Yesterday morning, Newark mayor Cory Booker made headlines when he defended private equity firms and Bain Capital’s behavior against criticisms by the Obama campaign: BOOKER: I have to just say from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity. To me, we’re getting to a ridiculous point in America.
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How much does corruption cost you?  When you use a non-network ATM, it’s usually a $3 fee, just for accessing your own money.  The cost to the bank charging you that money, however, is just 37 cents.  That’s price gouging, and when you add it all up, it’s a total of $7 billion annually that goes from those
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The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities is the primary lobbying group for the for-profit college industry. As we’ve reported before on Republic Report, some APSCU member schools have a record of fraudulent practices: targeting veterans and low-income people for recruitment while maintaing atrocious drop-out and loan default rates. APSCU and its members spend thousands of
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Last week, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) submitted an amicus brief ” urging the U.S. Supreme Court to let stand Montana’s century-old ban on corporate money in political campaigns despite the court’s Citizens United ruling two years ago declaring unconstitutional a similar federal law sponsored by McCain.” The challenge to Montana’s ban on corporate
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Norman Rousseau, a Newbury Park, California resident, spent last Saturday trying to fix an old RV. His house was being foreclosed upon by Wells Fargo and he apparently wanted to make sure his family had somewhere to live. But Sunday mid-morning, he shot and killed himself, CBS Los Angeles reports. The Rousseau family has been
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Charles and David Koch, the billionaire owners of of Koch Industries, are known as big spenders when it comes to lobbying and influencing public policy. Now, a new document filed with the IRS reveals how the Koch political machine funneled over $54.5 million in previously undisclosed funds to a litany of front groups designed to
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Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi released a new article last week where he laid out how Wall Street is at work undermining the toughest provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law passed last year. Taibbi writes: The fate of Dodd-Frank over the past two years is an object lesson in the government’s inability to institute even
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We’ve just received word from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee — which has been campaigning to get Democratic Party lawmakers to quit the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — that an additional eleven Democrats have now left the corporate front group . Here are the eleven who have announced they will be leaving: – 8 Pennsylvannia legislators: Sen.
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