Republican consultant Frank Luntz, a master of words, made clear in a 2002 GOP strategy memo how conservatives would address the growing threat of climate change: They would simply deny it was happening. According to the memo: The scientific debate remains open. Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community.
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Last year, the annual convention of owners and executives of for-profit colleges (University of Phoenix, The Art Institutes, Kaplan, etc.), held in Las Vegas, featured paid speakers George W. Bush and Michelle Rhee, and, for entertainment, a fake knockoff version of Creedence Clearwater Revival. After a year in which the truth about their shoddy practices finally sent
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Far too often in Washington, policy decisions are influenced by big money — wealthy corporations spend millions on lobbying, public relations, and campaign contributions to get their way. Big money helps explain why your cell phone and cable TV bills are so expensive, why small investors are still unprotected from Wall Street abuses, why taxpayers
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Last year, President Obama warned our military servicemembers that some for-profit colleges “aren’t interested in helping you…. They are interested in getting the money.” He called the schools’ conduct “disgraceful” and told the troops that these schools are “trying to swindle and hoodwink you.”  Holly Petraeus, who directs service member affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection
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Several years of public scrutiny have exposed that many of America’s for-profit colleges are playing a cruel joke on students and taxpayers — high-priced, low-quality programs, sold through deceptive recruiting practices, that often leave students without good jobs and deep in debt. This scam has cost taxpayers as much as $33 billion in a single year. Worse, it
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Tonight, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) will offer the rebuttal to President Obama’s State of the Union address.  This isn’t a casual designation: Top Republicans and outside commentators are hailing the young Senator as the very future of the GOP. One issue where Rubio sharply contrasts with Obama is climate change. With record-high temperatures and devastating
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In the past two years, as the public has come to recognize that many for-profit colleges have been ripping off taxpayers and ruining students’ lives, enrollments have declined, and the once-mighty industry has gone into a tailspin. A number of schools, such as American Career Institute and ATI have abruptly shut down many or all of their campuses,
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Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC) yesterday paraphrased a well-known quote about the Holocaust to describe the Obama Administration’s regulation of for-profit colleges. Foxx, who has staunchly defended the for-profit college industry despite its blatant record of abusing students and ripping off taxpayers, apparently didn’t mention in her remarks that she is one of Congress’s biggest recipients
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