The Rule of Outlaws
Reading Time: 3 minutes Let’s stop pretending the US is still a country of laws, because some people are allowed to get away with even the most blatant violations of society’s rules.
Powerful Democrat Lives Large on Corporate Cash
Reading Time: 16 minutes Since becoming chairman of the influential Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) has raised and spent tons of campaign cash. Journalist David Daley shares the facts.
Trying to Understand Trump’s Finances Is Taxing
Reading Time: 19 minutes Martin Sheil, a former IRS investigator, walks us through what we know about Trump’s taxes.
Study: US Grew More Corrupt From 2017 to 2018
Reading Time: 3 minutes The US has dropped out of the list of the world’s 20 least corrupt countries.
Mueller Investigation Shows the Rich Deserve Much More Scrutiny
Reading Time: 4 minutes Here is one thing we already know thanks to the Mueller investigation: The finances of the rich and powerful need to be looked at much more closely or the rest of us will keep paying the price.
Great Quotations on Power and Corruption
Reading Time: 5 minutes Droll, cynical, deliciously nasty comments on the forces that make the world go around, by wickedly witty thinkers from the past and the present.
Corruption-Fighting Minister Hopes for Obama Pardon
Reading Time: 3 minutes An activist who took on local politicans and a major corporation ended up in jail. But his troubles didn’t stop there.
How Bribes to Politicians From Arms Dealers Keep Wars Going
Reading Time: 20 minutes With the help of governments and their intelligence agencies, the global arms trade continues to be a controlling and corrupting force throughout the world.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: FEC Commissioner Calls Her Own Agency “Scandalous”
Reading Time: 7 minutes The FEC, America’s top election watchdog, is failing. The person who ran it in 2015 spoke with WhoWhatWhy about how hopeless the situation has become.
US Tax Dollars up in Smoke Over Afghanistan
Reading Time: 2 minutes Wasting billions of dollars in taxes is standard operating procedure for the US government. It has spent more on Afghanistan than on the entire Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II. Where are these staggering amounts going? In this strikingly candid interview, John Sopko, a former federal prosecutor and currently the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction lets loose an amazing commentary on what he and his inspectors are finding. This is a must-listen. Even the most jaded will be astonished to hear.
RadioWhoWhatWhy: Should We All Become Whistleblowers?
Reading Time: 1 minute In his work on leadership for both government and corporations, Ira Chaleff has become something of an expert on followers. What he’s found—and what he argues in his book Intelligent Disobedience and in his conversation with WhoWhatWhy’s Jeff Schechtman—is that we have to learn not to be so quick to follow orders and accept authority.
Chaleff explores how a remarkable range of wrongdoing of all magnitudes—from financial fraud to war crimes, and even, surprisingly, sexual misconduct—can to some degree trace back to the compromised moral compass of those too quick to comply with orders. While we may not all have it in us to become whistleblowers, says Chaleff, we can all stand to be a bit more disobedient—when it is warranted.
FIFA Soccer Corruption Probe Could Spell Trouble for Putin, Qatar
Reading Time: 5 minutes With both the US and Switzerland launching investigations of alleged corruption in the most powerful body in global sports, FIFA’s seemingly untouchable president may be toast. But both Russia and Qatar, sites of upcoming World Cups, are on the hot seat too.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire — Afghanistan Reconstruction Edition
Reading Time: 3 minutes Check out the latest outrageous waste of US taxpayer dollars for not helping the Afghan people. It truly is like pouring a sack of cash into a sinkhole.
How New York Corruption Damages Democracy in America and the World
Reading Time: 3 minutes The arrest of New York Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver on bribery charges would be easy to dismiss as just another local corruption case. Bob Hennelly explains why it’s a much bigger risk to democracy than it appears.
Jailbreak: The U.S. Paid $11 Million for an Afghan Prison with Cracked Walls
Reading Time: 5 minutes The U.S. watchdog in charge of overseeing the billions of dollars the U.S. is spending to rebuild Afghanistan finds an $11 million prison with broken walls, no fence and a trail of graft. WhoWhatWhy takes a look at what that tells us about our $103 billion investment in Afghanistan.
Power, Corruption and Propaganda: A Quotation Sampler
Reading Time: 3 minutes This is the first installment in a series of quotes, videos and articles addressing perhaps the central issue of our time: the power of the unscrupulous few over the apathetic many, and our unwillingness or perceived inability to do something about it.
Obama’s Buds Sunstein and Wolf Overboard!
Reading Time: 4 minutes We would be well advised to pay more attention to figures departing the Obama circle—and to figure out why, really, they left.
Occupy’s 99 Pledge
Reading Time: 1 minute So those wacky “Occupy” folks don’t have a clear picture of what they want? So they’re just a bunch of people who enjoy protesting? Watch this—from little Ole Occupy Santa Fe.
Obama: “Yes, I’m in a Can”
Reading Time: 4 minutes Let’s look a little further at what ails Obama—and us. It’s about the pretty small part of the One Percent that really calls the shots, and keeps a president from doing what he surely knows he must.
Corporate Media Stumped on How to Cover the Occupy Movement
Reading Time: 3 minutes The New York Times’ Public Editor ponders how to cover the protests breaking out throughout America and the world, and turns to colleagues at other news organizations for guidance. How clueless can the establishment be? Read on.