Huffington Post published this piece by me yesterday, as part of its Shadow Conventions series:
To grasp the harms caused when money dominates politics, start with for-profit colleges. This industry tripled in size during the last decade, spurred by deceptive recruiting practices, after its lobbyists loosened federal rules aimed at protecting students and taxpayers from fraud. It has become a monster, a league of Wall Street corporations and private equity-owned firms that get 86 percent of their revenues — $32 billion a year — from taxpayers.
While some for-profit colleges are honest and work to educate their students, many charge sky-high …
The following is a joint investigation of In These Times and Republic Report.
By Mike Elk and Lee Fang
As labor seeks to communicate its message in the media and influence policy, many unions are looking to outside consultant firms. These groups sometimes provide the technical expertise, media suaveness, and necessary connections for unions to get their message out to the right audience. However, a recent joint investigation by In These Times and Republic Report reveals that several millions dollars of union members’ dues have been going to firms that are actively working against labor’s top priorities on behalf of business interests. In some cases, …
Why would a leader with a good reputation affiliate himself with an industry that has a bad reputation? If you’ve visited this website before, you might suspect that money is involved. And you’d be right.
On May 29, the New York Times published an editorial calling for government action to address spiraling college debt. The Times editorial noted that, with respect to one type of school, for-profit colleges, “a staggering 54 percent of those who had borrowed to pursue a bachelor’s degree had dropped out” and that dropouts from such schools were more likely to be jobless.
A few days later, the …
Nearly half of all Americans will be obese by 2030, researchers reported at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Weight of the Nation conference in Washington earlier this month. 42 percent of us are projected to be obese, placing a huge strain on our already compromised health care system. Brian Fung at The Atlantic points out that the healthcare costs of obesity — $550 billion over the next two decades — is more than the U.S. Department of Defense asked for in its fiscal year 2013 budget.
There are a lot of reasons — chemical, psychological, environmental — …
As we’ve noted, one of the biggest problems in Washington is the level of secrecy in lobbying. Communications consultants, lawyers, fundraisers, and other political professionals produce public pressure campaigns and make back room deals without ever registering as lobbyists, so the public is constantly left in the dark about who is really shaping our government. President Obama’s call to ban registered lobbyists from his administration, while steeped in good intentions, made the problem worse because many lobbyists simply deregistered, further enshrouding the corporate influence industry in secrecy.
Major media outlets are beginning to probe the problem:
– Over the weekend, the New …
Hilary Rosen, a Democratic lobbyist and pundit for CNN, found herself caught up in 24-hour news cycle controversy after she made some inflammatory comments about Ann Romney’s work as stay-at-home mom. Rosen has apologized for her off-the-cuff comments. But the entire story may set off a greater, more substantive inquiry about the nature of Rosen’s consulting firm, SKDKnickerbocker, an unregistered lobbying firm that has become one of the biggest names in the influence business by using its ties to President Obama and leaders in Congress.
Predictably, Republicans have noticed that Rosen is a frequent visitor to the White …
Last night, Hilary Rosen shockingly claimed that Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann Romney, “actually never worked a day in her life,” referring to Romney’s role as a stay-at-home mom. Watch her remarks:
Rosen’s remarks have set off a firestorm in the media. As press outlets rushed to cover the controversy, they frequently referred to her as a “Democratic Strategist” or as an adviser to the Democratic National Committee.
But that’s typical Washington. Rosen is indeed a Democratic Party stalwart. But her real job — the way she has made money for a long time — has been advocating for the positions …
Mitt Romney announced yesterday that Ed Gillespie, a corporate lobbyist and former Republican Party chair, will become his senior advisor. Gillespie joins a kitchen cabinet of other “senior advisors” to the Romney campaign who double as influence peddlers. But in Gillespie’s case, he no longer discloses the names of his clients, which raises the question: Who is paying Gillespie?
Gillespie used to work at Quinn Gillespie & Associates, a lobbying firm that registered and disclosed the names of its clients. As the Washington Examiner noted, Gillespie worked in 2007 for an industry group that promoted …
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