The last time Mitt Romney ran for president, his foreign policy positions seemed cautious and contrived, in particular when compared to John McCain’s visceral support of intervention, hegemony, and big military budgets. Speaking at a Council on Foreign Relations conference in 2008, McCain advisor Max Boot ridiculed Romney’s ambivalence on Iraq. “Mitt Romney can claim […]

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Equities analyst Barry Ritholtz wasn’t buying Facebook or its initial public offering. In a May 22 blog post, he described Mark Zuckerberg as an arrogant, 28-year-old man-child and said that the social network “went public more or less unlawfully over the past two years, allowing 1000s (or more) of outside investors to acquire substantial stakes […]

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“Any investor who can get shares of the Facebook IPO should purchase as many shares as possible.” That was Jim Cramer’s tout on his CNBC Mad Money program, which promises viewers “an in-depth look at Wall Street, stock, and the market.” It is Cramer’s good fortune that he is not legally responsible for the bullshit he […]

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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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