Oklahoma oligarch Aubrey McClendon with his niece-in-law, swimsuit model Kate Upton
This article was first published in the Daily Banter
At the end of the 1990s, after the total collapse of the mass-privatization experiment in Boris Yeltin’s Russia, some of the more earnest free-market proselytizers tried making sense of it all. The unprecedented collapse of Russia’s economy and its capital markets, the wholesale looting, the quiet extermination of millions of Russians from the shock and destitution (Russian male life expectancy plummeted from 68 years to 56 years)—the terrible consequences of imposing radical libertarian free-market ideas on an alien culture—turned out worse than any worst-case-scenario imagined by the free-market true-believers. (more…)
John Yoo, author of the notorious “torture memo,” served on the Cato Editorial Board for Cato Supreme Court Review during the Bush presidency. At the same time, Yoo was writing the Bush administration’s legal justifications for waterboarding, Guantanamo, warrantless wiretapping and more.
A few months back I had a long conversation with Freke Vuijst, a journalist from the lefty Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland, about the history of the Koch clan—specifically, we talked about what I learned during my trip to Quanah, Texas, the…
Back in April I wrote a couple of articles about how rampant speculation by Koch Industries, Goldman Sachs and other big players in the energy markets has been driving up the price of oil. Immediately, a bunch of freemarket sockpuppets…
When I left his ranch back in 2009, I was sure that Glenn Spencer had reached the end of his line. So it was surprising to learn that Spencer was a big player in the Tea Party scene. Suddenly, no one in Arizona cared about his past associations with white supremacists. Instead, Spencer was hanging out with Arizona state senators, hosting GOP political events, speaking at rallies and rubbing shoulders with the creme de la creme of Arizona’s Tea Party beau monde. He was not only back in the game, he’s bigger than ever.
Mark Ames talks with Dylan Ratigan about his investigative article in The Nation magazine, co-authored with labor journalist Mike Elk, exposing the scary and bizarre propaganda and elections influencing that Koch Industries now forces on its employees. Watch the video…
This article was first published in The Nation. On the eve of the November midterm elections, Koch Industries sent an urgent letter to most of its 50,000 employees advising them on whom to vote for and warning them about…
