Skip to content
things that go boom fallout

I Want Money

Words: Laicie Heeley
Pictures: Marc Johns
Date:

Money in politics is a little bit like an iceberg — there’s the stuff you can see, like lobbying firms, and then there’s all the stuff below the waterline.

On this episode of Things That Go Boom… we wade into the swamp. We focus on one of the loudest groups that weighed in on the Iran nuclear deal to get a better sense of how the system works. The story that emerges includes a Greek shipping magnate, a gold trader, an investigative reporter, and the world’s largest collections of Rembrandts.

The question at the center of it all: Is our foreign policy for sale?

Laicie Heeley

Editor in Chief

Laicie Heeley is the founding CEO of Inkstick Media, where she serves as Editor in Chief of the foreign policy magazine Inkstick and Executive Producer and Host of the PRX- and Inkstick-produced podcast, Things That Go Boom. Heeley’s reporting has appeared on public radio stations across America and the BBC, where she’s explored global security issues including domestic terrorism, disinformation, nuclear weapons, and climate change. Prior to launching Inkstick, Heeley was a Fellow with the Stimson Center’s Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense program and Policy Director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Her publications include work on sanctions, diplomacy, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, along with the first full accounting of US counterterrorism spending after 9/11.

LEARN MORE

Hey there!

You made it to the bottom off the page! That means you must like what we do. In that case, can we ask for your help? Inkstick is changing the face of foreign policy, but we can’t do it without you. If our content is something that you’ve come to rely on, please make a tax-deductible donation today. Even $5 or $10 a month makes a huge difference. Together, we can tell the stories that need to be told.

album-art

Sorry, no results.
Please try another keyword
  • When we say that we’re going to store something “in the cloud” it sounds like an ethereal place somewhere in the atmosphere. But the online cloud is generated by computer servers in data centers all over the world. Thousands of them. And AI is likely to ramp up demand. But data centers don’t employ a[...]
album-art

Sorry, no results.
Please try another keyword
  • Internet blackouts — when internet service is shut down in a country or region — have become much more common over the last decade. But who gets to decide when these disruptions are necessary? From thwarting political protests to preventing cheating on school exams, we’re diving into the who, what, and why of internet blackouts around the[...]
album-art

Sorry, no results.
Please try another keyword
  • It’s one of our biggest problems in 2023, and it can feel distinctly human. But it's not. All sorts of animals deal with all sorts of misinformation every day, including some of our oldest ancestors — like the humble fish. This week on Things That Go Boom, we exit the human world entirely to see[...]
album-art

Sorry, no results.
Please try another keyword
  • Greg is an artist whose clients include Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons. And much like a lot of the folks striking in Hollywood right now, he’s ticked off about AI. It’s a story we hear a lot these days: AI is having an impact on everything in our lives, and it’s killing creators’[...]
album-art

Sorry, no results.
Please try another keyword
  • In the age of Oppenheimer, nuclear weapons didn’t have much to do with computers. And, for a long time, most nukes were running on 1970s-era floppy disk systems. But as technology has advanced the US — and all the other nuclear weapons states — have started putting military communications, early warning systems, and even control of nuclear[...]
album-art

Sorry, no results.
Please try another keyword
  • We need the internet. No, seriously. In 2023, the digital realm isn’t so much a portal as it is the undercurrent of our lives: The web carries our culture, our communication, our bank accounts — and, yes, our global security. But all of that traffic flows through a series of cables at the bottom of[...]

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTERS