In our May 15, 2012 issue, National Security Agency executive turned whistleblower Thomas Drake described the agency failures that led to 9/11. In part two of Barbara Koeppel’s interview with Drake, the ex-spy reveals the agency’s corrupt practices. Let’s talk about the corruption. What kinds of numbers were involved? Billions. I have prima facie knowledge […]

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Thomas Drake’s revelations about National Security Agency’s contracts with SAIC — the (mostly) defense contractor Science Applications International Corporation — read like a how-to on purging the public purse. But there is more in SAIC’s four-decade history. This past March, New York City fined SAIC half a billion dollars for what a prosecutor described as […]

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In August 2011, the City Council of Boulder, Colorado, referred two ballot measures to voters. One authorized the city to take over (or “municipalize”) the privately owned utility that provides Boulder’s electricity. The second measure imposed a modest tax on ratepayers to finance the takeover and convert the utility from coal to natural gas. With […]

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…of incomes that Americans had long taken for granted as a happy fact of modern life was reversing itself.” Nearly 30 years after this trend began, income inequality in America was as large as at any point since the Great Crash of 1929, with the wealthiest 1 percent controlling nearly a quarter of the country’s […]

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Until recently. Last year, 38 states introduced laws that would impose restrictions of one form or another on the right to vote. The restrictions will take their toll. In Florida, for example, the League of Women Voters has suspended its registration drives because it fears it cannot comply with extreme measures written into the new […]

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