fraud

This upper-crust of extremely wealthy families are hell-bent on destroying the democratic vision of a strong middle-class which has made the United States the envy of the world. In its place they are determined to create an oligarchy in which a small number of families control the economic and political life of our country. That's what Senator Bernie Sanders had to say in a recent piece in The Nation magazine, calling for Americans to say "No to Oligarchy." He joins us via Skype to elaborate on the problem, which he attributes to regressive taxation and deregulation, and to call for progressive legislators to rally the people behind them and behind strong progressive legislation as an antidote to the "Republican Party of No." What if the elites decide that public opinion doesn't matter?" That's the truly scary question asked by Jay Rosen about the newest leaks from what he calls the world's first "stateless news organization," WikiLeaks. Using the power of the Internet, WikiLeaks is not bound by the laws of any particular country, and its release of the Afghanistan war documents this week to publications in three countries (the U.S., England and Germany) has been a topic of discussion all week. But right after the release of the documents, Congress voted to keep funding the war. So what will the leaks change? And what do they mean for journalism? Rosen joins us in studio along with journalist Michael Otterman, co-author of Erase Iraq: The Human Costs of Carnage, to discuss. Finally, amid fights over deficits and war funding for Afghanistan, it appears that nearly $9 billion in Iraqi reconstruction money has up and disappeared. Really? Laura has some thoughts.