Washington – If you want to see what fires the grass roots passion for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders and the populist rebellion against the U.S corporate and political elite, take a look at the latest case of an American corporation’s gaming the system for handouts and bailouts and then walking out on Uncle Sam and […]

Washington – Back in the 1960s, when I was covering Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis and other civil rights activists for The New York Times, I remember die-hard segregationists hurling an accusation at Dr. King that he was an “outside agitator.” “You’re comin’ into our town,” they would bellow, whether it was Birmingham or […]

Washington – If the mean spirit of this year’s campaign upsets you or you’re worried about the lava of dark corporate and billionaire money corrupting our elections, consider one more New Year’s resolution: To get involved in civic action to rebuild government of, by and for the people. There are active grass roots campaigns coast to […]

Washington – If you wonder what price we all pay for corporate money flooding political campaigns ($1.7 billion in 2014), see Exhibit A — the attempt by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to exploit legal loopholes and  renounce its U.S. citizenship to become an Irish company and to duck U.S. corporate income taxes. Pfizer made no secret […]

Washington – Believe it or not, politicians are as fed up with and angry at the runaway campaign money race as voters. It’s almost impossible to get Republican and Democratic politicians to agree on anything these days. But when they’re being honest and they’ve stopped running for office, they see eye-to-eye on one thing: They […]

Washington – It’s already clear that the next House Speaker will face crippling mutinies by the 45 Republican rebels who knocked off John Boehner and intimidated Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. And that’s because the insurgents know they can defy their party leadership without fear of retribution from the voters because Republican gerrymandering protects them. Yes, […]

OLGA,WA – If you care about American democracy and you’re sick of politicians’ clinging to power by concocting political monopolies in their home districts, then take heart – and take a cue – from the recent Supreme Court decision that casts a shadow on partisan gerrymandering. Take note, too, that in Florida the state supreme […]

The decision by Los Angeles to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020 has national significance far beyond the powerful impact it will have on the incomes and lives of an estimated 400,000 workers in LA. For not only does it put pressure on the rest of California, New York, Chicago […]

Spring means pollen are in the air. This year, several mischievous species of pollen – the kind of alien economic thought-germs that aggravate the allergies of Wall Street orthodoxy. For starters, Wall Street found itself playing host to Etsy, a so-called Benefit Corporation, an upstart Brooklyn-based artist’s marketplace that strays from the ideology of pure […]