How Wall Street Shakes Down Every City in America

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As long as I’m recommending long form magazine pieces, here’s another one: Matt Taibbi’s latest in Rolling Stone, “The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia.” I have a mixed view of Taibbi: some of his pieces are great, others are overwrought and depend more on his trademark expletives than on really getting the goods. This one is the former. On one level, it’s a granular look at a single Wall Street corruption trial that accomplished little except putting a few small-time operators behind bars; at another level, it demonstrates that the corruption on trial pervaded Wall Street’s entire business model for a decade, with no one in the executive suites ever paying a price for it. Worth a read.

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DEFEND THE TRUTH. DEFEND JOURNALISM.

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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