(1) New Co-Editor! First things first: Dollars & Sense has a new co-editor! Or to be precise, our former magazine co-editor, Alejandro Reuss, has returned to the staff, again as magazine co-editor. Alejandro has worn many hats at D&S, having been over the years an intern, a collective member, a staff member, an Associate, and one of our most frequent authors. He has a masters degree in Latin American history from Tufts, and since his last stint on our staff, he’s gone to grad school in economics at UMass-Amherst (he is finishing up his dissertation and expects to defend sometime this semester). We welcome him back on staff! D&S blog regulars should expect to hear a lot from him here.
(2) Palast Excerpt! I just posted an excerpt from investigative journalist Greg Palast’s brand new book (really–today is the release date), Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps—An investigation of Karl Rove, the Koch Gang and their Buck-Buddies. Here’s the introduction Greg wrote for the excerpts:
There is no such thing as a victimless billionaire. In 2012, I set out to uncover how they got their money, why they need to buy a president, and how they intend to do it. And the names of their victims.
The result is a short book, with a comic book inside by Ted Rall, called Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps—An investigation of Karl Rove, the Koch Gang and their Buck-Buddies.
Here’s an excerpt from two chapters of the book, about when the sulphurous scent of billionaire Paulson first hit my reporter’s nose. It was 2008, when I was working the vote-theft beat for BBC TV and Rolling Stone…
We’re hard at work finalizing layout on the September/October issue; it should go to e-subscribers and the printers by the end of the week. With another staff member we should be able to get back on schedule soon, and you’ll hear more from us here on the blog.
–Chris Sturr