If you can’t beat’em, why not buy’em? Biotechnology giant Monsanto has had the collective finger pointed at it for a lot of things, including the apparent collapse of the bee population. So instead of fighting off skeptics, it just decided to buy out Beeologics, a major international research firm devoted to studying and protecting bees.
Natural News says Beeologics made the announcement that as of September 28, 2011, the company is part of Monsanto. Beeologics was devoted to studying colony collapse disorder (CCD) and Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) to try and find out how to intervene and stop bees from dying off.
Critics of Monsanto are worried that it will avoid CCD and IAPV, since they’re big on genetically modified organisms, and will deny any link between the bee deaths and the GMO technologies and chemicals it employs.
“Monsanto will use the base technology from Beeologics as a part of its continuing discovery and development pipeline,” says the announcement. “Biological products will continue to play an increasingly important role in supporting the sustainability of many agricultural systems.”
Which could mean using more chemicals to fight the bee collapse, when chemicals may have had a part in the deaths in the first place. Poor bees. We like our honey.
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 ALEC’s Education Task Force. This morning, in an email message to Republic Report, Mark Harrad, Vice President of Communications at Kaplan, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Washington Post Company that includes Kaplan Higher Education, wrote, “A unit of Kaplan was a member of ALEC for a one year period, which ended in August 2011.”
For-profit colleges are the ultimate special interest. Many receive around 90 percent of their revenue from federal financial aid, more than $30 billion a year, and many charge students sky-high prices. In recent years, it has been fully documented that a large number of these schools have high dropouts rates and dismal job placement, and many have been caught engaging in highly coercive and deceptive recruiting practices. Yet when the bad actions of these predatory schools got publicly exposed, the schools simply used the enormous resources they’ve amassed to hire expensive lobbyists and consultants, and to make campaign contributions to politicians, in order to avoid accountability and keep taxpayer dollars pouring into their coffers.
Talk about Southern hospitality! Apparently South Carolina has really rolled out the red carpet for ALEC, carving out a special exemption in the state’s lobbying law to allow legislators some very special one-on-one time to plot their state-by-state right-wing legislative takeovers. Isn’t that just the sweetest thing? Bless their hearts:
ALEC has insisted that it is the victim of a “well-funded, expertly coordinated intimidation campaign.” It also denies accusations that it is a lobbying firm pressing state lawmakers to pass conservative legislation, though ethics watchdog group Common Cause has filed a lawsuit with the IRS, alleging that ALEC is a lobbying group and challenging its nonprofit status.
Yet there’s no doubt that ALEC is an influential organization among conservative legislators, and that the extent of its reach is just beginning to become clear. It is such an integral group in some circles, in fact, that South Carolina law actually carves out a special ethics exemption just for ALEC.
[image display=”thumb” link=”source” align=”right” alt=”davewilkins.jpg” width=”220″ height=”220″ id=”16723″]Good old Dave Wilkins was also the state chairman for the Bush campaign.[/image]
The state’s lobbying law has a section governing how lobbyists can interact with public officials. They cannot, for example, pay for an official’s lodging or transportation. However, there are exceptions, one of which is for functions held by ALEC (emphasis added).
[…] ALEC is the only organization to get an individual carve-out in the section.
The outings that ALEC organizes for politicians are essential to its influence. At these retreats, ALEC officials work with state lawmakers to craft new legislation.
As the Post-Courier in Charleston recently reported, some of ALEC’s “model laws” have been making their way into the South Carolina legislature. The state passed a voter ID law last year, for example, which had similar language to a model bill that ALEC had proposed.
State Rep. Boyd Brown (D-Fairfield) discovered the exemption in the lobbying law on Wednesday.
“I am disgusted that this group has been specifically exempted from ethics laws in the state of South Carolina,” said Brown in a statement. “I am appalled but not surprised that an extremist group such as ALEC wields such influence in the South Carolina General Assembly.”
Brown also told The Huffington Post that he would introduce a bill on Thursday to strike the (a) and (b) exemptions, although he did not expect the GOP-controlled legislature to pass it anytime soon.
House Democratic Caucus Director Tyler Jones said the ALEC exemption was the work of former state House Speaker and ALEC member David Wilkins, who later served as President George W. Bush’s ambassador to Canada and as transition committee chair for South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R). Wilkins was the lead sponsor on the lobbying bill and chose the conference committee members. Wilkins did not return a request for comment.
The elites’ plans are in place to close 40 schools, break the teacher and janitorial unions, and put the education of the City of Philadelphia’s children up for bid. It just makes me sick.
I knew it was coming (when you see the city councilman expected to be the next mayor praising Michelle Rhee and philanthro-capitalists like the Gates Foundation, it’s only a matter of time), but I never expected it to happen this fast. It feels like a kick to the gut.
Our schools were taken over by the state in 2001 (you can read the gruesome history here) and instead we’re run by a five-person School Reform Commission. (The governor gets to appoint three members, the mayor gets to appoint two.) And even the reason for declining results may have more to so with the fact that the state contribution to public education has dropped from 55 percent in 1975 to 36 percent in 2001, the hillbilly politicians in the Pennsyltucky parts of the state have done a fine job convincing voters outside the more educated areas that funding schools in Philadelphia is throwing money down a “black hole”. (Emphasis on the word “black,” since color plays a very large part in these funding decisions.)
