The LA Times has teamed up with Pro Publica on a number of occasions.
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Ultra rich, enormously wealthy, oligarchs. . .
The last few years have brought me to a closer understanding of Josef Stalin and his indiscriminate and murderous campaign against those he termed “kulaks.” To him they were rich enemies of the people and of the revolution. (never mind the reality)
Our oligarchs are our kulaks: rich enemies of the people and of our democracy. (and that pretty much IS the reality)
Yes. I think I really understand old Uncle Joe and why he felt as he did.
There are several small branches of the Grand Canyon quite big enough to hold them all without even beginning to fill any of them up.
Read Thucydides. In his history of the Peloponnesian War are constant reminders of the never ending conflict between rule by the demos and rule by the oligarchs in the poleis of the Greek 5th Century BC. Slaughter invariably ensued.
Tempting.
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And YET…these self same ‘patriots’ are insisting that they will vote against ANYTHING that will help the American people because, you know, the ‘debt’ that they only care about when a Democrat tries to do something.
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And we’ve all been saying that Ron Johnson is dumb. Yeah, like the proverbial fox.
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No need to cheat on your taxes if you can write the bills that make such things legal.
“The class which has the power to rob upon a large scale also has the power to control the government to legalize their robbery.” — Eugene V. Debs
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that the tax codes already do this. Not that it has ever stopped Retrumplican pols from lying about it.
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True. Politicians count on people not knowing what is in the law and the press to repeat their lies for them.
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On July 30, Vladimir Putin issued a ukase (a Russian decree) creating a Russian commission on historical education, “in order to ensure a planned and aggressive approach to the matter of defending the national interests of the Russian Federation.” This commission will cover not only education, but also entertainment, museums, and cultural references: pretty much anything of historical interest that is encountered by a Russian resident.
In “’A Dangerous Commission’: Russian Historians Alarmed As Putin Creates State Body On ‘Historical Education’” RFE/RL’s Mikhail Sokolov reports that Putin’s allies are using national security arguments to justify Putin’s plans for rewriting Russian history. Sokolov, who interviewed Russian historian and Putin ally Pavel Pozhigailo, writes:
Because Russia is a “multinational” country, the need for a “unified” version of its history is urgent, Pozhigailo said. There cannot be a presentation of history that “tells how great the people of the Far North are and how bad the Russians are or how great the North Caucasus are and how bad the Russians are” because “Russia would simply collapse into an enormous number of tiny states.”
In other words, don’t talk about the 25,000–50,000 dead or missing in the Second Chechen War, because Russia might collapse if you did. And of course whatever you do, don’t say anything bad about the Russians.
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Interesting how this is trending on Twitter and the ongoing pillow-merchant dymposium is not. Like there’s a penalty for being poppycock and nonsense. People could be forgiven if they had started to wonder.
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Yep! And aren’t you just thrilled beyond words to be helping to pay for it? I know I am…
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As you were saying:
Op-Ed: Why government has a constitutional duty to save the news industry - Country Highlights
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Thanks. Anybody who reads Thucydides can’t be all bad. At my stage in life I can only read the Cliff Notes version.
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It’s the “Golden Rule”; he who has the gold makes the rules.
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What will it take to make the ultra rich pay their fair share of taxes?
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Lamp posts?
ProPublica often collaborates with PBS Frontline on important stories. One example is reporter A.C. Thompson cracked the case of U.S.'s extraordinary redition torture on flights in international airspace and John Yoo’s involvement.
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Great article, but still waiting for the other “secret” IRS files. Namely Fat Nixon’s tax returns.
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Makes sense—I looked over their website and they’re a high-end going concern from the looks of it. If you had some important stuff to leak they’d know how to handle it. What I can’t quite discern is if they make content available to other venues, like a wire service does. It would be hugely helpful.
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The GOP and the tax cut lobbyists are experts at finding the one or two “real” people who would benefit from the tax cut, and then they make them the poster child to cover up the real theft.
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Excellent reporting…but alas not surprising.
It is nice to have names attached to the grift.
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