By the close of the 1970s, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had undergone a radical transformation. Once a cautious, business-friendly trade group, it had become a politically aggressive and ideologically driven machine.
David Sirota
David Sirota is editor-at-large of Jacobin.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The Government Gave Big Oil the Power to Prosecute Its Biggest Critic
A judge empowered a private law firm to criminally prosecute Chevron’s nemesis—and now the firm has admitted it worked directly for Chevron.
Posted inArticle
Divvying Up Ohio
If elections are ugly things, primary elections are downright hideous, especially on the Democratic side. Ronald Reagan’s famous Eleventh Commandment — paraphrased as, “Thou shalt not speak badly of a fellow party member” — is rarely respected, no matter how much it is publicly venerated. Few argue that these primaries weaken a party’s ability to […]
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Watergate’s Lost Legacy
Upon the news this week that Watergate source “Deep Throat” had come forward, CNN’s Judy Woodruff waxed nostalgic about the golden era of muckraking journalism. “It is so hard, I think, for young people we know who work here at CNN and other news organizations to even imagine what Watergate was like,” she said. “To […]
Posted inFeatures
The Democrats’ Da Vinci Code
As the Democratic Party goes through its quadrennial self-flagellation process, the same tired old consultants and insiders are once again complaining that Democratic elected officials have no national agenda and no message. Yet encrypted within the 2004 election map is a clear national economic platform to build a lasting majority. You don’t need Fibonacci’s sequence, […]
Posted inArticle
The Democrats’ Da Vinci Code
As the Democratic Party goes through its quadrennial self-flagellation process, the same tired old consultants and insiders are once again complaining that Democratic elected officials have no national agenda and no message. Yet encrypted within the 2004 election map is a clear national economic platform to build a lasting majority. You don’t need Fibonacci’s sequence, […]
Posted inArticle
Debate School
Perhaps no candidate in the last 20 years has had so much riding on the presidential debates as John Kerry does. Bludgeoned by merciless attack ads and a well-oiled right-wing spin machine, Kerry is still a virtual unknown to many Americans, with few having a clear picture of who he is or what he stands […]
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The Greed Factor
In 1992, the Republican Party launched a vicious assault against Bill Clinton for traveling overseas and speaking out against his country’s foreign policy during the Vietnam War. It was the beginning of a strategy to demean the national-security credentials of the Democratic Party. Now, twelve years later, Vice President Dick Cheney has updated the tactic, […]
Posted inFeatures
The Big Squeeze
For most Americans, the last four years have represented a low point in our economic history. But for the big-business interests financing the Bush campaign, these have been high times. In previous eras, and even under previous Republican administrations, corporate America was one of a number of players in the public-policy arena. But under the […]
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These Dogs Don’t Hunt
Fact: Halliburton has overcharged taxpayers for food, accepted kickbacks for oil subcontracts, and spent taxpayer money renting rooms at five-star resorts in Kuwait. But instead of expressing outrage the government’s top watchdog, Pentagon Inspector General Joseph Schmitz, last week parroted the company line, saying he believes Halliburton’s problems “are not out of line with the […]