freelance journalist and author
Freelance journalist and author of A Dream Foreclosed: Black America and the Fight for a Place to Call Home
PROFILE
Laura Gottesdiener
Guest
FROM Laura Gottesdiener
To the Point
Big Oil, Big Problems Because of the oil-drilling technique called fracking, North Dakota’s Bakken shale formation is producing more than a million barrels a day. Laura Gottesdeiner is an independent reporter who spent a month in Williston—once a sleepy agricultural town of 12,000 people, now three times larger and still growing fast. On the website TomDispatch.com , her article was called, “ Adrift in Oil Country .” It was republished in Mother Jones magazine.
To the Point
Who’s Being Left Out of the “Housing Recovery?” The home foreclosure crisis staggered the US economy and led to the Great Recession six years ago. Now — finally -- new housing is under construction. But it's not single-family homes that are going up, but mostly apartment buildings. And Wall Street is going into the rental business. Meantime, many homeowners, especially blacks and Latinos, are still underwater. What does this new form of housing "recovery" reveal about the economy? Does it contain the seeds of another recession?
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To the Point
Is the threat from Russia missing from the Russia meddling probe? There's much being made about the Trump administration's possible ties with Russia. But the bottom line is Russia's effort to influence American democracy. Do the President and his aides care enough to take action before voters go back to the polls?
To the Point
Trump's 'America First' goes missing abroad In the Middle East, President Trump is changing some policies of the Obama Administration—and reversing his own campaign attacks on Islam as a religion that "hates us." We hear about his visit to Saudi Arabia and what's at stake for the rest of his foreign excursion.
To the Point
Venezuela spirals into economic and political chaos Venezuela, a country whose potential for prosperity is unmatched, finds itself on the verge of civil war. What sustains the repressive government? With time running out, guest host León Krauze looks at what the international community can do to pull the country from the edge of collapse.
To the Point
The Trump agenda: where's the beef? President Trump says big things are happening. After celebrating a House bill on health care, he doesn’t yet have Senate agreement. With James Comey’s public testimony scheduled tomorrow, the President today tweeted his selection of a new FBI Director. Is the Chief Executive all style and no substance? Later, terror attacks in Iran and conflicting claims about who’s behind them.