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Shadow Elite

It Was A Wonderful Life: My Odyssey with Bank of America

Janine R. Wedel | Posted 01.31.2012 | Business

Read More: Credit Ratings, Bank of America, Too Big to Fail, Bailouts, Wall Street Crisis, Shadow Elite, Banks, Occupy Wall Street, Business News
Janine R. Wedel

This technology-driven, partly outsourced, too-big-to-fail bureaucracies of today are more difficult to maneuver than that of yesteryear. And the frustration and angst it breeds are one reason the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements resonate with Americans.

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Shadow Elite: Shaving Cream -- Murdoch's Only Sanction??

Janine R. Wedel | Posted 09.20.2011 | Media

Read More: Rupert Murdoch, Fox News, Phone Hacking, Phone Hacking Scandal, News of the World, Shadow Elite, Media News
Janine R. Wedel

Will we take Murdochgate as a case study of today's top power brokers in action and do the work required to understand and challenge them? Or will the ability to hold them to account end with nothing more than a close shave?

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With Obama's "Dinner Date," Wall Street's Elite Wins... Again

Linda Keenan | Posted 08.15.2011 | Business

Read More: Elizabeth Warren, White House, Wall Street Crisis, Janine Wedel, Wall Street, Financial Reform, Economy, Shadow Elite, Revolving Door, Regulation, Campaign Finance, Business News
Linda Keenan

The news that President Obama will wine and dine with top Wall Street CEOs is just the latest example of how the "wizards" of Wall Street and their Washington allies continue to win -- their clout seemingly undiminished -- in the face of spectacular failure.

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How the Top 1 Percent Capture Our Regulators... and the American Dream

Linda Keenan | Posted 07.16.2011 | Business

Read More: Communism, Democracy, Wall Street Bailout, Larry Summers, Shadow Elite,  Revolving Door,  K Street, Income Inequality, Comcast NBC,  Meredith Atwell Baker,  Corruption,  Comcast,  Lobbying Reform,  Fcc,  Beltway, Business News
Linda Keenan

The kind of structural corruption present in American politics and industry today is reminiscent of what one sees in modern communist China, or during the transition years away from communism in Eastern Europe.

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How the Richest "1 Percent" Keep Rewarding Themselves for Epic Failure

Linda Keenan | Posted 06.07.2011 | Business

Read More: Salmonella Outbreak, Egg Recall, Shadow Elite, Deepwater Horizon, Salmonella, Wall Street Crisis, BP Oil Spill, Gulf Oil Spill, Transocean, Wall Street Bonuses, Income Inequality, Joseph Stiglitz, Business News
Linda Keenan

A signature feature of the shadow lobbyist era is not just a manipulation of public policy, but also an embrace of "failing upward". No matter the track record, the elite 1 percent seek more of the same.

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Shadow Lobbyists & The "Scholars-for-Dollars" Who Helped Rebrand Libya

Janine R. Wedel | Posted 05.25.2011 | Politics

Read More: Monitor Group, Gaddafi, Libya, Lobbying, Janine Wedel, Shadow Elite, Politics News
Janine R. Wedel

Monitor Group's academic campaign helps explain why Libya's image softened in recent years. And it also underscores the emergence of a new breed of power broker: "shadow lobbyists".

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Shadow Elite: "Safe" Nuclear Power? No Such Thing

Lloyd J. Dumas | Posted 05.25.2011 | Green

Read More: Chernobyl, Japan Tsunami, Japan Earthquake 2011, Terrorism, Japan Nuclear Reactor, Nuclear Power, Shadow Elite, Nuclear Crisis, Three Mile Island, Green News
Lloyd J. Dumas

Natural disasters, such as the gigantic earthquake off the coast of Japan, remind us of the fragility of even our most impressive technologies and the utter interconnectedness of our modern societies.

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Shadow Elite: Libya and the Consummate Shadow Lobbyist -- Neocon Richard Perle

Janine R. Wedel | Posted 05.25.2011 | World

Read More: Monitor Group, Saddam Hussein, Libya, Wmd, Muammar Gaddafi, Davos, Iraq War, Ahmed Chalabi, Lobbyists, Shadow Elite, Neoconservatives, Libya Protests, Dick Cheney, World News
Janine R. Wedel

No matter what shadow lobbyists try to portray, or how often they try to fly under the radar, they are, indeed, lobbyists, whether for their own ideological cause or simple financial interest. They need to be held to account.

