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Climate Rage

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Naomi Klein - Nov. 11 (Opinion) - With Copenhagen now likely to begin before Congress has passed even a weak-ass climate bill co-authored by the coal lobby, U.S. politicians have dropped the superhero metaphors and are scrambling to lower expectations for achieving a serious deal at the climate summit. It's just one meeting, says U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, not "the be-all and end-all." As faith in government action dwindles, however, climate activists are treating Copenhagen as an opportunity of a different kind. On track to be the largest environmental gathering in history, the summit represents a chance to seize the political terrain back from business-friendly half-measures, such as carbon offsets and emissions trading, and introduce some effective, common-sense proposals — ideas that have less to do with creating complex new markets for pollution and more to do with keeping coal and oil in the ground.

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The Generals' Revolt

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:07:22 -0800

Rolling Stone - Nov. 04 -

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Wall Street's Naked Swindle

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Oct. 20 (Special Report) - Like all the great merchants of the bubble economy, Bear and Lehman were leveraged to the hilt and vulnerable to collapse. Many of the methods that outsiders used to knock them over were mostly legal: Credit markers were pulled, rumors were spread through the media, and legitimate short-sellers pressured the stock price down. But when Bear and Lehman made their final leap off the cliff of history, both undeniably got a push — especially in the form of a flat-out counterfeiting scheme called naked short-selling.

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The Lie Machine

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Tim Dickinson - Oct. 10 (Special Report) - Far from representing a spontaneous upwelling of populist rage, the protests were tightly orchestrated from the top down by corporate-funded front groups as well as top lobbyists for the health care industry.

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Sick and Wrong

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Sep. 14 (Investigative Report) - The president and the Democrats decided not to press for the only plan that makes sense for everyone, in order to preserve an industry that is not only cruel and stupid and dysfunctional, but through its rank inefficiency has necessitated the very reforms now being debated.

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The Great American Bubble Machine

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By MattTaibbi - Jul. 03 (Special Report) - The formula is relatively simple: Goldman positions itself in the middle of a speculative bubble, selling investments they know are crap. Then they hoover up vast sums from the middle and lower floors of society with the aid of a crippled and corrupt state that allows it to rewrite the rules in exchange for the relative pennies the bank throws at political patronage.

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The Class Clowns

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Apr. 23 (Opinion) - The actual text, which included no specifics or numbers at all, was full of wildly general phrases like "Republicans would fully fund our ongoing commitments overseas while devoting the entirety of any savings from reduced fighting to deficit reduction." As one observer put it, it was like an invasion plan that read, "Send ships, land troops, kill Germans."

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AIG and the Big Takeover: Matt Taibbi on "How Wall Street Insiders Are Using the Bailout to Stage a Revolution"

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Matt Taibbi - Mar. 25 (News Analysis) - “The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d’état,” writes Taibbi. “They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.”

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The Big Takeover

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Mar. 22 (Opinion) - People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

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Pelosi Hits Back

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Tim Dickinson - Feb. 18 (Interview) - For the moment, Pelosi is cloaking her instincts as an experienced street fighter in the soothing tones of bipartisanship. Though her eyes flash green when she puts a sharp point on an argument, she seems reticent to take shots at the House Republicans who voted en masse against the recovery package. For the first time since she rose to the speakership two years ago, Pelosi can at last brush aside the GOP's obstructionism and get on with the work of undoing the damage done by eight years of Republican misrule.

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Blago's Revenge

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Jan. 25 (Opinion) - It's a political disaster that happened only after Democrats once again froze in the headlights at the crucial moment, trying to flee in two different directions at once while a third-rate bookie in a tracksuit seized control of the U.S. Senate.

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What Obama Must Do

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Paul Krugman - Jan. 14 (Special Report) - ....fdr wasn't shy about demanding the the public's money be used to serve the public good. the roosevelt administration used that ownership stake to insist that banks actually help the economy pressuring them to lend out the money they were getting from washington.....in the long run we don't want the gov't running financial institutions but for now we need to do whatever it takes to get credit flowing again.

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Bush Apologizes: The Farewell Interview We Wish He'd Give

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Jan. 08 (Comedy News) - A bookshelf on the north wall displays standard-issue Americana such as Poor Richard's Almanack, but it also contains former swimsuit model Kathy Ireland's Powerful Inspirations: Eight Lessons That Will Change Your Life ("There's a lot of good life stuff in there, a lot of stuff about patience," the president says) and a well-worn copy of 101 Dumb Dog Deaths ("Makes me laugh every time, especially the one about cow-tipping").

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Bush's Final F.U.

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Tim Dickinson - Dec. 20 (Special Report) - In its final days, the administration is rushing to implement a sweeping array of "midnight regulations" — de facto laws issued by the executive branch — designed to lock in Bush's legacy.

