Rachel Maddow covered this subject pretty well last night in a piece titled “Oil mega-corporations key to leverage over Russia” but really scratched the surface on the pressure Exxon may be exerting on the State Department right now over sanctions against Russia. Her interview with Former Russian Ambassador Michael McFaul, who quit the post a month
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After a chemical plant explosion in West, Texas, killed fifteen people in April, President Obama ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to create a plan to reduce the risks of more deadly chemical disasters. But with the President’s October 31st deadline for action coming up fast, it’s not clear that the EPA will take decisive steps.
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Yesterday President Obama delivered a forceful message to the predatory for-profit college industry. In response to a question at an event Friday at Binghamton University in New York state, Obama said these businesses were “making out like a bandit” preying on veterans and other students, as well as taxpayers. He warned that if these for-profit
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87% percent of Americans find, “reducing corruption in the federal government,” to be “extremely,” or, “very important” according to a new Gallup poll on American’s top priorities for the next president.  This is the #2 issue, following only job creation. Corruption in government usually ranks as an important issue when it is asked about specifically, though it is not
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Ryan Lizza’s much buzzed about recent piece in The New Yorker investigates what Barack Obama might focus on in a second term. Obama could focus on immigration reform, on clean energy and the environment, on shoring up healthcare reform to future attacks from Republicans, on foreign policy. These are all issues that candidate Obama promised
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At Fort Stewart, Georgia, today, President Obama  signed an executive order aiming to protect U.S. troops, veterans, and their families from the predatory abuses of some for-profit colleges. It remains to be seen if this new directive will do enough to guide our service members into programs that actually help them build careers — and away
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President Obama unveiled his Fiscal Year 2013 budget proposal this week. While it is not expected to be passed into law, it is being used as a statement of Obama’s fiscal and political principles going into the election year. Included in Obama’s proposal this year is a special tax on financial firms with more than
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Though President Obama lashed out at the influence of lobbyists in his State to the Union address, a current advisor to his campaign and administration, former White House communication director Anita Dunn, runs one of fastest growing corporate “public affairs” firms in Washington DC. Dunn left her post as a public servant in late 2009
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