Newsflash:

"Good for Wall Street - Bad for Students": SEIU Hosts Webinar on Predatory, Proprietary Colleges and Universities

Saturday, 11 February 2012 16:01 Written by Danny Weil, Truthout | News Analysis

PrivateColleges A cursory investigation of the for-profit higher education industry reveals striking parallels between the economics of the for-profit colleges and universities and the Wall Street financial meltdown of 2008. The matter cries out for immediate attention for the breadth and speed of the extraction of public funds and their transfer into private hands is proceeding faster than could have been imagined five years ago.

That is why it was heartening to see one of America's largest unions, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), sponsor an event entitled, "Good for Wall Street - Bad for Students," a panel discussion and national webcast on the dangers of for-profit colleges - especially the 105 schools owned and operated by Pittsburgh-based Education Management Corporation (EDMC).

The event was organized by SEIU and I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend by organizer, Kevin O'Donnell from SEIU Communications. The webinar took place February 2, 2012 on-line between 12 noon and 2 PM (EST), and the group of panelists assembled for the webinar included a vast array of knowledgeable participants. The panelists were seated at the Fairmount Hotel, in downtown Pittsburgh.

According to O'Donnell:

"This was the first webinar on for-profit colleges sponsored by a worker's union. But in a broader sense, the webinar was part of the labor movement's traditional function of advocating for justice for all working families, not just members. SEIU is increasingly recuperating this tradition which is best exemplified historically by unions pushing for the eight hour workday, social security and the minimum wage. It often gets overlooked but unions have historically had an impact far beyond their membership. Consumer education for both members and the public is the top priority. But we have also been talking with Senator Harkin and some policy groups about how we can work together to prevent abuses in this sector." [Private email.]

Present at the webinar were Kevin Kinser, associate professor in the Department of Educational Administration and Policy Studies, SUNY-Albany; Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director, American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions (Nassirian was interviewed extensively in the "Frontline" documentary produced by PBS); officer José Cruz, vice president for Higher Education Policy and Practice and The Education Trust; Osamudia R. James, associate professor of law, University of Miami School of Law; Kathleen Bittel, former EDMC recruiter and career services employee; Jeremy Dehn, former EDMC instructor; Suzanne Lawrence, former EDMC recruiter; and Mike DiGiacomo, a former student at EDMC's New England Institute of Art. Although the forum was a webinar online, not unlike a seminar on the ground, the participants could have been testifying for a grand jury, law enforcement or before a Congressional inquiry; this was how informative, distressing and outright shocking the testimony of the participants actually was.

Defining Terms and Setting the Groundwork

The webinar began with moderator Kinser opening up the session with a clear definition of what exactly the difference was among public higher education institutions, non-profit higher education institutions and for-profit higher education institutions. This definition of terms was exceedingly important and provided an excellent opportunity to begin the discussion of the various themes that comprise any critical understanding of the for-profit higher education sector.

For-profit colleges and universities are part and parcel of the booming and increasingly accelerating private ownership of the educational means of production in the United States and abroad. As panelist Nassirian was quick to point out, the for-profit colleges and universities have managed to wrangle 12 percent of all college students in the United States. Cruz pointed out that this number includes one out of every four students of color in all colleges and universities, arguably making institutional racism a part of the for-profit industry's well-targeted business plan. Shockingly, Nassirian noted that these colleges and universities also receive 25 percent of all federal aid for colleges and universities, and they are responsible for a the lions share of student loan defaults - a whopping 50 percent of all college and university defaults.

Some History of the For-Profits

The panelists commenced with a bit of history for the audience, which was necessary in order to provide a critical understanding of the complex issue of for-profit colleges and their meteoric rise. Nassirian gave an overview of the GI Bill coming on the heels of World War II and how this was really the first time the federal government provided American citizens an opportunity to attend and participate in a higher education. Known and passed into law as The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, the new law provided college (or high school or vocational education) for returning World War II veterans as well as one year of unemployment compensation). The bill was passed to avoid the problems that had occurred with the "Bonus March" that had occurred in 1932 and to also provide a stimulus for the depression economy.

The GI Bill was stupendously successful providing 7.8 million World War II veterans benefits under the GI Bill and 2.2 million of them participated in higher education and/or training programs. During the 1950s, the number of college students doubled. Getting a college education was no longer the providence of the elite and the rich.

As the experiment wound its way through the 1950s with a great deal of fanfare and success, access was expanded through the Civil Rights Act of 1965, most notably The Higher Education Act of 1965 (the HEA). The HEA was specific legislation attached to the Civil Rights Act that was codified into United States law on November 8, 1965, as part of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society domestic agenda. (For more on this law and Johnson, see here, here and here.)

Although not the subject of the webinar, it is important for a thorough understanding of the current material economic and political conditions underlying the growth of for-profit colleges and universities to point out that the GI Bill was superseded by the Veterans Adjustment Act of 1952. This new bill offered benefits to veterans of the Korean War that served for more than 90 days and had received an "other than dishonorable discharge"; but it did something more: unlike the predecessor GI Bill, the substantial difference between the 1944 GI Bill and the 1952 Act was that it altered the distribution of federal funds for tuition use at higher education institutions.

To read other stories by Danny Weil or other authors in the Public Intellectual Project, click here.

Under the original GI Bill federal monies had been sent directly to the institutions of higher education. Now, with the new Veterans Adjustment Act of 1952, federal monies would no longer be paid directly to the various institutions of higher education, but instead, veterans would directly receive a fixed monthly stipend. They would then use this to pay for their individual tuition, fees, books and living expenses. The decision to end direct tuition payments or to stop the direct distribution of federal funds to the myriad institutions of higher education came after a 1950 House select committee hearing that uncovered incidents of fraud by many educational institutions through overcharging of tuition rates. Some 258 unnamed educational institutions were mentioned in Appendix D of a 1950 Veterans Administration report to the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare in what would be the first such incident of for-profit higher institutional fraud to plague the government, which would then set the stage for the present subsidized profit-extraction schemes by Wall Street. More investigations of the for-profit educational enterprise would occur in 1973, in the 1990s and now, once again, under the Obama administration and senate subcommittees.

Nassirian went on to note that in the late 1980s, after close to a decade of Reaganomics or neoliberalism, massive deregulation of governmental policies were put into motion that were to affect favorable consolidation and growth in the for-profit educational industry. This led to the development of what we now see as large "higher educational or vocational chains" owned outright through corporate ownership. Wall Street was now becoming a huge player in the burgeoning industry. For-profit diploma mills issuing four-year degrees rose steadily as a result.

It was not until the "selection" of George W. Bush that for-profit, corporate, educational stocks really took off to the pleasure of Wall Street. Under the tutelage of Ron Paige, education secretary under Bush, regulations governing the for-profit educational industry were further eliminated in the interest of profit-taking purposes on behalf of corporate shareholders, CEO's and Wall Street. Predatory recruitment practices by the for-profits that had been singled out for tight regulation earlier were now allowed to proceed with reckless abandonment. During this time, three million new students enrolled in higher education institutions and 10 percent of all of them were enrolled by the for-profit colleges and universities. The market was beginning to take shape and the profits had never flowed so quickly and so easily. Wall Street, sensing that it was profitable to financialize through privatization the educational sector in America, looked to the for-profit colleges and universities as a location to invest surplus capital to avoid stagnation and achieve capital maximization. What is now a $30-billion-dollar business began to take form and fully blossomed with results that would prove to be devastating for students and taxpayers.

Recruitment at the For-Profit Colleges

As the webinar moved from a brief history to the actual inner workings of the private ownership of the means of higher education production, various themes began to emerge. The first was the issue of recruitment.

Kathleen Bittel, former EDMC recruiter and career services employee, spoke first. As a former recruiter for the largest of the for-profits, her testimony at the webinar was compelling. Bittel spoke of the various "sales pitches" that she was taught to employ. Getting "asses in the classes," Bittel stated, was the primary goal of the for-profit college or university recruiter. Techniques and tactics deployed resembled the high-pressure sales tactics utilized by the matchstick men who sold subprime mortgages to unwitting Americans, especially to people of color, the same targeted audience for the subprime colleges and universities.

One favorite tactic used by EDMC recruiters, and actually taught and sanctioned by the corporation, was what Bittel called "overcoming death." The way this ruthless and cunning recruitment tactic was used was the following: Bittel said that when a student would mention to a recruiter that he or she had just had a death in the family, say a grandmother, the recruiter was to respond, "Wouldn't grandma want you to go to school? Wouldn't she be looking down right now and saying, 'get an education'?"

Nassirian was quick to point out that when a person goes to a used car lot they expect to have a "commercial encounter." In essence, you expect that the used car salesperson will be ruthless, cunning and otherwise attempt to get you to part with your money. But, he went on to mention, when a student approaches an educational sales pitch they have a reasonable expectation that there will be a modicum of trust - that the relationship between the colleges and universities would be a "use value relationship" - after all this is not about the purchase of a used car, but about access to education. Yet, as Nassirian noted, for-profit colleges and universities have turned educational encounters into little more than "exchange value relationships" where recruiting students into the program is the only salient issue. For "asses in the classes," much like with the subprime mortgage and Bush's "ownership society," translate into heady profits for Wall Street and the small circle of major stockholders and CEO's who profit from the exchange relationship.

James called participant's attention to the TV advertisements that these for-profit colleges and universities use in an attempt to recruit people of color. She noted that the ads employed by the for-profit corporations were purposefully racialized; they mimicked working class and minority dress and speech. And they relied on material conditions of the new Jim Crow to herd students into the institutions. By doing so, she argued, the companies use race and class to target the subprime population they so notoriously say they serve, providing a compelling and direct corollary to the subprime mortgage fiasco that stripped minority citizens of their assets, life savings and homes and is still hurdling them into foreclosure.

Academic Instruction at the For-Profits

Once the issue of military-style recruitment was fleshed out, the panel pivoted to the actual "educational products" the for-profit corporations sold.