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China's All-Seeing Eye

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Naomi Klein - Dec. 19 (Investigative Report) - Over the past two years, some 200,000 surveillance cameras have been installed throughout the city. Many are in public spaces, disguised as lampposts. The closed-circuit TV cameras will soon be connected to a single, nationwide network, an all-seeing system that will be capable of tracking and identifying anyone who comes within its range — a project driven in part by U.S. technology and investment. Over the next three years, Chinese security executives predict they will install as many as 2 million CCTVs in Shenzhen, which would make it the most watched city in the world. (Security-crazy London boasts only half a million surveillance cameras.)

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Matt Taibbi on Mike Huckabee, Our Favorite Right-Wing Nut Job : Rolling Stone

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Dec. 19 (Investigative Report) - But Huckabee is also something else: full-blown nuts, a Christian goofball of the highest order. He believes the Earth may be only 6,000 years old, angrily rejects the evidence that human beings evolved from "primates" and thinks America wouldn't need so much Mexican labor if we allowed every aborted fetus to grow up and enter the workforce. To top it off, Huckabee also left behind a record of ethical missteps in the swamp of Arkansas politics that make Whitewater seem like a jaywalking ticket. All of which begs the question: If this religious zealot's rise represents the end of corporate dominance of the Republican Party, is that a good thing? Or is the real thing even worse than the fraud?

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The Last Recount

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Nov. 28 (Breaking News) - When it came to Blue against Red, you just didn't joke about how much you hated the other side; you were just too pissed off to laugh about What They Did to This Country. But there's something different in the air now, after the election of Barack Obama.

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Requiem for a Maverick

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Nov. 21 (Opinion) - They compounded a millionfold Bush's legacy of incompetence by soiling both possible Republican ideological strategies going forward: They killed off Bush-style neoconservatism as well as the more traditional fiscal conservatism McCain himself was once known for by trying to fuse both approaches into one gorgeously incoherent ticket.

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The New Trough

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Naomi Klein - Nov. 05 (Special Report) - Secretary Paulson promised that the banks won't just "hoard" the money — they will quickly "deploy it" through the economy in the form of badly needed loans. There is just one hitch: Neither Paulson nor Simpson Thacher got that "deploy" part in writing — nor did they put in place any mechanism to require the banks to spend their taxpayer billions.

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Block the Vote

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, Greg Palast - Oct. 18 (Investigative Report) - On February 5th, the day of the Super Tuesday caucus, a school-bus driver named Paul Maez arrived at his local polling station to cast his ballot. To his surprise, Maez found that his name had vanished from the list of registered voters, thanks to a statewide effort to deter fraudulent voting. For Maez, the shock was especially acute: He is the supervisor of elections in Las Vegas.

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The Return of Rove

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Oct. 11 (Special Report) - The reason Rove continues to survive is the same reason that Johnnie Cochran was called a genius for keeping a double-murderer on the golf course — because this generation of Americans has become so steeped in greed and social Darwinism that it can no longer distinguish between cheating and achieving, between enterprise and crime, and can't bring itself to criticize winners any more than it knows how to be nice to losers. He survives because an increasing number of Americans secretly agree with Rove's vision of rules, laws and "the truth" as quaint, faintly embarrassing rituals that only a sucker would let hold him back.

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Make-Believe Maverick

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Tim Dickinson - Oct. 05 (Special Report) - This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather. In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

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Mad Dog Palin

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Oct. 04 (Opinion) - The truly disgusting thing about Sarah Palin isn't that she's totally unqualified, or a religious zealot, or married to a secessionist, or unable to educate her own daughter about sex, or a fake conservative who raised taxes and horked up earmark millions every chance she got.

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Candidates for Sale

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Aug. 10 (Opinion) - The truth is that the campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain are being inundated with cash from more or less exactly the same gorgons of the corporate scene. From Wall Street to the Big Oil powerhouses to the military-industrial complex, America's fat-cat business leaders know that the Animal House-style party of the last eight years that made almost all of them rich with bonuses, government contracts and bubble profits is about to come to an end, and someone is going to have to pay to clean up the mess. They want that someone to be you, not them, and they've spared no expense to make sure both presidential candidates will be there to bail them out next year.

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Obama's Brain Trust

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Tim Dickinson - Jul. 08 (Special Report) - Obama isn't exactly known for understatement. But in describing the machine that Plouffe and his political team have built, the candidate was actually far too modest. By marrying online technology to grass-roots activism, Obama's brain trust mobilized 1.5 million donors, raised more than $250 million, derailed the Clinton juggernaut and built something new in Democratic politics.

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