Once again, the WSJ comments are more interesting than the story. Commenters seem evenly divided between the “Barry’s government is incompetent” and the general acceptance of the idea that the SEC is thoroughly bought off:
Federal securities regulators, in a sensitive breach, inadvertently revealed the identity of a whistleblower during a probe of a firm that ran a stock trading platform.
The gaffe by the Securities and Exchange Commission occurred during an investigation of Pipeline Trading Systems LLC when an SEC lawyer showed an executive who was being questioned a notebook from the whistleblower filled with jottings about trades, calls and meetings. The executive says he recognized the handwriting.
I can’t comment on this yet. I don’t know enough of what’s going on, and I’m too disgusted:
Philadelphia public schools are on the operating table, reeling from a knockout blow of heavy state budget cuts. It was too much to bear after decades of underfunding and mismanagement at the hands of shortsighted Philadelphians and mean-spirited politicians in Harrisburg.
So the District is today announcing that it’s going to call it quits. Its organs will be harvested, in search of a relatively vital host.
“Philadelphia public schools is not the School District,” Chief Recovery Officer Thomas Knudsen told a handful of reporters at yesterday’s press conference laying out the five-year plan proposed to the School Reform Commission. “There’s a redefinition, and we’ll get to that later.”
He got to it: talk about “modernization,” “right-sizing,” “entrepreneurialism” and “competition.”
Forty schools would close next year, and six additional schools would be closed every year thereafter until 2017. Closing just eight schools this year prompted an uproar.
Anyhow, the remaining schools would get chopped up into “achievement networks” where public or private groups compete to manage about 25 schools, and the central office would be chopped down to a skeleton crew of about 200. District HQ has already eliminated about half of the 1,100-plus positions that existed in 2010.
This is all aimed at closing a $218 million deficit for the coming year, part of a $1.1 billion cumulative deficit by 2017. Charter schools will teach an estimated 40 percent of students by 2017.
And this rosy picture is premised upon City Council agreeing to fork over $91 million in additional property tax revenue. If not, things are even worse.
Details still are being worked out, but officials said the idea is to move decision-making away from a central office and closer to teachers and principals. It’s a concept used in other urban districts that will be tailored for Philadelphia.
“What we do know through lots of history and evidence and practice is that the current structure doesn’t work,” School Reform Commission chairman Pedro Ramos said. “It’s not fiscally sustainable, and it doesn’t produce high-quality schools.”
But teachers union president Jerry Jordan blasted the plan, calling it “cynical, right-wing and market-driven.”
“This restructuring plan has nothing to do with raising student achievement,” Jordan said in a statement. “The district provided a business model, not a research-based plan for turning around or supporting schools.”
They’re going to make the janitors union bid against low-wage contractors for their jobs. Talk about stupid. Yeah, by all means, let’s put some more families under the economic tidal wave!
Former football star Ray Easterling has become the latest sportsman to kill himself after suffering from depression believed to have been linked to head injuries during his career.
The 62-year-old, who police say shot himself at his home in Richmond, Virginia, played for the Atlanta Falcons during the 1970s and later sued the NFL over its handling of concussions.
He began showing signs of brain damage 20 years ago with bouts of depression and insomnia.
Then, the former safety developed symptoms of dementia as he lost the ability to focus, organise his thoughts and relate to people.
His wife, Mary Ann Easterling, said she would continue the lawsuit in which she claims the NFL tried to cover up the danger of concussion.
In the last year, the suicides of several sportsmen have been linked to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is caused by repeated blows to the head and often leads to bouts of depression and anger.
Last year former Chicago Bears star Dave Duerson, who died in February 2011, was found to have the condition, which can only be diagnosed during a post-mortem examination.
The brains of 50 sports stars have been donated to Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, which made the diagnosis.
How did breast cancer survivor Lisa Lindsay end up behind bars? She didn’t pay a medical bill — one the Herrin, Ill., teaching assistant was told she didn’t owe. “She got a $280 medical bill in error and was told she didn’t have to pay it,” The Associated Press reports. “But the bill was turned over to a collection agency, and eventually state troopers showed up at her home and took her to jail in handcuffs.”
Although the U.S. abolished debtors’ prisons in the 1830s, more than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don’t pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans. In parts of Illinois, debt collectors commonly use publicly funded courts, sheriff’s deputies, and country jails to pressure people who owe even small amounts to pay up, according to the AP.
Under the law, debtors aren’t arrested for nonpayment, but rather for failing to respond to court hearings, pay legal fines, or otherwise showing “contempt of court” in connection with a creditor lawsuit. That loophole has lawmakers in the Illinois House of Representatives concerned enough to pass a bill in March that would make it illegal to send residents of the state to jail if they can’t pay a debt. The measure awaits action in the senate.
“Creditors have been manipulating the court system to extract money from the unemployed, veterans, even seniors who rely solely on their benefits to get by each month,” Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said last month in a statement voicing support for the legislation. “Too many people have been thrown in jail simply because they’re too poor to pay their debts. We cannot allow these illegal abuses to continue.”