Dehn, a former instructor at EDMC, began by addressing the instructional component. First of all, he was quick to highlight that none of the faculty at the schools were tenured. This is, of course, due to the fact they have no collective bargaining, no union to represent them. A full-time professor or teacher, Dehn testified, teaches 20 classes, many with class sizes of 45 students or more. Working conditions are arduous and stressful.

Teachers teach for a "term" (there are no semesters, the for-profits changed the language to reflect their corporate business plan), which is 11 weeks and the instructor receives $2,000 for the term. This compared to just five classes a teacher would teach in a state college. Kinser commented that many of the "adjuncts" utilized by the for-profits never had classes in how to teach or work with students and were to supposed to have a "real world" quality, meaning that many were simply technicians in their fields. Many of the adjunct laborers employed at the for-profits were professionals simply "moonlighting" with no commitment to either the institution or to helping the students enrolled in them. It is important to note that because these schools are directly subsidized by receiving 90 percent of their revenue from federal funds and loans, teachers' salaries were consequently subsidized, in part, by student loan debt.

As to student-teacher interaction, Dehn indicated that he could not possibly have given full attention to students or read the body of student work due to time considerations. Teachers, he noted, were mere "message board monitors" or low-paid "moderators," not real teachers. He said that as a teacher he was forced to prioritize what was most important in the interest of the corporation and that reading student work or giving feedback on each and every paper was simply not a priority nor was it possible. The result is that students hardly had the benefit of an education - giving credence to the claim that the entire relationship represented a commodified "exchange value', hardly a human "use value'. Again, not unlike the subprime mortgage fraud where consumers were sold overvalued and overpriced homes, students at for-profit colleges and universities are being sold a toxic educational product with little value other than the "title," which in this case would be the diploma, if one were ever able to pay for it.

Dehn also spoke to the "corporate culture," which forms the ideological basis for the schools. The corporate emphasis was strictly on "attendance'. This made sense from a profit perspective: for while the recruiter might have to get the "asses in the classes," the "instructor could be said to have to keep "the meat in the seat." For if students dropped out too soon, the federal funds dried up and this meant less profits for Wall Street. For-profit college and university teachers were much like jailers: they did the bed count for the warden, in this case, the for-profit CEO's.

Dehn went on to describe the curriculum as a "canned curriculum" where there is no meaningful teacher input. Standardizing curriculum is important, for keeping costs down is another grave concern of the corporations. Kinser called attention to the fact that there was no opportunity for academic development at these for-profit schools. Dehn concurred, noting that when he went to teacher in-services they had little to do with instruction and concentrated chiefly on avoiding copyright law, how to avoid lawsuits and, of course, how to keep students tethered to their seats for enrollment data purposes.

Finally, Dehn spoke of classes filled with a broad range of students, from those who were clueless, meaning they didn't even know why they were enrolled, to students who were semi-literate and could not possibly navigate through the "classes." The whole sordid affair took on the appearance of containment and resonated like a den of iniquity - a neo-Darwinian model of human suppression and control.

Tuition at the For-Profits

When it came to discussion about the high cost of tuition for the for-profit colleges and universities, officer Cruz was quick to weigh in, noting that non-profit colleges and universities in the United States spent 35 times more monies on instruction than did for-profit schools, even though the cost of tuition is notoriously high. At for-profits, costs for a four-year degree can range from about $35,000 to upward of $80,000. Nassirian correctly pointed out that the for-profits really receive a "federal voucher" in the form of direct subsidies to students that they then vacuum up through tactics like robo-signing. Think Wall Street subprime housing mortgage once again, but instead of selling the American dream of home ownership, the for-profits are using a typical American scheme to defraud taxpayers and students. According to Nassirian, "Capitalism fails the market test."

Markets are messy, which is why the for-profits hate them; direct guaranteed subsidies made up of taxpayer funds and transferred electronically faster than the speed of light from the government to Wall Street are quick, easy and immediately translatable into profits, which is what Wall Street covets.

As to the graduation rates, panelists spoke of how the graduation rates were actually manipulated at the institutions in a variety of ways by many teachers who were baptized in corporate culture and trained to understand and identify with corporate needs. One way the institutions control graduation rates and attendance at the for-profits is to remove any reasonable "cooling-off period" and allot only a two-week time frame for "dropping" a class. This two-week window begins from the first class to and including the second class. Mike DiGiacomo, former student at EDMC's New England Institute of Art, who himself now owes $80,000 in student loans, testified that he took one class and wished to drop it directly thereafter only to find he had missed the "window of opportunity" to do so. He was charged in full for the class and continued to be listed as enrolled. These tactics are designed to assure the student is listed as registered for the class and avoids "dropout" status, which blemishes the ability of the for-profit to get their hands on federal dollars.

While non-profit colleges and universities, along with public institutions, see graduation rates of 60 percent or more, the for-profit sector graduates as little as 20 percent of their recruits. For Nassirian, heavy-handed sales pitches that reel students in like fish on a hook coupled with the realization on behalf of many students that they have been duped, is responsible for dropout rates as high as 80 percent as many students inevitably squirm to get out from under the massive debt and perfidious subterfuge that has locked them down in these rapacious institutions.

The resemblance to homeowners that cannot make payment on the subprime mortgages that the banks and nefarious mortgage houses sold to them cannot go unnoticed. While minority and working students mark up alarming dropout rates at the for-profits and are left saddled with debt, minority and working-class homeowners experience accelerated incidences of forfeitures and home losses for mortgages that they could not afford on homes that have lost huge chunks of value.

Career Prospects and Job Placement at the For-Profits

When the discussion centered on student job placement, Bittel's testimony was invaluable. She spoke about how the for-profit colleges and universities manipulate data on job placements. Fictitious placement rates are the norm, she stated. In reality, Bittel testified, no one really knew how many students ever were lucky enough to get employment in his or her field of "study." What she did say was that EDMC, specifically, told students they would be placed in jobs in their fields and would count a graduate in "video game design" to be "placed" if they got a job at Toys "R" Us as a clerk or an inventory worker. Dehn was reminded of a student with a film and video degree from a for-profit who was counted as being placed when they got an ushers job at a movie theater. This student, noted Jeremy, now owes $90,000 in student loans.

Osamudia James made a very telling point when she argued that for-profits teach "know-how" skills not "know-why" skills. This is an important distinction for it goes, once again, to the core of the for-profit claims that they provide an education. In fact, they don't, but instead, provide a little more than an inferior commodity and a crippling dependence on the thinking of others and, thus, not only dummy down their curriculum to exclude critical thinking and citizenship education, but in doing so and by targeting working-class people of color, they steal educational opportunities that would allow people of color to understand their legacy of oppression, which is necessary to embark on a path of liberation. This is all part of the new Jim Crow. For James, a "know-why" education would require critical thinking about personal, social and economic life. This is hardly what for-profit colleges or the corporations that own them desire. In the for-profit model of education, people of color and working class origin are expected to go to school to learn how to make a living at a low-wage; they are not educated to learn how to live. James argued that the for-profit educational scheme, even if we accept its bogus claims that it readies people for employment, is clothed in racial and class discrimination and is designed to, as she stated, "spend less, teach less and expect less," all with deleterious effects on our citizenry.

Debt Load and Default Rates at the For-Profits

Lawrence, a former EDMC recruiter, testified that students were never really told how much tuition actually costs to attend for-profit colleges. Though she was speaking with first-hand knowledge of EDMC, the same holds true for most students ensnared by the for-profit colleges and universities. Students are quickly herded like cattle, after a brutal recruitment process, and directed to the financial aid offices that serve as the economic hub for the for-profits. Here, according to Lawrence, students are encouraged to apply for loans and are very rarely told they might qualify for grants or scholarships. Applying for loans translates into money in the bank for the for-profits, while scholarships and grants can take time, with no guarantee of success. Lawrence stated that, although students were never told they did not qualify for grants or scholarships, when students told financial aid "counselors" they didn't think they would qualify for either, they were never corrected.

Mike DiGiacomo remarked that students really did not know much about debt either, how it worked or the consequences of taking it on. He said students were tricked into applying and accepting various loans, both Sally Mae and private. This, too, of course, is analogous with the subprime mortgage and practices at Fannie Mae, for example, that left many homeowners in default and in debt. Giving students the "bum's rush" into debt accompanied with a lack of transparency and full disclosure meant that most students had no clue as to the ramifications of their liabilities. They neither understood who issued the debt, what institutions held the note, what a promissory note really was, what the debt meant; nor did they understand the terms of their loan agreements. DiGiacomo indicated that students often would get deferments from payment of student loans they owed. These deferments were referred to in corporate parlance, laughingly, as an "unemployment fee." The same sort of snickers and laughs that mortgage lenders would levy at home borrowers who had signed subprime loan agreements and had no idea of the terms of their mortgage loans.

James made even more of a direct connection between Wall Street practices in selling phony and toxic mortgages and Wall Street's for-profit college and university practices when she noted that most students, just like many consumers given subprime mortgages, did not even know what they were signing when they agreed to obligate themselves. Pages and pages of documents were placed in front of students to sign just as struggling home borrowers were forced to sign and initial stacks of documentation they never understood. Nassirian agreed, adding that issues of nondisclosure, lack of oversight and lack of transparency paralleled the Wall Street housing crisis to the letter.

All the panelists agreed that the real problem is student debt and the inability of student loan debt to be discharged in bankruptcy. The only exemption to the non-dischargeability of student loan debt is documented mental or physical disability. Most students do not qualify for this exemption and, besides, as some of the panelists were quick to point out, the Protestant ethic embedded in American culture and the American psyche has the effect of students blaming themselves for their failure to pay back loans. Rarely is the failure to pay back student loans looked at as a systemic problem. Students, if not directly told, are ideologically softened up to ask themselves, "Why can't you accept that you accrued debt and simply get on with the task of paying back what you owe?"

It is the moral bankruptcy of a system of corruption that puts the ideological and psychological onus on the borrower to believe they actually have failed in their obligations to the Wall Street banks that are responsible for much of what the for-profits get away with. By individualizing a social problem, students never think they might have been exploited, just like home borrowers might be convinced they were the cause of the housing collapse; it was the borrower's profligacy, they are led to believe, not the fraud perpetrated by Wall Street and the for-profits, which is built into the system of mendacity.