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Shadow Elite: Move Your Money and Beyond -- Reforming Market Culture From the Bottom Up

Annelise Riles | Posted 05.25.2011 | Business

Read More: Wall Street, Financial Reform, Shadow Elite, Move Your Money, Financial Crisis, Huffington Move Your Money, Sheila Bair, Big Banks, Brooksley Born, Business News
Annelise Riles

Like efforts by good citizens to clean up a decrepit park frequented by drug dealers, it's time to pick up the trash left by the financial destruction, and challenge each other to clean up our acts.

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10 Shadow Elitists of the Decade

Linda Keenan | Posted 05.25.2011 | Politics

Read More: Crossroads GPS, Barry McCaffrey, Michael McConnell, Michael Chertoff, Robert Rubin, Tom Daschle, Karl Rove, Larry Summers, Gerhard Schroeder, Geir Haarde, Shadow Elite, Slidepollajax, Neoconservatives, Politics News
Linda Keenan

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Shadow Elite: The "Secretive" Bankers Who Love Derivatives and Hate the Free Market

Linda Keenan | Posted 05.25.2011 | Business

Read More: Banks, Wall Street, Derivatives, Wall Street Crisis, Shadow Elite, Dodd-Frank Bill, Business News
Linda Keenan

Banks keeping competitors out and price information to themselves are using tactics designed to maximize profits, but there's nothing free market about those tactics. It's up to the government to "free" the market, but so far it's failed.

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Shadow Elite: WikiLeaks, FOIA and the Cultural Life of Government Secrecy

Michael G. Powell | Posted 05.25.2011 | World

Read More: Foia, Private Contractors, WikiLeaks Cables, Wikileaks, FOIA Requests, Shadow Elite, Julian Assange Wikileaks, World News
Michael G. Powell

When we become aware of government secrecy -- as we do through redaction in WikiLeaks document dumps -- it raises our consciousness about the exercise of power and especially the potential abuse of that power.

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Shadow Elite: Truthiness, Porn and the Real Problem With Reality TV

Janine R. Wedel | Posted 05.25.2011 | Media

Read More: Iraq War, Snooki, Jersey Shore, Reality TV, Truthiness, Shadow Elite, Neoconservatives, Porn Industry, Porn, Media News
Janine R. Wedel

What do the makers of reality TV and the makers of pornography have in common with some of America's top power brokers? It may be less of a stretch than it sounds.

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Shadow Elite: Government & "Big Cheese"

Linda Keenan | Posted 05.25.2011 | Business

Read More: Michelle Obama Obesity, Obesity, Domino's Pizza, Obesity Epidemic, Shadow Elite, Business News
Linda Keenan

When institutional walls separating functions and ensuring balance of power are weak, players can concentrate and intensify their influence. This is now what we're seeing with the dairy lobby -- i.e. "big cheese".

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Shadow Elite: Will the Real Juan Williams Please Stand Up?

Linda Keenan | Posted 05.25.2011 | Media

Read More: Michael Chertoff, Npr, Fox News, Juan Williams, Juan Williams Fired, Shadow Elite, Tom Daschle, Media News
Linda Keenan

Williams, who pulled off representing two vastly different brands, qualifies as agile and edgy. But he's hardly an anomaly: These days, the idea that a journalist would operate with a single standard of conduct seems as dated as an 8-track tape.

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Shadow Elite: Truthiness in the Twitter Era

Janine R. Wedel | Posted 05.25.2011 | Politics

Read More: Stephen Colbert, Ofa, Rally to Restore Sanity, Twitter, Truthiness, Social Networking, Shadow Elite, Deregulation, Privatization, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Frank Rich, Malcolm Gladwell, American Crossroads, Organizing for America, Facebook, Politics News
Janine R. Wedel

The insidious and deceptive self-branding that used to be confined to the corporate world is now also used by political message-makers, aiming to create a look and feel that consumers identify with intuitively.

