Koch-monkey, Joel B. Pollak, just outdid himself as the top ace gumshoe reporter of the retarded-right. Yes folks, Joel. B. Pollak, peddler of the “Johnny Chen Conspiracy Theory” that changed the face of journalism as we know it, now has another shocking scoop about eXiled editor Mark Ames–and to get the scoop, he even used what hi-tech futuristic types call a “proxy.”
The biggest story of the past year—the takeover of America by the billionaire Koch brothers—was first reported by eXiled Online editors Mark Ames and Yasha Levine over two years ago, in a controversial article for Playboy. Dylan Ratigan sets the…
Mark Ames was back on MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show yesterday talking about the Tuscon assassination-rampage murder, the degeneration of America’s political class and how growing inequality makes everything and everyone shittier. To quote eXiled hero Charles Portis, “We’re weaker…
This article was first published in The eXile on November 13, 2003. Reading the Western press accounts of the Khodorkovsky arrest has at times been as unpleasant as one of my famous giardia attacks. I’m not sure which version is more ridiculous:…