Questions and Answers About the For-Profits

From debt and default the conversation drifted to questions and answers with audience members. One such question came from an audience member who asked whether "credits" at the for-profit colleges and universities were transferable. Nassirian fielded this question and stated that, "there was a great uncertainty" in this area. He went on to explain that even if credits from the for-profit educational sector are transferable, there is no guarantee they would be transferable for any more than elective credit. This means that, although students might be laboring under auspices that they can transfer degree-specific courses, in reality they may find that they can only transfer them "generally" and are, therefore, saddled with superfluous general requirement credits, but then must retake courses taken at the for-profits for public or non-profit college credit. Students are rarely, if ever, told this.

The conversation then took a path into the area of accreditation. The for-profits, much like purchasers of liquor bars who look to capture a license from the Alcoholic Beverage Commission to sell alcohol to the public, look to purchase other colleges that already have accreditation so they will not need to reapply for a license. Here, Nassirian made a direct connection with the subprime mortgage fraud perpetrated by Wall Street, claiming that "the regulators were captured by the regulated." Nassirian was making reference to the fact that the accrediting agencies responsible for policing and "rating" the for-profit schools were bought off, much like stock rating agencies Moodys, Fitch or Standard and Poors that rated junk certificate of deposits AAA when, in fact, they were inundated with toxic mortgages that had been sold to unsuspecting consumers, who had no idea what they were actually buying. As Nassirian stated:

"If an accrediting agency says 'No' to a for-profit school they could face a $2 million dollar law suit."

One audience member asked if the privatization efforts that are going on in K-12 education with charter schools, vouchers, tax breaks, and other financial incentives to and for Wall Street had anything in common with the for-profit frenzy taking place in higher education. The question was a good one and Nassirian jumped on it. He pointed out that the Apollo Group, the corporate ticket name for the owners of the Phoenix University, has started its own high school. Furthermore, up until last year, the for-profits were able to recruit high school dropouts who did not have a GED if the student could pass what was called an "ability to benefit test (ABT)." The "test" was hardly any test at all and droves of students who had not graduated high school or the equivalent were admitted into the corridors of the for-profits with devastating effects for the students and the colleges that served them. For example, 24 percent of all students at Corinthian College (Goldman Sachs) are ATB students. The ability to test was designed for the for-profits to benefit, not students, and was simply another corrupt tactic authored and designed to capture more and more federal dollars.

But more than anything else, what many panelists made clear is that one cannot understand Wall Street's attempts to privatize education at the K-12 level without factoring in the for-profit colleges and universities. Nassirian, for example, spoke about secretive backdoor connections between public high schools and for-profits. He told of his suspicion that there will be a future explosion of diploma mills as K-12 education is subject to the same forces on Wall Street. It makes sense. Wall Street is seeking a direct alignment between K-12 education and the for-profit higher education sector. As the public-sector economy is forced to scream in pain through the application of "austerity measures," Wall Street privatizers slash and burn the public commons through budget cuts and union destruction. Like a heat-seeking Predator drone looking to destroy all vestiges of public education, companies like K12, Inc., a big player in the online for-profit K-12 financialization racket, have become natural allies of all that is private and for-profit. In fact, the same Wall Street players who, like a cancer, are busy privatizing elementary and secondary education, are some of the same protagonists in the for-profit higher education industry. They are both part and parcel of the same sickening, commodified roux.

This cannot be stated loudly enough, for too many progressives and liberals have cordoned off the fight to prevent the movement to privatize of K-12 education from the struggle against privatization by for-profit colleges and universities. This conveys a debilitating misunderstanding of Wall Street's so-called "educational reforms" and atomizes the struggle being waged to protect the public commons. It has also allowed such public policies like the onerous Race to the Top to be considered as simply an issue of educational standards or achievement when it actually goes to the heart of the explosive attempt at corporate financialization of the entire $500-billion-dollar educational sector in the United States. The move is to have students placed on an educational for-profit fast track that will begin in kindergarten or before and traverse all the way to college or university.

With Citizens United in full force as a result of the Supreme Court decision to treat corporations as individuals, it is essential we see educational privatization, both K-12 and college and university, as part of the same whole cloth. If not, it is easy to fall prey to the story of the blind men struggling to make out an elephant by touching its various parts.

Policies and Solutions for the For-Profits

Addressing the issue of policy solutions to the problem of for-profit exploitation and proliferation, the panel was not as specific as it might have been and also not in collective agreement. Kinser mentioned that for-profits had a place in the educational drama and that non-profit and public institutions of higher education were simply not keyed to accept or absorb a deluge of for-profit students. James disagreed and argued that there were limits on what one might expect from regulations of the industry. She pointed to the fact that regulations are subject to political whims and can be removed when administrations or politicians change. Furthermore, she made the point that not all endeavors and ventures in human life are for-profit based and that education surely could be considered one of them. Instead, she argued for full disclosure of industry practices and clear transparency.

DiGiacomo stated he would like to see recruitment at the for-profits change, and he claimed that the institutions needed to put quality of instruction before quantity of students.

Nassirian spoke to the need for incentives that would put students and taxpayers in the center of consideration, not profits.

The topic of policies and solutions moved into a discussion of what the for-profits are doing to stop or thwart regulations. Dehn noted that, when he was working at EDMC, students were visiting classes on behalf of lobbyists for the industry to state erroneously that students would lose financial aid if they did not call Congress and tell them to stop the "gainful employment" provision of the new Obama regulations. At his school, students were recruited to get signatures on lobbyist petitions that were then forwarded to the Department of Education (DOE). They were also told to tell their story on paper and these stories would then be "customized" by paid lobbyists for the industry who would then take them to the DOE.

Nassirian talked about how the for-profits were partnering with outside lenders to get out from under the 90/10 rule which allows them to only receive 90 percent of tuition from the federal government; the other 10 percent is supposed to come from students themselves. Many for-profits increase tuition just to capture more federal funds, which is the lifeblood of their income and profits.

At a scheduled half hour time period directly following the panel, I asked Nassirian if for-profit distant learning colleges and universities could set up in a state without state regulators or state governing bodies being aware. He stated that in all 50 states this was possible. In 1992, the 50/50 rule was promulgated that required 50 percent of instruction be done on campus. This, however, was repealed under the tutelage of Ron Paige, head of the DOE under George W. Bush in 2005. It was removed late at night, with no hearing, as part of an attachment to another bill. What this means is that no for-profit distant learning college or university has to have a "footprint" in any state to do business. In fact, one can set up a for-profit in Belarus or Romania and enroll students in the US and there is nothing that the government, consumers or taxpayers can do.

Even more troubling is the fact that for-profits know that the states that impose the fewest regulations will become the states of choice for the for-profits to set up shop. They then can spread their tentacles across state lines and net more students.

As the session closed, it was apparent that the for-profit educational sector operates much like the Wall Street subprime home mortgage fraud. Unsuspecting working people, most notably people of color, are being herded into these for-profit schools by to benefit shareholders looking to exploit "sharecroppers." This is an 18th- or even 17th-century economic model that reeks of plantation politics and harkens back to feudalism. Wall Street seems to be setting the table for global elites looking to profit off of the educational sector. Outsourcing these colleges or outright selling them to foreign companies is not only not out of the question, but seems inevitable if the industry is left to grow, The whole enterprise is little more than organized corruption where the crime is actually "legal" in most cases and the victims are discarded or dumped by the side of the road.

What Is the Role of ALEC in the For-Profit Debacle?

The financialization of education is proceeding unimpeded across the nation and is the key to understanding why Wall Street is so infatuated with education these days. Wall Street has billions to invest in both the K-12 education, colleges and universities and they are loaded with the money needed to pay off supplicant politicians to do their deregulatory or regulatory bidding, whatever the case may be. Bill Gates is the latest to weigh in in favor of Wall Street's plans and this is no surprise. He recently praised Kaplan Higher Education and its CEO, Donald Graham for the company's predatory business practices. Of course Gates did not disclose that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are linked to the Post/Kaplan's profits.

Although it did not emerge in discussions at the webinar, interesting connections are emerging between the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and North Carolina politicians associated with the group in an effort to promote a corporate education agenda that serves to protect and enhance the power of the for-profit colleges and universities. North Carolina's community college system recently surrendered its responsibility to regulate for-profit schools that offer job training programs and grant associate degrees to an "outside advisory board" made up of seven members.

The transfer of the regulatory authority to a new State Board of Proprietary Schools comes on the heels of the passage of North Carolina Senate Bill 685 that was introduced in the North Carolina State Legislature in 2011 and passed on June 18 of that year. The bill sets up a State Board of Proprietary Schools in the North Carolina Community Colleges System Office, but one distinct from the prior regulatory board. The bill was sponsored by North Carolina Sen. Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Rep. Bryan R. Holloway, North Carolina Rep. Linda P. Johnson, North Carolina Sen. Donald Ray Vaughan and North Carolina Sen. Tom Apodaca, all members of ALEC. Foxx is the chair of the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training and is a member of Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education. Readers might remember the exposé written on Foxx for Truthout.

Thirty-three North Carolina Legislators have ties with ALEC. Thom Tillis, North Carolina speaker of the House, is on the ALEC International Relations Task Force and has been a member since 2011. He was also ALEC State Legislator of the Year in 2011 and he attended the ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting. Republican Rep. Justin P. Burr is on the ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force. He, too, attended the ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting, (In fact, 33 North Carolina legislators have ties with ALEC, lending credence to the assumption that ALEC is knee-deep in the for-profit higher educational scandals.)

ALEC is more than a front group for corporate interests; it is actually a working group of corporate heavyweights that are bent on buying legislation. ALEC hosts meetings in fancy hotel ballrooms where they fly in legislators, lawyers and lobbyists from across the country to sit together to draft model corporate legislation for use in states throughout the nation. ALEC then gives the legislation to participating ALEC legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, who then bring these proposals and legislation draft bills home, and where they introduce them in statehouses across the nation as their own unique ideas and crucial public policy innovations. They do this without disclosing that it is really a cabal of corporations and their silk-backed lawyers who have crafted and voted on the bills to enhance corporate control.

