May 4, 2012

Amazon.com Is Funding Global Warming Denial In Our Schools

Last month, Tennessee passed a law that would establish protections for teachers who chose to teach unscientific theories doubting global warming in a science classrooms. (It was somehow attached to a bill also providing protections for teachers instructing about creationism.) The group behind these climate denial laws, which have popped up all over the country, is
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May 3, 2012

5 Reasons Mitt Romney Would Be The First Corporation Elected President

“Corporations are people, my friend,” Mitt Romney enthusiastically exclaimed last fall at the Iowa State Fair. Romney was referencing legal principles that give business corporations many of the rights possessed by actual human beings. But Romney is more than the exponent of this idea, he is its embodiment. If Romney wins in November, it will
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May 1, 2012

This May Day, Remember That Big Money Is The Reason American Workers Don’t Have More Rights — And Income

Today is May Day, a global day of celebrations in favor of workers’ rights — and the day that labor unions in the United States marked as their day of action to win an eight-hour workday. Yet as American unions and Occupy activists take to the streets to celebrate our hard-fought rights, it’s important to
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April 30, 2012

Michelle Rhee Says She’ll Tell For-Profit Colleges To Clean Up Their Act

Michelle Rhee writes in the Huffington Post that “some have questioned” why she would speak at the upcoming annual meeting of the largest trade group of for-profit colleges, APSCU, and she offers an answer.  I first raised this question 10 days ago, so I want to evaluate Rhee’s response. First of all, Rhee, the former chancellor
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April 30, 2012

Has The Washington Post Company’s Membership In ALEC Affected Its Reporting?

My colleague David Halperin reported last week that the for-profit college division of the Washington Post Company’s Kaplan subsidiary was a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) for one year, ending in August 2011. He makes the case that we shouldn’t be surprised that for-profit colleges, which receive the large  majority of their
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April 29, 2012

Whatever Happened To ALEC’s PR Campaign?

Ten days ago, the embattled American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate front group better known as ALEC, launched a campaign to improve its public image in the wake of public outcry about its roll in drafting Stand Your Ground laws. The plan was to get conservative bloggers writing nice things about ALEC, an uptick of
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April 28, 2012

Warren Buffett’s NetJets Spent $1 Million Lobbying To Cut Fees For Its Wealthy Clients

Warren Buffett is best known in political America for his advocacy for taxing the wealthy at a similar rate to the rest of Americans. President Obama crafted the “Buffett Rule” after the idea that it’s wrong, as Buffet frequently says, for a billionaire like him to pay a lower income tax rate than his secretary.
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April 26, 2012

Exclusive: Washington Post’s Kaplan and Other For-Profit Colleges Joined ALEC, Controversial Special Interest Lobby

Republic Report has learned that the Washington Post Company’s Kaplan for-profit college division, was, last year, a member of the controversial business advocacy group the American Legislative Exchange Council. Other major for-profit education companies also joined ALEC. Republic Report has obtained a July 2011 document showing Kaplan Higher Education and other for-profits as members of
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