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Shadow Elite: The "Inside Job" That Toppled Iceland's Economy

Robert Wade | Posted 05.25.2011 | Business

Read More: Iceland Economic Crisis, Janine Wedel, Wall Street Crisis, Iceland, Inside Job, Shadow Elite, Business News
Robert Wade

Iceland's crash, for which the Prime Minister has now been indicted, is another case in which networks of public-private players, purporting to serve the public interest, instead capture official information to serve their own interests.

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Shadow Elite: The Small Government Lie - How Both Parties Stood By as Our Government Burned

Janine R. Wedel | Posted 05.25.2011 | Politics

Read More: Outsourcing, Janine Wedel, Government Contracting, Third World America, Shadow Elite, Firefighters-Watch-House-Burn, Small Government, Libertarian, Tea Party, Gene Cranick, Politics News
Janine R. Wedel

Our government, on the federal level, has already been upended by small government ideology, beholden to private interests as never before in our memory. But we can't just blame the Tea Party.

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Shadow Elite: Pat Tillman & Why Soldier Hero Worship Serves the Powerful ... Not the Soldiers

Andrew Bickford | Posted 05.25.2011 | World

Read More: Pat Tillman, Pat Tillman Death, Real Time With Bill Maher, Bill Maher, Janine Wedel, Heroes, Shadow Elite, World News
Andrew Bickford

"Heroism" is used and heroes created to aestheticize and glorify war and, it seems, is the ideological band-aid we use to cover up the suffering, wounding, and killing of disposable soldiers.

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Shadow Elite: The DISCLOSE Act -- Who's Blindfolding the American Electorate?

Janine R. Wedel | Posted 05.25.2011 | Politics

Read More: Karl Rove, American Crossroads Gps, Shadow Elite, Corporate Personhood, Citizens United, American Crossroads, Campaign Finance, DISCLOSE Act, Politics News
Janine R. Wedel

Is there anything more toxic to a healthy democracy than special interests buying elections? Sadly, yes. It's when citizens have no idea who those special interests even are, and no way to find out.

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Shadow Elite: Elizabeth Warren's Best Credential: Outsider

Linda Keenan | Posted 05.25.2011 | Politics

Read More: Robert Rubin, Elizabeth Warren, Janine Wedel, Wall Street Crisis, Wall Street, Shadow Elite, Cfpb, Alan Greenspan, 13 Bankers, Lawrence Summers, Brooksley Born, Politics News
Linda Keenan

Questionable behavior became commonplace in innumerable corners of the financial industry over the past 20 years. And at key moments, it was an outsider like Elizabeth Warren who had the common-sense perspective to cry foul.

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Shadow Elite: What Blackwater Sells (and the Government Wants): Deniability

Janine R. Wedel | Posted 05.25.2011 | Business

Read More: Defense Contractors, Government Contracting, Blackwater, Raytheon, Shadow Elite, Private Security Contractors, Business News
Janine R. Wedel

Ever heard of a private security contractor name Paravant? XPG? No? Well, that's just as Blackwater, the parent company of Paravant, XPG and dozens of other "subsidiaries", would have it.

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Shadow Elite: Selling Out Uncle Sam: Government Contracting -- A Free Market Farce

Janine R. Wedel | Posted 05.25.2011 | Politics

Read More: Deregulation, Defense Contractors, Janine Wedel, Government Contracting, Shadow Elite, Politics News
Janine R. Wedel

The deep scandal of government contracting goes far beyond the actions of a handful of bad actors and products that can seen and touched. It is systemic, insidious, potentially damaging to national security -- and perfectly legal.

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Shadow Elite: Selling Out Uncle Sam - The Collision of State & Private Power

Janine R. Wedel | Posted 05.25.2011 | Politics

Read More: Defense Contractors, Janine Wedel, Private Contractors, Shadow Elite, Politics News
Janine R. Wedel

When government contractors hire former directors of intelligence and defense-related government agencies, they are banking on coincidences of interest between their hires and their hires' former (government) employers.

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Shadow Elite: Selling Out Uncle Sam -- Who's Overseeing the Contractors?

Janine R. Wedel | Posted 05.25.2011 | Politics

Read More: Defense Contractors, Arlington National Cemetery, Government Contracting, Shadow Elite, Politics News
Janine R. Wedel

How far does the crisis of government contracting oversight go? Apparently, it extends deep into some of America's most hallowed ground: Arlington National Cemetery.

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