The question is, of course, did ALEC draft this North Carolina legislation as "model legislation" that can be used state by state to create regulatory boards that are then packed with lobbyists to govern for-profit colleges and universities in effect shielding? A North Carolina dental school recently was shuttered due to lack of accreditation and Kaplan Higher Education that ran the school was forced to pay out $5 million to students both past and current harmed by the fraudulent program. Congressman Waters of California recently penned a letter to CEO Donald Graham regarding the fraudulent college.

If ALEC is behind the North Carolina legislation Senate Bill 685, then we can expect that the for-profit college and university controversy will be swaddled in lobbyist cash even more than it has been and could spread like a cancer to other states that already have or are considering adopting legislation to rein in the for-profit predatory industry.

Link to original article from Truthout

For more information on SEIU's foray into the for-profit college and university visit scandals visit their web site at www.ForProfitU.org.

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If starting wars without exit or pay is better than two year end to Iraq today, and for troops in Afghanistan you have nothing to say, Vote to take back America to the Republican way With Convention preaching America in decline, while applauding how system helped parents and grandparents climb, being full of Red dread, Vote off center with Clint in prime time Defining “Exceptionalism” with Founding Father religious liberty hypocrisy, hailing birther jokes with praise of meritocracy, Vote Lady Statue torches hopes of immigrants by...

Marcello Rollando | The Reasonable Voice 02 Sep 2012 Hits:1001 Blog Articles

Republicans, at their just-ended convention, featured not one but two "debt clocks." Led by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, they made countless references to President Obama's supposedly horrific tax policies, his failure to balance the budget and so on. Unfortunately for them, the U.S. Constitution is very explicit about who is responsible for budget, borrowing, spending, and tax policies: "Article One, Section. 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide...

Mike Hersh | PDA Communications Coordinator 02 Sep 2012 Hits:682 Blog Articles

Police really hate puppets. (And we don't mean the politicians!) Every four years the United States becomes gripped in morbid fascination with our electoral machinations, and grassroots organizers often find their ongoing work derailed by the Democratic and Republican nominating conventions that precede our presidential elections. This 2012 cycle is no different. As activists prepare to protest, the police departments and ruling elites in the host cities are acquiring the newest non- and less- lethal weaponry, while passing laws and regulations that vie for...

Nadine Bloch | Waging Nonviolence 30 Aug 2012 Hits:572 Blog Articles

GOP Effort at Keeping US Citizens From Voting is Like Robbing a Bank in Broad Daylight

This is the skinny: lacking a majority of supporters for its extremist social and plutocratic economic policies, the Republicans can only win with three combined strategies: lie and make it appear that they support prosperity for all Americans; make appeals to racism and dividing the white working class (union vs. non-union); and suppressing the vote. The New York Times posted an August 22nd article, entitled "Racial Comment by Republican Official in Ohio Rekindles Battle Over Early Voting." Being status quo doormats as usual, the Times wouldn't put "Racist" in its headline....

Mark Karlin | BuzzFlash Blog 24 Aug 2012 Hits:614 Blog Articles

Vulture capitalists are trying to take over life's most precious resource...

Water. According to a new report by Food & Water Watch, a growing number of pirate equity firms are moving into struggling cities and buying out their public infrastructure – namely – the city’s water infrastructure. Anyone who is familiar with Mitt Romney – is familiar with pirate equity firms like Bain Capital – which take over a company – strip it to the bones – and sell it off for a profit. When this strategy is used on public utilities – then consumers get...

Louise Hartmann | Thom Hartmann Blog 23 Aug 2012 Hits:708 Blog Articles

If Americans who are embracing Rep. Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" -- and that now includes Mitt Romney -- spent a few minutes reviewing a few recent research reports, they just might conclude that the Wisconsin Republican's plan to reduce the deficit might better be renamed the "Path to the Poorhouse" because of what it would mean to the Medicare program and many senior citizens. Ryan's proposal, which will get new scrutiny now that Romney has made him his running mate, would end the current...

Wendell Potter | PR Watch 19 Aug 2012 Hits:844 Blog Articles

I was born in Detroit in 1961 and grew up in a working-class neighborhood just south of the famed 8 Mile Road. My block was stable; most of the fathers of my friends worked in the auto plants. In 1968 my parents divorced and my mother, armed with a high school degree, was thrust into the workforce. We were taken out of our Catholic school and moved into public schools. Dinner was often breakfast foods, which was fine with us. Mom is still a...

James C. Roumell | Washington Post 18 Aug 2012 Hits:836 Blog Articles

Will the Threat Ryan Poses to Rural America Swing Swing States? Yes

There are, of course, many reasons to attend the Iowa State Fair. As they say on the billboards: “Nothing Compares.” The Canned Food Sculpture is striking. Reserved seats are sold out for Saturday’s Journey, Pat Benatar and Loverboy show on the grandstand, but there is still standing-room-only space to be had for $40 a pop. The deep-fried butter on a stick is, by most accounts, scrumptious. And, if you are campaigning for, say, vice president of the United States, you could talk farm policy at the same place where Dwight Eisenhower,...

John Nichols | The Nation 17 Aug 2012 Hits:861 Blog Articles

Time to take the battery out of your cell phone

On Tuesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth District threw the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution out the window, ruling that police can track cell phone GPS data – and thus track you – without a warrant. The case of United States v. Skinner centered on a suspected drug trafficker who was tracked through his cell phone and arrested by the DEA. The Judge in the case, John Rogers said in his ruling, “Skinner did not have a reasonable expectation of...

Louise Hartmann | Thom Hartmann Blog 15 Aug 2012 Hits:848 Blog Articles

Deep down we know if we keep doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome, we’re marketing victims. First step out of the fog of programmed thinking is asking our political, corporate and government leaders, different and better questions. As every magician’s trick needs to distract our attention, corporate hands in our pockets are trumping our thinking with marketing deceptions, as in ‘now you see a thriving economy, now you don’t.’ How did an America that produces fifteen trillion dollars worth of product internationally (in...

Marcello Rollando | The Reasonable Voice 13 Aug 2012 Hits:566 Blog Articles

Romney’s Death Squad Ties: Bain Launched With Millions From Oligarchs Behind Salvadoran Atrocities (video)

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is facing new scrutiny over revelations he founded the private equity firm Bain Capital with investments from Central American elites linked to death squads in El Salvador. After initially struggling to find investors, Romney traveled to Miami in 1983 to win pledges of $9 million, 40 percent of Bain’s start-up money. Some investors had extensive ties to the death squads responsible for the vast majority of the tens of thousands of deaths in El Salvador during the 1980s. We’re joined by Huffington Post reporter Ryan...

Amy Goodman | Democracy Now 12 Aug 2012 Hits:742 Blog Articles

The 2012 Elections Have Little To Do With Obama's Record … Which Is Why We Are Voting For Him

The 2012 election will be one of the most polarized and critical elections in recent history. Let’s cut to the chase. The November 2012 elections will be unlike anything that any of us can remember. It is not just that this will be a close election. It is also not just that the direction of Congress hangs in the balance. Rather, this will be one of the most polarized and critical elections in recent history. Unfortunately what too few leftists and progressives have been prepared to...

Bill Fletcher, Jr., Carl Davidson | AlterNet 12 Aug 2012 Hits:835 Blog Articles

12 Things You Should Know About Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan

Mitt Romney has picked as his running mate 42 year-old Republican Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), the architect of the GOP budget, which the New York Times has described as “the most extreme budget plan passed by a house of Congress in modern times.” Below are 12 things you should know about Ryan and his policies: 1.Ryan embraces the extreme philosophy of Ayn Rand. Ryan heaped praise on Ayn Rand, a 20th-century libertarian novelist best known for her philosophy that centered on the idea that selfishness is “virtue.” Rand described altruism as “evil,”...

Igor Volsky | Think Progress 11 Aug 2012 Hits:1303 Blog Articles

Why Is America's Most Progressive Voting Block Often Overlooked?

The renowned physicist Max Planck once said, "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." And this isn't just true of science: the same principle holds true in the political arena. Most progressive advances don't come about because vast numbers of people are persuaded to drop their prejudices, but because younger generations to whom new ideas...

Adam Lee | AlterNet 07 Aug 2012 Hits:744 Blog Articles

Obama's Second Term Agenda: Cutting Social Security, Medicare, and/or Medicaid

This is probably the least important Presidential election since the 1950s. As an experienced political hand told me, the two candidates are speaking not to the voters, but to the big money. They hold the same views, pursue the same policies, and are backed by similar interests. Mitt Romney implemented Obamacare in Massachusetts, or Obama implemented Romneycare nationally. Both are pro-choice or anti-choice as political needs change, both tend to be hawkish on foreign policy, both favor tax cuts for businesses, and both believe...

Matt Stoller | Naked Capitalism 04 Aug 2012 Hits:1287 Blog Articles

Ex-Lobbyist Convicted For Corruption Is GOP's New 'Voter Fraud' Expert

A former lobbyist convicted in the Jack Abramoff congressional lobbying scandal has found a new line of work while still on probation: becoming a spokesman and self-appointed expert on allegedly rampant illegal voting by Democrats, according to an excellent report by Ryan Reilly in Talking Points Memo. The ex-lobbyist, Horace Cooper, has authored a 'paper' for the right-wing National Center for Public Policy Research that recites a litany of instances where Democrats allegedly impersonated voters or thousands of non-citizens were on voter rolls. Needless to say, Fox...

Steven Rosenfeld | AlterNet 04 Aug 2012 Hits:1808 Blog Articles

Pre-empting Mitt Romney's campaign visit to Israel, President Barack Obama last Friday signed the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Co-operation Act of 2012. The bill was drafted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and co-sponsored by Israeli firsters Barbara Boxer and Howard Berman, of the US Senate and House respectively. The omnipresence of Israeli lobbyists at the signing of the "rare bipartisan" bill provided a perfect background display of the foreign lobby's power in the US. President Obama used five pens to sign the Act as he was flanked by the...

