The Top Is Off: McCutcheon Opens Floodgates for 1 Percent to Spend Millions

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Apr 4, 2014 Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Mother Jones investigative reporter Andy Kroll told "Democracy Now!" about "the next Citizens United" -- the Supreme Court's decision this Wednesday to eliminate a long-standing limit on how much donors can give to political candidates and causes. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Bill Moyers: Who’s Buying Our Elections?

Peter Z. Scheer / Truthdig Mar 22, 2014 Bill Moyers interviews Kim Barker and Andy Kroll about the explosion of dark money spending in this year's midterm elections, and the impact of looming Supreme Court decisions. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Minutes From a Koch Meeting

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Feb 6, 2014 At their last fundraising conference, hell-raising right-wing billionaires David and Charles Koch left behind a confidential document detailing one-on-one conversations with donors and their operatives, offering a rare look into their savage political machine. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

The Landscape of Wall Street’s Creative Destruction

By Laura Gottesdiener, TomDispatch Aug 2, 2013 It’s May 2012 and we’re in Woodlawn, a largely African American neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. The goal of the HIT Squad, short for Housing Identification and Target, is to map blighted, bank-owned homes with overdue property taxes and neighbors angry enough about the destruction of their neighborhood to consider supporting a plan to repossess on the repossessors. Dig deeper ( 15 Min. Read )

How America Became a Third World Country: 2013-2023

By Mattea Kramer and Jo Comerford, TomDispatch May 22, 2013 The streets are much darker now, since money for streetlights is rarely available to municipal governments. The national parks began closing down years ago. Reports on bridges crumbling or even collapsing are commonplace. It’s 2023 -- and this is America 10 years after the first across-the-board federal budget cuts known as sequestration went into effect. Dig deeper ( 7 Min. Read )

The New Pay-As-You-Go Landscape of American ‘Democracy’

By Andy Kroll, TomDispatch May 16, 2013 Politics, 79-year-old casino mogul Sheldon Adelson told The Wall Street Journal, is like poker: "I don't cry when I lose. There's always a new hand coming up." He said he could double his 2012 giving in future elections. "I'll spend that much and more," he said. "Let's cut any ambiguity." Dig deeper ( 14 Min. Read )

How the 40-Year ‘Long Recession’ Led to the Great Recession

By Barbara Garson, TomDispatch Apr 10, 2013 If you had to date the Great Recession, you might say it started in September 2008 when Lehman Brothers vaporized over a weekend and a massive mortgage-based Ponzi scheme began to tumble. By 2008, however, the majority of American workers had already endured a 40-year decline in wages, security and hope -- a Long Recession of their own. Dig deeper ( 9 Min. Read )

How a Bunch of Liberal Groups Are Trying to Kill the Filibuster and Citizens United

Staff / Truthdig Jan 19, 2013 This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: The progressive plot to save representative democracy, China's retirement bomb, Republican junk science, and doping in sports. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Back to $chool

By Andy Kroll, TomDispatch Oct 2, 2012 It was the greatest education system the world had ever seen, accessible and affordable, a door with a welcome mat into the ivory tower, an invitation to a better life. Then California politicians bled it dry. Dig deeper ( 11 Min. Read )

The Deep, Dark Pond of Political Money

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Jun 22, 2012 Spending in the 2012 presidential election is expected to top $11 billion—more than twice the 2008 total. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling has taken American electoral politics back six decades, to before a time when corporations, trade groups and unions were banned from spending unlimited money on political campaigns. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Getting Rolled in Wisconsin

By Andy Kroll, TomDispatch Jun 11, 2012 The results of last Tuesday's elections are being heralded as the death of public-employee unions, if not the death of organized labor itself. They are also seen as the final chapter of the populist uprising that burst into life last year in the state capital of Madison -- a "Cheddar Revolution" buried in a mountain of ballots. But a burial ceremony may prove premature. Dig deeper ( 9 Min. Read )

Opinion

How Empires Fall: An Interview With Jonathan Schell

By Andy Kroll, TomDispatch Mar 3, 2012 Since Occupy and the Arab Spring, the animating message of Schell's "Unconquerable World"—that, in the age of nuclear weaponry, nonviolent action is the mightiest of forces—has undergone a renaissance of sorts. Dig deeper ( 13 Min. Read )