Media

Two weeks from today will be the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. As advocates prepare to march again, it is clear how little some things have changed -- many of the policies people fought for back then are the same that we are fighting for now.

On Monday, Ezra Klein argued that “conventional wisdom on Washington is that corporations win every fight and everyone else — particularly the poor — get shafted" is, wait for it, "wrong, or at least incomplete."

Progressives hoping to better understand why conservatives so dislike government can enlighten themselves by fixing their attention on America's war on drugs -- and the formidable challenge of actually stopping that runaway train.  

Why does a second-string NFL player caught using the “N” word on video receive 24-hour coverage by every major news network in the country for days, but the largest racial wealth gap since the government began keeping records almost 30 years ago barely causes a blip in the press?

Does America believe in second chances? In some cases, yes. Corporations get second chances all the time. For instance, nearly every major pharmaceutical company has been repeatedly fined by the Justice Department for either fraud or illegal marketing, and yet—because no individual executices are ever held accountable—most go on to break the law again. Ditto for many top financial firms.

When politics is dominated by the wealthy, the interests of the wealthy are advanced while the interests of lower income and working families are ignored.

The London Whale has surfaced again. The lingering question is whether the investigations will prove that whales, like fish, rot from the head.

Beth Simone Noveck and Carl Malamud are pushing the IRS to publicly disclose more data on tax-exempt groups, make it more accessible in electronic form, and to do so more promptly. Count me among the effort’s biggest cheerleaders. If this push succeeds, we'll have a better handle on a key sector in U.S. society—although we'll still be in the dark about crucial details of how nonprofits are funded.