Jamal Kanj | Children of Catastrophe 02 Aug 2012 Hits:727 Blog Articles

Gore Vidal in 1974. I remember Gore Vidal like a Bond villain. He was sitting on the edge of his bed in that same big house in the Hollywood Hills where he died Tuesday night. Holding on to a glass of whiskey with one hand, he used the other to stroke a giant white cat with an angry mouth and a cloudy gray eye. He called it “pussy.” Of course he did. I was there to record the great man with the booming voice while he...

Peter Z. Scheer | Truthdig 02 Aug 2012 Hits:699 Blog Articles

Population and Women’s Reproductive Rights

I recently retuned from population training by the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club promotes the stabilization of world population through: Increased access to voluntary family planning and sex Advocating for women’s and girls’ basic rights Educating youth to support family planning Grass roots organizing to increase public awareness While PDA and the Sierra Club are different organizations both groups identify the importance of women’s reproductive rights and how birth control has elevated women’s lives. Birth control was not always legal in the United States. When it was it was often only provided...

Drew Martin | Palm Beach Progressive Post 31 Jul 2012 Hits:657 Blog Articles

Watch the London Olympics Opening Ceremony Footage Censored By NBC [Video]

A six-minute tribute to the victims of the London subway terror attacks of July 7, 2005, was cut from the American broadcast of the London Olympics opening ceremony. The NBC network showed a Ryan Seacrest interview with Michael Phelps instead Choreographer Akram Khan told the BBC that he felt “disheartened and disappointed” by the NBC decision against airing his performance for U.S. television viewers. He added that “I am really sad that I couldn’t show the work in America, and that really upsets me, because I don’t...

The Inquisitr 30 Jul 2012 Hits:855 Blog Articles

Debt-Ceiling Battle Cost The U.S. Government $1.3 Billion: Study

Here's something for Congress to maybe think about the next time it decides to have a big, stupid argument about the debt ceiling: These big, stupid arguments, while entertaining, cost a lot of money. How much money? The 2011 argument about the debt ceiling--the most recent battle--cost the U.S. government about $1.3 billion in extra borrowing costs, according to a new study by the Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan congressional watchdog. And that's just the costs that the GAO bothered to count. There are also probably extra...

Mark Gangoff | Huffington Post 23 Jul 2012 Hits:678 Blog Articles

Come NovemberSoon it will be presidential voting time again in the U.S.. That four year cycle comes to us with the regularity of a returning comet, accompanied by a shroud of campaign fog that makes a guessing game of discerning fact from fiction when it comes to political promises. A hefty minority have opted out of this process. Thus, if history runs consistent, when the designated day in November arrives, between 38 and 40% of America's eligible voters will automatically (without even thinking about it)...

Lawrence Davidson, To the Point Analyses | Op-Ed 15 Jul 2012 Hits:645 Blog Articles

I'm writing from Oceanside California, where budget constraints forced the city to cancel July 4 fireworks for the third year in a row. This is just one example of many US cities cutting back on essential and non-essential programmes during hard economic downturns. The economy is the lead issue in the upcoming election between presumptive Republican candidate Mitt Romney and unopposed Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama. Despite the long and rigorous primary process, the voters' choice is limited to two candidates who have surrendered their worth to large campaign contributors. On...

Jamal Kanj | Gulf Daily News 13 Jul 2012 Hits:737 Blog Articles

Mass Arrests Likely at Political Conventions: 6 Historical Precedents

Clinton's law designates political conventions National Special Security Events, a category of state security that virtually dooms the exercise of First Amendment Rights. The Republican and Democratic Party conventions later this summer will probably witness the mass arrest of many American citizens assembling to exercise their First Amendment rights. Mass arrests accompanied the Republican conventions held in New York in 2004, when 900 people were busted, and in St. Paul in 2008 when 300 were detained, including 30 journalists. A political convention is designated...

David Rosen | AlterNet 05 Jul 2012 Hits:819 Blog Articles

For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Heat In On, the Power Is Off. So Are We Ready for a Miracle or Another Lie We Tell Ourselves?

Minions maneuvered by marketing minutes of minute manipulated memories of the biggest, best and most powerful nation in the world, blindsided by those benefiting most from dumping loads of the unnecessary on the sold, to blot out “average” in education. It’s easier to control someone who buys the over advertized, diminishing adrenalin, momentum and drive to, where’s the remote and pass the fries. Masters control best by prohibiting reading, writing, learning, knowing an educated people, inevitably transform from subservient property to dangerous minds. Corralling the masses to keep them “fat, lazy...

Marcello Rollando | The Reasonable Voice 05 Jul 2012 Hits:699 Blog Articles

Justice won't prosecute Holder for contempt

The Department of Justice is telling Congress that it won't prosecute Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt of Congress over his decision to withhold information about the "Fast and Furious" gun-tracking operation. In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, the department says that it will not bring the congressional contempt citation against Holder to a federal grand jury and that it will take no other action to prosecute the attorney general. Deputy Attorney General James Cole says the decision is in line with long-standing Justice Department practice...

Steve Frank | The Ed Show MSNBC 29 Jun 2012 Hits:1224 Blog Articles

Conservative Southern Values Revived: How a Brutal Strain of American Aristocrats Have Come to Rule America

America didn't used to be run like an old Southern slave plantation, but we're headed that way now. How did that happen? It's been said that the rich are different than you and me. What most Americans don't know is that they're also quite different from each other, and that which faction is currently running the show ultimately makes a vast difference in the kind of country we are. Right now, a lot of our problems stem directly from the fact that the wrong sort has...

Sara Robinson | AlterNet 29 Jun 2012 Hits:2366 Blog Articles

Arizona's Immigrants Under 'Reasonable Suspicion'

Has the Supreme Court made it possible for hundreds of thousands of police officers throughout the country to racially profile millions of people? When she heard the Supreme Court decision upholding the “reasonable suspicion” (a k a “papers, please”) provisions of Arizona’s SB-1070, immigrant rights activist Isabel Garcia saw the Arizonification of the nation. “We’ve been fighting local ‘reasonable suspicion’ laws here in Arizona for decades,” said Garcia, a Pima County public defender and co-chair of Coalición de Derechos Humanos, an organization dedicated...

Roberto Lovato | The Nation 28 Jun 2012 Hits:709 Blog Articles

Veteran Democratic pollster Peter Hart recently conducted a focus group in Colorado, and if President Obama's supporters want to feel depressed, they should certainly read what the undecided voters had to say. One woman, a 49-year-old a customer service representative for an airline, said she'd consider voting for the president, but only if he "could do something huge, like really lower the price of gas." Of course, the notion that Obama, by sheer force of will, can lower the price of gas is deeply foolish. The public's expectations...

Steve Benen | The Maddow Blog 26 Jun 2012 Hits:797 Blog Articles

How to Tell if Your Favorite Companies Are Truly Progressive or Secretly Selling Out

Fran Hawthorne, author of "Ethical Chic: The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love," dishes on some big-name companies. Many progressives know that some of their favorite companies have dirty secrets. Many are also aware that in the last 30 years, a number of socially responsible independent companies have accepted buy-outs from larger corporations for various reasons. French Group Danone acquired organic yogurt purveyor Stonyfield Farms in several stages over the last decade. Unilever bought Vermont-based ice-cream company Ben & Jerry’s in 2000. Colgate-Palmolive...

Brittany Shoot | AlterNet 19 Jun 2012 Hits:869 Blog Articles

Did Republicans deliberately crash the US economy?

Be it ideology or stratagem, the GOP has blocked pro-growth policy and backed job-killing austerity – all while blaming Obama So why does the US economy stink? Why has job creation in America slowed to a crawl? Why, after several months of economic hope, are things suddenly turning sour? The culprits might seem obvious – uncertainty in Europe, an uneven economic recovery, fiscal and monetary policymakers immobilized and incapable of acting. But increasingly, Democrats are making the argument that the real culprit for the country's economic...

Michael Cohen | The Guardian 11 Jun 2012 Hits:2880 Blog Articles

When we hear progressive individuals speak about ‘special interests’ we are all pretty sure what they mean. Whether it is a financial conglomerate or a super PAC run by resource companies, we are clear on whom they are talking about. The term is a little less clear cut when we hear conservatives use it. Recently, Scott Walker declared that “finally someone has stood up against the powerful ‘Special interests’ and put the tax payers back in charge.” In this instance, it is obvious what Walker means. He means Unions. The...

David Joseph Deutch 09 Jun 2012 Hits:1004 Blog Articles

Five Things the House is Doing to Attack Choice

Last week, a divisive bill introduced by anti-choice Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) failed to pass the U.S. House of Representatives. Rep. Franks calls his bill the "Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act" (PreNDA), but contrary to its title, it does nothing to end sex discrimination or gender inequity. All forms of reproductive coercion are wrong -- including societal pressures to have a child of a particular sex. But the Franks bill exploits the very real problems of sex discrimination and gender inequity while failing to offer any genuine solutions that would eliminate disparities in...

Nancy Keenan | Huffington Post 06 Jun 2012 Hits:709 Blog Articles

Occupy Wall Street to rubber stamp money with anti-corporate slogans

Occupy Wall Street protestors march down Fifth Avenue towards Union Square (Monika Graff/Getty Images/AFP) One half of the ice cream duo Ben & Jerry’s has a message for Wall Street: Jamaican Me Crazy. The man behind flavors such as Cherry Garcia, Chubby Hubby and, yes, Jamaican Me Crazy, is rolling out a plan to stamp out corporate money in US politics. Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen might rake in a hefty paycheck for being on top of the American ice cream game, but he hasn’t lost touch with the 99 percent....

RT Question More 05 Jun 2012 Hits:887 Blog Articles

I gave a talk last week at Canada's Wilfrid Laurier University to the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Many in the audience had pinned small red squares of felt to their clothing. The carre rouge, or red square, has become the Canadian symbol of revolt. It comes from the French phrase carrement dans le rouge, or "squarely in the red," referring to those crushed by debt. The streets of Montreal are clogged nightly with as many as 100,000 protesters banging pots and pans and...

