The Highroad
The Enronization of presidential politics
In the infamous Enron scandals of a decade ago, unregulated energy hucksters created an array of dummy financial funds so they could evade public scrutiny and perpetrate fraud. To disguise the scams, the funds were given such names as Chewco and JEDI...
Watering America’s food factories
Water scarcity is getting scary, and banning long showers is not even a drop in the solution bucket.
The biggest water sponge by far is...
Malicious merger merchants strike again
Five men suddenly found themselves faced with an all-out attack on their territory. Five men confronted by a hostile power. But these five men looked destiny in the eye — and then they suited up and took care of business...
Obama’s bizarre sales pitch for TPP
For some bizarre reason, Obama is staking his presidential legacy on a trade scam called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It’s a corporate wet dream that would let profiteering giants in Japan, Vietnam, Brunei and eight other Pacific nations sue to overturn our ...
Hiding worker injuries from OSHA
It's painful enough to be injured on the job, but it adds insult to injury when your employer strives to keep your pain a secret from safety authorities...
FEC hacks kill another ethics reform
The Federal Election Commission might as well be re-named the Federal Execution Commission, for it repeatedly and ruthlessly takes election reforms down a dark hallway in its building and executes them...
Big Beer deceivers and bullies
It’s bad enough that the goliaths of Big Beer are consuming each other in a new round of mega-mergers, meaning fewer choices and higher prices for consumers — but the really bad news is that they’re also going after the one bright spot on tap in bars all across the ...
How corporate bamboozlers intend to widen inequality in America
The basic problem facing the corporate and political powers who want you and me to swallow their Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal is that they...
Get a whiff of ‘synthetic biology’
It’s always inspiring to see global corporate giants crush small farmers, stomp on nature, circumvent our laws by hook or crook, and deceive and gouge consumers...
Reviving the Bush-Cheney torture policy
A bumper sticker from around 2008 offered a stinging, four-word response to the Bush-Cheney regime’s enthusiasm for the cruel sport of waterboarding: “Impeach Bush,” it urged, “Torture Cheney...
Debt buyers bury hard-hit consumers in lies
Whenever a corporation issues a statement declaring that it is committed to “treating consumers fairly and with respect,” chances are it’s not...
Battling the forces of inequality
Inequality is not a condition. It’s a creation. Inequality is produced by thousands of decisions deliberately made by bosses, bankers and big shots to siphon money and power from the many to the few...
