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Profit Making Colleges That Loaded Students With Debt, Now In Government

By Annie Waldman for Pro Publication - Taylor Hansen lobbied to weaken regulation of for-profit colleges. Since he joined the Education Department, it’s started doing just that. Until June 2016, Taylor Hansen lobbied for the largest trade group of for-profit colleges. At the forefront of its agenda: eliminating a rule known as “gainful employment,” which can take away federal funding from for-profit colleges if their graduates fail to earn enough to repay student loans. Last week, that goal started to become a reality. The U.S. Department of Education delayed the deadline for colleges to comply with certain provisions of gainful employment, saying it plans to review the rule.

Going After The Pain Profiteers

By Sarah Anderson for Inequality.org - A labor leader whose son was a victim of the opioid epidemic has inspired a campaign to crack down on irresponsible drug industry CEOs. Travis Bornstein never told his friends about his son Tyler’s drug problem. He was too embarrassed. Then, on September 28, 2014, Tyler’s body was found in a vacant lot in Akron, Ohio. The 23-year-old had become addicted to opioid pain killers after several sports-related injuries and surgeries. Unable to afford long-term treatment, he ultimately turned to a cheaper drug — the heroin that killed him. “Now I have no choice but to speak out,” the elder Bornstein, president of Teamsters Local 24 in Akron...

4 Nonprofit Hospitals Pocketed $1.7 Billion In Profits In 4 Years

By Lynn Petrovich for End The Illusion - Cumulative surplus for these four nonprofit entities totaled over $2.2 Billion, cash in the bank and/or Wall Street investments/brokerage firms. In addition to the above, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (EID #22-6029397), whose mission includes “promoting the health and health care of New Jerseyans and to support research, evaluation, learning and communication efforts that can improve the nation’s health” reported almost $10 Billion in surplus funds as of 12/31/14. In 2012, Barnabas Health, NJ’s largest nonprofit conglomerate, paid its outgoing CEO, Ronald Del Mauro (he was mentioned in my May 2011 request to Monmouth Medical Center), a precedent setting severance package of $21.6 million.

Legal Marijuana Systems Do Not Have To Be For Profit

By Beau Kilmer for USA Today - As of last week, voters in California and seven other states have passed ballot initiatives to allow for-profit companies to produce, distribute and sell non-medical marijuana. With more than 65 million peopleliving in states that have passed marijuana legalization, and a Gallup poll showing that 60% of the country supports legalizing marijuana use, national legalization may seem inevitable. As goes California, so goes the nation, right? Not necessarily. Consider what happened with medical marijuana. California was the first state to allow medical marijuana, starting nearly 20 years ago.

Corporate Profits Are Way Up, Corporate Taxes Are Way Down

By Hunter Blair for EPI - Since 1952, corporate profits as a share of the economy have risen dramatically (from 5.5 percent to 8.5 percent), while corporate tax revenues as a share of the economy have plummeted (from 5.9 percent to just 1.9 percent). This trend has worsened since the end of the Great Recession. Between 2010 and 2015, corporate profits averaged 9.2 percent of gross domestic product, while corporate income tax revenue averaged just 1.6 percent.

Getting Immigrants Out Of Detention Is Very Profitable

By Steve Fisher for Mother Jones - Sofía was 19 when she fled El Salvador after receiving threats from a drug cartel. In late 2014, she was caught near San Diego by the US Border Patrol and sent to an immigration detention center in Eloy, Arizona. Following eight months in detention, she was desperate to reunite with her mother, who lives in Northern California. Like many detainees, Sofía was eligible for release on bond while awaiting her immigration court proceedings. But her bond, set at $15,000, was far more than she could afford.

Stop Suing Ex-Prisoners For Room And Board

By Alan Mills and David M. Shapiro for Chicago Tribune - Illinois prisons are in crisis. They are among the most overcrowded, understaffed and underfunded in the nation — but Gov. Bruce Rauner has established himself as a barrier to serious reform. The governor recently vetoed a bill with the potential to reduce recidivism. It would end the state's practice of destroying the finances of former prisoners by going after their assets to recover the costs of incarcerating them. The bill had passed the House and Senate with bipartisan support. Even the Department of Corrections had no objection to it.