Chris Hedges | Truthdig 04 Jun 2012 Hits:903 Blog Articles

Three times in my life I’ve visited altars reputed to be “more powerful than a locomotive:” Lourdes, a NJ cloistered priests community and a tiny chapel in Lake Worth, Florida where a touring Madonna waited. Each time, I was struck dumb, save for the words “thank you for forgiving me” and “I love you.” I always say, never miss an opportunity to say, I love you, but getting tongue tied on thank you and forgiveness, was perforce, a command performance. Our 2012 election year...

Marcello Rollando | The Reasonable Voice 03 Jun 2012 Hits:674 Blog Articles

I got an e-mail the other day from Richard Engle telling me that his son Charlie would be getting out of prison this month. I was happy to hear it. Charlie’s ordeal isn’t over yet, of course. When he leaves prison on June 20, Charlie, 49, will move temporarily to a halfway house, after which he will be on probation for another five years. And unless he can get the verdict overturned, he will have to spend the rest of his life with a felony...

Joe Nocera | New York Times OpEd 03 Jun 2012 Hits:845 Blog Articles

In an extraordinary article in Tuesday’s New York Times, “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will,” authors Jo Becker and Scott Shane throw macabre light on the consigliere-cum-priestly role that counterterrorist adviser John Brennan provides President Barack Obama. At the outset, Becker and Shane note that, although Obama vowed to “align the fight against Al Qaeda with American values,” he has now ordered the obedient Brennan to prepare a top secret “nominations” list of people whom the President may decide to...

Ray McGovern | Consortium News 30 May 2012 Hits:720 Blog Articles

Mitt Romney appeared in Craig, Colorado, to deliver the same message he repeats at every campaign stop: the people in the area are "hurting right now under this president." The traditional Democratic response is that blaming President Obama for the economic crisis he inherited is ridiculous. But yesterday in Northern Colorado was a little different: the small town of Craig isn't really hurting at all. The community's economy is faring pretty well, it weathered the recession better than most, and locals are pretty optimistic about the...

Steve Benen | The Maddow Blog 30 May 2012 Hits:688 Blog Articles

National Nurses United (NNU), the union spearheading the drive for a Robin Hood Tax, also calls for a “participatory democracy,” evidence of the current vitality of a concept born at the Port Huron convention of SDS fifty years ago this June. Saying, "Democracy is not a spectator support,” a chart by the NNU envisions participatory democracy flowing into economic democracy, then political democracy, and finally into representative democracy. Paradigm Publishers is publishing Participatory Democracy this September, a volume including writings by Tom Hayden, Linda Gordon, Robby Cohen, and 12 original participants...

Tom Hayden | Tom Hayden.com 29 May 2012 Hits:696 Blog Articles

Remembering Who We Are, We Remember What to Honor

All my uncles were Veterans. My Dad, of both WWII and Korea. All said, wars change those who fight them. I say, corporations have now changed War, so only the funeral homes and they win them. Still as a Veteran who sang his way through wartime with The Soldiers Chorus of the Army Field Band, I bow before and salute all Veterans who have sacrificed their blood, body parts, time with loved ones and life here on earth, for they are the best among us. I ask only that as...

Marcello Rollando | The Reasonable Voice 28 May 2012 Hits:662 Blog Articles

How the Post Office Is Being Destroyed By a Phony Budget Crisis

Local post offices all across the country, which function as community commons, including this one in Gerry, New York, are threatened with destruction because of Congress's shenanigans with the USPS budget. (Photo by Ross Griff under a Creative Commons license from flickr.com) As every 6 year old learns, there is real and there is make believe. The massive Post Office deficit that is driving its management to commit institutional suicide by ending 6-day mail delivery, closing half of the nations’ 30,000 or so...

David Morris | Common Dreams 27 May 2012 Hits:2894 Blog Articles

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Quiet Drama in Philadelphia

“You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out. You will not be able to skip out for beer during commercials, Because the revolution will not be televised. . . . The revolution will be live.” --From the 1970 hit song by Gil Scott-Heron Last week, the city of Philadelphia's school system announced that it expects to close 40 public schools next year, and 64 schools by 2017. The school district expects to lose 40% of its current enrollment, and thousands of experienced, qualified teachers. But...

Ellen Brown | Common Dreams 27 May 2012 Hits:815 Blog Articles

Former GOP Congresswoman Blasts New GOP Women’s Caucus: ‘They’re Not Voting In Best Interest Of All Women’

Former Rep. Claudine Schneider (R) was the first — and only — woman to represent Rhode Island in Congress. Over five terms in the House (from 1981 to 1991), she helped pass key environmental, health, and gender-equity laws, including the Economic Equity and the Pension Equity Acts. Like former Sen. John Danforth (R-MO) and former Rep. Connie Morella (R-MD), Schneider told ThinkProgress there is no longer a place for centrists like herself in the modern Republican Party: THINKPROGRESS: Why do you think today’s Republican Congresswomen are so much...

Josh Israel | Sourced from ThinkProgress 27 May 2012 Hits:945 Blog Articles

Can Occupy Fight Back Against the War on Women?

Three hundred feminists blanketed the concrete in Washington Square Park last night, their attention focused by the now-familiar mic check. The “Raging Grannies” had just performed. A banner, framed by the park’s iconic arch, declared that the first NYC Feminist General Assembly, presented by Women Occupying Wall Street (WOWS), was in full swing. After seven months of reporting on feminism and the work of women activists in the Occupy movement, I wanted to know: could this meeting be a model for how OWS collaborates with...

Sarah Seltzer | The Nation 22 May 2012 Hits:941 Blog Articles

Are Democrats Bent on Political Suicide?

With the Republicans outspending progressives 20-to-one, Obama’s Democratic National Committee stubbornly refuses to invest a penny in the battle to unseat Walker. Jerry Brown, my California state’s Democratic governor, is a crushing disappointment. We voted for him over the former Ebay CEO, rightwing Republican Meg Whitman, who promised to fire 40,000 public workers and end welfare, mainly because Brown trailed nostalgic clouds of progressive glory. A one-time governor himself, he banked on us remembering that he is also the semi-hippie son of a much-loved 1960s two-term governor,...

Clancy Sigal | Counterpunch 20 May 2012 Hits:928 Blog Articles

Koch Brothers, Republicans Join Forces To Close Technology Gap On Obama, Democrats

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - In the 2008 presidential race, Barack Obama was famously effective in using new technologies to raise money, mobilize voters and target his message of change. In this year's campaign, his opponents are determined to turn the tables. Republican political operatives, some with deep financial backing from the billionaire Koch brothers and others, are unleashing about a half dozen major projects that take advantage of advanced database technologies to manage campaigns and target voters with personalized messages. Few doubt...

Peter Henderson | Huffington Post 17 May 2012 Hits:1034 Blog Articles

Military Detention Law Blocked by New York Judge (Update 1)

A federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of a part of the National Defense Authorization Act that opponents claim could subject them to indefinite military detention for activities including news reporting and political activism. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan today ruled in favor of a group of writers and activists who sued President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the Defense Department, claiming a provision of the act, signed into law Dec. 31, puts them in fear that they could be arrested and held by U.S. armed forces. The complaint...

Bob Van Voris and Patricia Hurtado | Bloomberg 16 May 2012 Hits:872 Blog Articles

White House & Dems Back Banks Over Protests: Newly Discovered Homeland Security Files Show Feds Central to Occupy Crackdown

A new trove of heavily redacted documents provided by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) on behalf of filmmaker Michael Moore and the National Lawyers Guild makes it increasingly evident that there was and is a nationally coordinated campaign to disrupt and crush the Occupy Movement. The new documents, which PCJF National Director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard insists “are likely only a subset of responsive materials,” in the possession of federal law enforcement...

Dave Lindorff | Nation of Change 15 May 2012 Hits:1019 Blog Articles

For Democrats, one of the principal goals of 2012 is to persuade American voters not to go backwards. Bush/Cheney left all kinds of crises for Obama/Biden to clean up, and Dems intend to urge the electorate not to return to the failures of the recent past. With this in mind, I suspect Democrats are happier about today's news than Mitt Romney is. Mitt Romney has the support of George W. Bush. "I'm for Mitt Romney," Bush told ABC News this morning as the doors of an elevator closed on...

Steve Benen | The Maddow Blog 15 May 2012 Hits:997 Blog Articles

What happened to us mothers? We allowed this holiday to get away from us. We allowed it to become commercialized, individualized, commodified, unpoliticized. We allowed it to be about superficial symbols of love—flowers and chocolates and store-bought cards. We allowed it be a time when we, as mothers, sit back and receive personal recognition, instead of a time when we, as mothers, stand up together to make collective demands. Let’s be clear about what Mothers Day was supposed to be, before it fell...

Medea Benjamin | Common Dreams 14 May 2012 Hits:785 Blog Articles

Girl Scouts caught in a culture war (again)

Conservatives' antipathy towards the Girl Scouts used to be found on the fringes. In 1994, for example, James Dobson's Focus on the Family published a memorable attack on the Girl Scouts, insisting the group "lost their way" after the Scouts made a religious oath optional for membership. I can't find it online anymore, but back in 2005, Amanda Marcotte had a great item about various paranoid voices on the right, complaining about "radical lesbian feminists" having taken over the Girl Scouts. [Update: Amanda wrote...

Steve Benen | The Maddow Blog 11 May 2012 Hits:873 Blog Articles

Who You Gonna Believe? Me, or Your Lying Eyes and Ears?

Romney will not win with his Extreme Right positions on Women, Immigrants, the Gay Community and his support of the "Marvelous" Ryan Plan, which is cruel and ugly to the poor, disabled and the under-served, as stated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. No "etch a sketch" change in statements will make a difference with all the miles of video tape footage about Ryan's "Courageous" attempt to deal with entitlements, thanks to FOX News and all other media networks. We all know that his only real chance of winning...

