The Chronicle of Higher Education, a venerable publication read by college faculty and administrators nationwide, has been sending invitations all over Washington, inviting policy experts, Capitol Hill staffers, media, and others to an October 19 panel discussion entitled “Student Loan Default Aversion: Forum on Research and Best Practices.” According to the invitation, the “lively discussion” will address the question, “How can students reap the benefits of higher education without the fear of financial devastation in the event of a default?” It’s a sensible, important, and indeed an urgent question, given America’s mounting student debt crisis.
But the invitation asks us …
Industry analysts are predicting that upwards of $3 billion will be spent on political advertisements in the 2012 election. This is an increase of more than $500 million from 2008. But who will benefit the most from this cash infusion? Not President Obama. Not even Mitt Romney. Rather, the National Association of Broadcasters, a lobbying group that proclaims itself “the voice for the nation’s radio and television broadcasters.”
A new FCC rule could provide the public with real-time data about who is profiting from the vast Super PAC spending. The commission ruled in April that affiliates of CBS, NBC, ABC, …
(Cross-posted from The Nation)
The Washington Free Beacon, a new website on the right, has a particular fascination with promoting weapon sales to Taiwan. In addition to daily hits on the Obama administration and Democrats, the Free Beacon has multiple posts calling for more F-16 fighter jet sales to the island nation, and has branded skeptics of militarization as “pro-China” activists.
The site, however, fails to disclose the fact that its sponsor is a lobbyist for a firm dedicated to helping Taiwan advance its policy agenda.
Michael Goldfarb, a former Republican staffer and writer, founded the Free Beacon with “several million dollars” in January of …
The New York Times recently ran a very important story showing that opponents of health reform, mostly industry-funded groups, overwhelmed the airwaves with negative advertising against the law. The reported numbers, $235 million against health reform versus $69 for it, only show part of the picture, since the Times decided to quantify only the money spent after the bill passed in late March, 2010.
The real amount spent spreading misinformation about the law, however, is much higher. And quantifying the money is critical in understanding at least part of the reason why public opinion soured so quickly on a law that …
This morning, the Associated Press published an article outlining a “battle over transparency” in the Massachusetts Senate race:
Both candidates in Massachusetts’ closely watched U.S. Senate race have championed the virtues of public disclosure — but each has limits when it comes to their own records and history.
What are these limits that the Associated Press is equivocating? For Republican candidate Scott Brown it’s these:
Brown … opposed a Democratic bill requiring more detailed campaign finance disclosure requirements, kept hidden all but one of the names of a committee that hosted a New York City fundraising event for him, and declined to publish his tax returns …
One of the best ways for special interests to influence our lawmakers is to hire former government staffers to get the insider access needed to win legislation and regulation. By passing through the “revolving door,” these staffers are generously rewarded for winning over government favors for private clients, often clients who seek to distort public policy to favor wealthy interests.
This revolving door should be a scandal. But in Washington, it’s simply become normal. The local press there even glamorizes it.
Take this profile of Holly Fechner, the former policy director to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), in The Hill, …
The Obama campaign just released a campaign commercial talking about how Mitt Romney, while working at Bain Capital, oversaw the outsourcing of Americans jobs to China and Mexico. The ad calls Romney a “corporate raider” for his role at Bain (watch it to the left).
The media has picked up the Obama campaign’s attack on Romney, amplifying its message. The overall narrative being created by the Obama campaign is clear: Romney has through his business practices support outsourcing in the past, and is likely to in the future — unlike President Obama.
Unfortunately, the story is not that simple. “We should …
Reporting campaign finance can be difficult because much of the action is obscured. Journalists have to rely on fairly unreliable government disclosure websites, many of which only report certain types of spending on an almost arbitrary schedule. To find the true number of television ads purchased in an election, one must literally visit every network station and request copies of records, a feat physically impossible for reporters with limited resources. Moreover, a vast portion of election spending, including big business-related efforts to encourage executives, employees, and others to vote for a particular candidate, is simply left off disclosures altogether.
The election …
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