Eliminate Profit From Punishment

By Cedric Lawson for Inequality - In July 2010, Marissa Alexander, a young Black woman from Florida, faced the fight of her life only nine days after giving birth to her youngest daughter. Her estranged husband, Rico Gray, attacked, strangled, and threatened to kill Marissa in her own home. To get rid of Rico, Marissa fired a warning shot into the ceiling. The single shot injured no one. And yet she was subsequently charged with several criminal charges and incarcerated for a victimless crime.

National Grid Wants RI Ratepayers To Guarantee Its Profits

By Steve Ahlquist for RI Future - National Grid is requesting that the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission(RIPUC) approve a 20-year gas capacity contract” withAlgonquin Gas Transmission Company LLC(Algonquin) for natural gas transportation capacity and storage services onAlgonquin’s Access Northeast Project (ANE Project).” The multinational energy conglomerate not only wants Rhode Island ratepayers to subsidize the construction of fracked gas infrastructure, they want consumers to ensure that the project is profitable for the company.

Congressional Corruption Rescues Biofuel Profits

By Almuth Ernsting for Independent Science News - Subsidies intended for next-generation cellulosic ethanol production are to be applied to a trivial improvement to corn ethanol refining technologies. Since cellulosic ethanol qualifies for much higher subsidies, this will significantly increase corn refinery profits and boost the demand for corn but will do nothing to combat climate change or promote energy independence. This is all thanks to an EPA policy to boost the previously (almost) non-existing cellulosic biofuel production in the US by widening and watering down the definition of that term.

Taking On America’s Prison Profiteers

By Staff of Inequality.org - No place in the world imprisons people at a higher per capita rate than the state of Louisiana. And that incarceration pays — for the profiteers who run the state’s private prisons. For the incarcerated, a totally different story. In 1998, the New York Times described one of Louisiana’s privately run facilities, the Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth, as possibly the worst such prison in the nation, a site “rife with brutality, cronyism, and neglect.”

Report Shows How War Profiteers Are Now Refugee Profiteers, Too

By Nika Knight for Common Dreams - The report (pdf), Border Wars: The Arms Dealers Profiting from Europe's Refugee Tragedy, released jointly by the European Stop Wapenhandel and Transnational Institute (TNI) on Monday, outlines arms traders' pursuit of profit in the 21st century's endless conflicts. "There is one group of interests that have only benefited from the refugee crisis, and in particular from the European Union's investment in 'securing' its borders,'" the report finds.

D.O.J. Resurrects Policing For Profit Program

By Sam Sacks for The District Sentinel - A suspended policy that allowed local police to keep much of the assets they confiscate from fellow suspects—even those who have not been convicted or charged with any crime—was reinstated on Monday evening by the Department of Justice. The notorious “equitable sharing” program permits local cops to use federal law to seize property, possessions, and cash from individuals they suspect of wrongdoing. It was temporarily halted in December.

Privatized Water 58% More Than Government Water

By Ben Norton for Salon - The most affordable water systems in the U.S. are publicly owned and operated by the government, an exhaustive study reveals. At the same time, for-profit private water companies charge 58 percent more than publicly owned ones. Food & Water Watch, a non-governmental consumer rights organization based in D.C., comprehensively surveyed the 500 largest community water systems in the U.S., in what it says is “the largest U.S. water rate survey of its kind.”

Drones 101: An Animated Presentation

Are you looking to start a conversation in your meeting/group around drones? Interested in a survey of the drone program for class discussion?Concerned about the impact of the drone war on communities around the world? If so, Drones 101 is for you. The presentation outlines the evolution of the U.S. drone program, provides an explanation of whom it targets and how, and surveys the countries where drones are being used. While a great deal of documentation has been made available through the work of human rights agencies and news reports, this remains a covert program with many questions unanswered. It was only April of 2012 that the Obama Administration admitted for the first time that armed drones were used to target and kill individuals in countries with whom we are not at war. Drones 101 looks at the power of the Congressional drone caucus and the increasing dependence of the Air Force on unmanned vehicles -- 50 percent of the fleet by 2018 -- and exposes the enormous profits being made by drone manufactures. Profit-making and current policies of secrecy have ushered in a new era of military violence.

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