Margarita Mercure Hibbs 07 May 2012 Hits:3638 Blog Articles

One thing appears as a shared consensus amongst the global political right today, “no more government spending on social programs.” What with the Eurozone crisis enforcing harsh austerity and the US economy recovering in drips and drabs, the most important aspects of social development are set to be wholly neglected in the next generation. Now, more than ever, it is essential that governments, rather than simply investing in social security nets, actively seek to provide social capital in the form of education and vocational training. From the high days of the...

David Joseph Deutch 05 May 2012 Hits:879 Blog Articles

Oranizers, Not Occupiers: The Young People Working in the Shadows of a National Movement

By chance, the revelation of how Apple evades millions of dollars in taxes broke three days before May Day, when workers of the world traditionally protest such injustice. Although the Apple practices aren’t illegal, the dodging of taxes on revenue generated, to a large extent, by low-wage Chinese workers, was a perfect introduction to this year’s May 1 observance, highlighted by the Occupy movement’s call for strikes and demonstrations around the country. The goal: Protest corporate domination of an economy being pulled downward by...

Bill Boyarsky | Truthdig 02 May 2012 Hits:843 Blog Articles

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the House budget committee, knew some Catholics were spoiling for a fight with him Thursday when he was scheduled to speak at Georgetown University, a Catholic institution. Nearly 90 faculty members and administrators sent him a letter expressing concerns with his recent comments that his proposed budget, which includes massive spending cuts to programs for the poor but not a single tax increase, was inspired by his Catholic faith. "I am afraid that Chairman Ryan's budget reflects the values...

Stephanie Mencimer | Mother Jones 29 Apr 2012 Hits:1215 Blog Articles

Hardcore Band for Secret Service all atwitter over Chaperone Employment Opportunities on Facebook for Double Dipping Fee Disputes

And that’s just the title of this rant and rage compilation of raw anger at opportunistic, holier than thou, hypocritical “mad as hell” venting. YES, finally an American institution is held accountable for last call profiteering behind closed doors, where there’s more going on and coming in than jilted call girls. Sad that both civilian and military in positions of authority, responsibility and power need ‘free will’ limitations imposed in order to do their duty without doing the deed; Who among us need ‘prohibition...

29 Apr 2012 Hits:988 Blog Articles

CISPA Passes House: Cybersecurity Bill Approved Despite White House Veto Threat

The House of Representatives passed cybersecurity legislation Thursday aimed at protecting American companies from hackers who steal intellectual property. The bill passed 248 to 168, largely along party lines, despite the Obama administration's threats to veto the bill and its claims that the bill falls short in protecting civil liberties The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, sponsored by Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), would give businesses and the federal government legal protection to share information about cyber-threats with each other. The...

Gerry Smith | Huff Post 27 Apr 2012 Hits:862 Blog Articles

76 Arrested At Capitol Hill For Protesting Paul Ryan’s Drastic Medicaid Cuts

76 people, including actor Noah Wyle, were arrested yesterday during a protest in the Cannon House Office Building. The protest, organized by the group Americans with Disabilities for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT), was focused on Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget, which makes deep cuts to federal Medicaid spending. Ryan’s proposal would cut federal Medicaid funding by $810 billion, or 22 percent, over the next ten years, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). By 2022, states would be receiving an average of...

Zachary Bernstein | Think Progress 25 Apr 2012 Hits:949 Blog Articles

When walking Jesus and his disciples saw a man who had been blind from birth. His disciples asked Him, "Master, is this man a sinner or his parents that he was born blind?" Jesus answered that neither had the blind man sinned, nor his parents…that the man was born blind so that the works and meaning of God's plan should be known. HIS meaning was that those born with infirmities and genetic flaws are not sinners, had not sinned, and that their parents had nothing to do with their defects....

Ron DuBois | Oklahomans for Single Payer 25 Apr 2012 Hits:840 Blog Articles

The Senate voted today to begin the slow dismantling of the United States Postal Service and to attack injured postal workers by slashing their workers’ compensation benefits. The NALC has argued for months that S. 1789 would fail to preserve the long-term viability of the Postal Service because it embraces the downsizing plans of Postmaster General Pat Donahoe. Today, by voting against an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) to preserve six-day mail delivery (by a vote of 56 to 43), and by rejecting an amendment offered by Sen....

Natl Assn Letter Carriers President Fredric V. Rolando 24 Apr 2012 Hits:1183 Blog Articles

What’s the big deal about Our 2012 Elections?!?

Answer: recapturing America. Ah but which America, the America of 1776, black & white 50’s, embattled 60’s, Watergate 70’s, the 80’s Trickle Down & CIA “Team B,” NAFTA 90’s or the dawning of the age of “drill, baby drill wars? If only we could agree on which America to elect. In 2012 we vote about the Right to Work, Corporate Personhood, Voter Suppression and a politically compromised Supreme Court. It’s about “show me the money:” those who have it, those who used to and...

23 Apr 2012 Hits:956 Blog Articles

The Republicans’ gamble that they could ride a backlash against the Obama administration’s efforts to increase the availability of contraception has gone terribly bad. It turns out that most Americans, especially women, agree that insurance companies should have to cover contraception – for example, birth control pills – in their health insurance plans. One result of this battle has been a record gender gap in the presidential race, with President Obama leading likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney by a huge margin of 57-38 percent...

Mark Weisbrot | Sacramento Bee 20 Apr 2012 Hits:838 Blog Articles

Meet ALEC's Equally Despicable Anti-Choice Cousin -- AUL

Think the anti-choicers in statehouses around the country are coming up with abortion bans all by themselves? Think again. When statehouses across the country started passing abortion bans at the seemingly arbitrary threshold of 20 weeks, was it a mere coincidence? When the "right to know" bills that required mandatory ultrasounds -- sometimes transvaginal ones -- before abortions were introduced or passed, in state after state, from Virginia...

arah Seltzer and Lauren Kelley | AlterNet 19 Apr 2012 Hits:1020 Blog Articles

The Republicans Who Want Ignorance to Get Equal Time in Schools

Education is the new Republican enemy. No more free thinking and empirical evidence, just the Bible, rumour and Fox News Not content with merely waging war on women, Republicans are targeting another enemy of conservatism: education. New Hampshire state Republican Jerry Bergevin recently railed against science and the atheist eggheads who call themselves teachers: "I want the full portrait of evolution and the people who came up with the ideas to be presented. It's a world view and it's godless. While New Hampshire didn't end up passing Bergevin's...

Diane Roberts | The Guardian UK 17 Apr 2012 Hits:1302 Blog Articles

Book on Occupy's Tent City Era Helps Anchor Roots of Evolving Movement

There has likely not been a sociopolitical phenomenon more heavily documented than the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. What took root in Zuccotti Park and quickly blossomed in over 1,000 sites throughout the United States captured the world's imagination, but also its cameras, laptops, iPhones and Twitter accounts. No sooner had OWS celebrated its two-month anniversary, the first "Occubooks" began to appear, offering first cuts at making sense of the most exciting populist movement to rock the United States in seventy-five years. Unsurprisingly,...

Michael Busch, Truthout | Interview 15 Apr 2012 Hits:1063 Blog Articles

Mitt Romney, Allen West: Every Liberals Dream Ticket

Will Romney pick the GOP darkhorse to accompany him on presidential run? With presidential candidate Mitt Romney dominating the Republican primaries, and his victory appearing more likely as the race winds down, there is much conjecture as to which Republican leader will serve as Romney’s running mate. While many names have been thrown on the table, Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), seems to be the most fascinating suggestion thus far. As a freshman in Congress, West appears to be an unlikely choice. Politically wise, however, Romney placing West on...

Gerren K. Gaynor | Loop 21 14 Apr 2012 Hits:1259 Blog Articles

Report: Treasury Snubs Struggling Homeowners

Only 3 percent of the $7.6 billion in TARP funds that are targeted for troubled homeowners facing foreclosure have been spent, according to a report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Fund. The Hardest Hit Fund was created in 2010 to help struggling homeowners, but the Treasury Department has failed to distribute the vast majority of the money in the last two years due to "a lack of comprehensive planning," the report said. "Look at the TARP money that...

Common Dreams Staff 12 Apr 2012 Hits:879 Blog Articles

Progressive Caucus Co-Chairs Dispel Outrageous Allen West Claims

Washington, D.C. – Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Co-Chairs Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva and Keith Ellison today responded to Rep. Allen West’s unsubstantiated claim that approximately 80 CPC members are communists: “Allen West is denigrating the millions of Americans who voted to elect Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) members, and he is ignoring the oath they took to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution—just like he did. Calling fellow Members of Congress ‘communists’ is reminiscent of the days when Joe McCarthy divided Americans with name-calling and modern-day witch hunts that don’t advance policies...

Congressional Progressive Caucus 11 Apr 2012 Hits:1101 Blog Articles

If you need to know what’s wrong with American conservatism in the early 21st century you have only to look at their view of the Girl Scouts. You would think that legislatures would want to honor the 100th anniversary of an organization like the Girl Scouts but empowering women isn’t exactly what the patriarchal GOP is about. Even worse from their standpoint is an imagined connection between the Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood. The end result is that anyone seeking to empower girls and women is...

Hrafnkell Haraldsson | PoliticusUSA 11 Apr 2012 Hits:1627 Blog Articles

Take off your hat. Taps is playing. Almost four decades late, the Vietnam War and its post-war spawn, the Vietnam Syndrome, are finally heading for their American grave. It may qualify as the longest attempted burial in history. Last words -- both eulogies and curses -- have been offered too many times to mention, and yet no American administration found the silver bullet that would put that war away for keeps. Richard Nixon tried to get rid of it while it was still going on...

Tom Englehardt | TomDispatch 10 Apr 2012 Hits:754 Blog Articles

'72 presidential candidate George McGovern hospitalized

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Former South Dakota senator and Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern has been hospitalized in Florida, his daughter said Wednesday. Ann McGovern told The Associated Press her 89-year-old father was admitted to Flagler Hospital in St. Augustine, Fla., on Tuesday evening for tests to figure out why he occasionally passes out and loses his ability to speak. "He's comfortable. The tests are continuing to see if they can determine what's causing this," Ann McGovern said. Hospital officials said the elder McGovern is in stable condition....

CHET BROKAW and KRISTI EATON | Masslive 07 Apr 2012 Hits:1009 Blog Articles

Jean-Luc Mélenchon: the poetry-loving pitbull galvanising the French elections

In a packed agricultural hanger in a rural town in central France, an enraptured crowd raised their fists and chanted: "Resistance! Resistance!" On stage, arms flung wide, sweat pouring down his face, stood the charismatic, hard-left firebrand hailed as the best orator of the presidential campaign. "The French Revolution of 1789 hasn't breathed its last!" roared Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the poetry-loving pitbull of anti-capitalism. "If Europe is a volcano, France is the crater of all European revolutions!" Mixing brute rage with killer, comic one-liners about the...

Angelique Chrisafis | U.K. Guardian 06 Apr 2012 Hits:1068 Blog Articles

“JOBS Act” a “Recipe for Fraud” Creating a “Race to the Bottom”

WASHINGTON - April 5 - WILLIAM K. BLACK, is available for a limited number of interviews, Black is now an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and the author of “The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One.” He was the deputy staff director of the national commission that investigated the cause of the savings and loan debacle. He was just interviewed by The Real News: “JOBS Act 2012 a Recipe for Fraud.” Black recently wrote...

Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) 05 Apr 2012 Hits:975 Blog Articles

Hallelujah, Washington has finally heard the people's cries for jobs! In an urgent bipartisan push, Democrats and Republicans have joined hands across the aisle to pass the JOBS Act. In this time of "The Great Hurt" — with widespread unemployment, middle-class incomes tumbling and the price of gasoline skyrocketing — we can all applaud our stalwarts in the capital city for meeting the No. 1 need of America's hard-hit economy: deregulating Wall Street. Huh? I thought this was a jobs bill? We'll get to that, but...

Jim Hightower | Creators.com 04 Apr 2012 Hits:848 Blog Articles

Canada, U.S. and Mexico vow to boost trade, fight drug crime

Obama endorses Canada's bid to join Trans Pacific Partnership talks Prime Minister Stephen Harper emerged from a three-nation summit Monday pledging to work with his counterparts on joint efforts to boost economic growth and trade, fight organized drug crime and promote energy development. While he secured a public endorsement from U.S. President Barack Obama for Canada's aspirations to join negotiations in the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership, there is still no guarantee the U.S. and others won't demand stiff concessions from Harper. Harper met with Obama...

Mark Kennedy, Postmedia News | Vancouver Sun 03 Apr 2012 Hits:767 Blog Articles

How GOP candidates get Europe wrong

The state of the European economy has become something of an issue in our presidential campaign. So just how bad ARE things over there? We asked Allen Pizzey to check it out: Springtime brings out the best in Europe - the cafes move out into the street, all the better to absorb the history that surrounds you. The recession is biting here, just as it is everywhere. It's just that Europeans seem to have a way of getting by - unless you look at them from the Republican presidential hopefuls' point of...

CBSNews.com 31 Mar 2012 Hits:903 Blog Articles

The Supremes & Obama Care: Five Hypocrites and One Bad Idea

The Supreme Court is so full of it. The entire institution, as well as its sanctimonious judges themselves, reeks of a time-honored hypocrisy steeped in the arrogance that justice is served by unaccountable elitism. My problem is not with the Republicans who dominate the court questioning the obviously flawed individual mandate for the purchasing of private-sector health insurance but rather with their zeal to limit federal power only when it threatens to help the most vulnerable. The laughter noted in the court transcription that...

Robert Scheer | Truthdig 31 Mar 2012 Hits:794 Blog Articles

I recently looked at Paul Ryan’s FY 2013 budget rollout. Unlike those who emphasize the budget’s conservative slant, my sense is that the key thing this year (as last) is how sketchy the whole thing is. With some justification: it ain’t going anywhere, so why spell out painful cuts and tax trade-offs? All of which I mostly don’t blame Ryan for. He has his own set of incentives to work with. But I do blame any reporter who reports this as a serious budget. The thing...

Jonathan Bernstein | Washington Monthly 30 Mar 2012 Hits:1003 Blog Articles

We’re Paying a “War Tax” at the Gas Pump

It’s hard to miss the higher cost of gas every time we fill up our cars these days, but the News Media doesn’t do a very good job of explaining why. There isn’t any mystery, though, if you read the financial press and oil industry sources: We’re paying extra for gas because of rising tensions in the Middle East and especially the scare over a possible US or Israeli attack on Iran. In effect, we’re paying a “war tax” at the gas pump, and the cost will only get higher...

Jeff Klein | CounterPunch 29 Mar 2012 Hits:1053 Blog Articles

Dem Rep. Rush kicked off House floor for ‘hoodie’ in Trayvon Martin protest

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) on Wednesday morning was asked to leave the House floor after removing his suit jacket to reveal a “hoodie,” then putting the hood on his head to protest the Trayvon Martin killing in Florida. “Racial profiling has to stop,” Rush said. “Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum.” Rush also put on sunglasses. The Illinois Democrat quoted the Bible while presiding officer Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) repeatedly interrupted him, then asked the sergeant at arms to enforce the House prohibition on hats in...

Pete Kasperowicz | The Hill 28 Mar 2012 Hits:1037 Blog Articles

I’m Roman Catholic but that’s not why I’m against abortion, for that would be like saying I’m Jewish because I’m against adults sexually forcing themselves on children, like some in Afghan tribes believing ‘women are for children and boys are for fun.’ The equalizing truth is, there is no difference between the Afghan in Toulouse, France who shot Jewish children, the American Sergeant who massacred Afghan children and the Floridian vigilante who, in “self-defense,” gun downed a seventeen year old on a TV...

Marcello Rollando | The Reasonable Voice 27 Mar 2012 Hits:964 Blog Articles

Supreme Court battle between two conservative views on health care

Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court began a marathon three-day session debating the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Obama two years ago on March 23, 2010. At the crux of the matter is whether the Federal Government can force citizens to engage in an act of commerce, namely, the purchase of health insurance. Referred to as the “individual mandate”—if people fail to purchase insurance—they will be subject to a tax penalty. Four federal appellate courts have rendered decisions...

Byron DeLear | Examiner.com 27 Mar 2012 Hits:900 Blog Articles

Obama Pledges Approval of Keystone Pipeline’s Southern Leg

President Barack Obama traveled to one of the nation's oil transportation hubs, offering what administration officials hope voters will see as a centrist alternative to the polarized debate over the Keystone XL pipeline - and quickly drew fire from activists on both sides. Earlier this year, Obama deferred the building of a pipeline from Canada's tar sands region to the Gulf Coast through environmentally sensitive parts of the Midwest. On Thursday he said his administration would expedite construction of the southern part of the route, starting in Cushing, Okla. Obama has tried...

Christi Parsons and Neela Banerjee | Nation of Change 24 Mar 2012 Hits:1023 Blog Articles

Gangster Banks Keep Winning Public Business. Why?

A friend of mine sent this article from Bloomberg, along with the simple comment: "Perfect." What's perfect? That the banks that have been caught repeatedly ripping off communities and munipalities -- banks that have paid hefty settlements for rigging bids, bribery and other sordid misdeeds -- keep winning the most public business. Apparently, our public officials aren't concerned about whom they hire to serve as the people's investment bankers. From the piece, entitled "JPMorgan Claims No. 1 for Government Debt After Jefferson County": JPMorgan, which emerged from the worst financial crisis since the...

Matt Tiabbi | Rolling Stone 23 Mar 2012 Hits:1346 Blog Articles

PDA Radio

Meet Freeda Cathcart - ERA Candidate - May 21,2013
Freeda Cathcart is running for the 17th House of Delegates in southwest Virginia. The Virginia Senate has recently passed the ERA but the House of Delegates has refused to bring it to a vote. Freeda promoted the petition to the White House to...
Mimi Kennedy on the ERA - May 14,2013
Join PDA Advisory Board Chair, Mimi Kennedy in a discussion of the Equal Rights Amendment and how it impacts work and life today.ERA | Mimi Kennedy | 14th Amendment | Supreme Court | womens rights
Conversation with Maggie Priebe of Working America - Apr 26,2013
Working America is a national organization for working people who don't have the benefit of a union on the job. Started in 2003, we mobilize our 3 million members throughout the year to fight for good jobs and a just economy. The majority of...
Examining America's Drug Policy - Apr 23,2013
Our guest panelists today are: Norm Stamper, Retired Seattle Police Chief and LEAP Advisory Board Member Jasmine Tyler, Deputy Director of National Affairs, Drug Policy Alliance Drew Stromberg, Outreach Director, Students for Sensible Drug Policy...
Understanding the Federal Budget - Apr 12,2013
Our guest is Chris Hellman, Senior Research Analyst from National Priorities Project. Our topics will include: Federal budget basics, whats going on in Washington including the latest budget action, whats happening with sequestration, and whats...
Conversation with Jim Hightower - Apr 09,2013
Join us at a special date for a conversation with special guest, Jim Hightower. Our conversation will revolve around progressive politics in the South. Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of Swim...
Conversation with Bill Fletcher, Jr. - Mar 29,2013
Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a longtime labor, racial justice and international activist. He is an Editorial Board member and columnist for BlackCommentator.com and a Senior Scholar for the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. He is the...
ERA - The History You Need to Know - Mar 26,2013
Eileen Davis Has worked as a professional Nurse ,community advocate for the uninsured,and Adjunct Professor in Central Virginia . She is the current state Coordinator of ERA-NOW Virginia and is on the planning committee for the WOMEN MATTER:...
Spreading the Word about Fair Trade - Mar 22,2013
Fair Trade Towns USA National Organizer Courtney Lang discusses what needs to be done to improve Fair Trade in the southeast. Lang has over 5 years of community organizing to Fair Trade Towns USA, building the Local Food and Fair Trade networks...
Climate Change and Communities of Color - Mar 15,2013
Our show today is about Climate Change, the Environmental Movement and Communities of Color. Our guest is Jacqueline Patterson, Director, NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program Prior to joining the NAACP, most recently a global womens...

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