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Students Petition Sallie Mae for Transparency and a Better Deal on Student Loans

by Harriet Rowan — June 3, 2013 - 11:00am
  • Topics: Activism, Education

    • Student activists and their allies gathered outside Sallie Mae’s annual shareholder meeting on May 30 to demand increased transparency and accountability from the nation’s largest student loan lender, and to draw attention to the worsening problem of student debt. Allie Gardner, a student at the University of Wisconsin – Madison drove to Delaware from Wisconsin to attend the shareholder meeting and demand a meeting with the CEO; "Sallie Mae doesn’t exist to protect students, and they are not willing to work with students. They exist to profit off of us."

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    Wisconsin Legislature, Failing to Create Jobs, Opts to Punish the Unemployed

    by Rebekah Wilce — June 3, 2013 - 7:47am
  • Topics: Economy, Politics

    • Wisconsin's unemployed are being subject to a double attack by the state legislature. In the state that fell to 44th in the nation in job creation in March, a bill introduced to the Wisconsin State Assembly on May 24 would make it more difficult for jobless workers to collect unemployment benefits. Then, in what Representative Chris Taylor (D-Madison) called the "ultimate bait-and-switch," a hearing on that bill occurred at the same time as a meeting of the Joint Committee on Finance that passed yet more changes related to unemployment insurance, which critics called even more extreme than the first.

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    Scaife-Funded Network Works Hard to Kill Immigration Reform

    by PRW Staff — May 31, 2013 - 8:25am
  • Topics: Right Wing, Front Groups, Democracy, Human Rights, International, Lobbying

    • -- By Katie Lorenze

    With immigration reform advancing through Congress, an anti-immigrant network funded by a small group of right-wing foundations is trying to kill reform by pressuring moderate Republicans and appealing to the party's xenophobic wing. The groups could stymie efforts by some Republicans to appeal to the country's growing Latino population by moving to the center on immigration.

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    WI Appellate Judge Upholds WI Voter ID, But Indicates Another Challenge Could be Successful

    by Brendan Fischer — May 30, 2013 - 12:37pm
  • Topics: ALEC Exposed, Democracy, Politics, Wisconsin Protests

    • A Wisconsin appellate court has overturned one decision by a lower court finding the state's voter ID law unconstitutional, but the legislation remains blocked, with a separate challenge to the law pending before a different appellate court. Despite upholding the voter ID law, the judge deciding today's case appeared to imply that there could be a different outcome for a challenge that provides more evidence of the law's burdens on the right to vote.

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    Walker's Dismal Jobs Agenda Gets a Gold Star in ALEC's "Rich States, Poor States" Report

    by Nick Surgey — May 30, 2013 - 7:33am
  • Topics: ALEC Exposed, Wisconsin Protests

    • Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker got a boost last week from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in its annual Rich States, Poor States report. Despite Bureau of Labor Statistics data putting Wisconsin in 44th place for private-sector job creation, ALEC placed the state as 15th in the country in its ranking of economic outlook, giving Walker -- a former ALEC member -- a boost as he lays the groundwork for a re-election campaign and a possible Presidential bid.

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    War on Democracy in Wisconsin: Bill Would Enact Voter ID, End Disclosure, Limit Early Voting, Expand Lobbyist Influence

    by Brendan Fischer — May 29, 2013 - 8:16am
  • Topics: Corporations, Democracy, Politics, Wisconsin Protests

    • A Wisconsin legislator has managed to bundle nearly all of the excesses associated with dirty elections into a single bill that good government advocates are describing as a "sweeping assault on democracy:" the legislation would try reinstating restrictive voter ID requirements, make it easier for donors to secretly influence elections, expand lobbyist influence, restrict early voting, and make it harder to register, among other measures.

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    U.S. Senate Votes Down State GMO Labeling

    by Rebekah Wilce — May 29, 2013 - 7:43am
  • Topics: Genetic Engineering, Food, Food Rights Network, Politics

    • In the midst of a week of debates and speeches about the federal farm bill (S. 954), supporters of the right to know whether or not food products contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs) suffered a setback on May 23. An amendment (S. Amdt.

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    Victory for Food Rights and Wisconsin Farmer Vernon Hershberger

    by Rebekah Wilce — May 27, 2013 - 7:46am
  • Topics: Raw Milk, Food, Food Rights Network

    • In what has been roundly declared a victory for food rights and private food transactions by supporters, a jury returned a verdict of not guilty on three of four charges against Wisconsin raw milk farmer Vernon Hershberger in the early morning hours of May 25.

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    "Operation Tripwire" -- the FBI, the Private Sector, and the Monitoring of Occupy Wall Street

    by Beau Hodai — May 24, 2013 - 8:12am
  • Topics: Activism, Terrorism, Banking, Corporations, Democracy, Human Rights, U.S. Government

    • This article was first published by PRWatch.org on December 31, 2012, while we were writing our report "Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street," published by DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy in May 2013. We re-release it now as part of a PRWatch series on the new report.

    Records obtained from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) by DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy (DBA/CMD) through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request indicate that the FBI employed tactics under a "counter terrorism" initiative called "Operation Tripwire" in the monitoring of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) activists.

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    Fusion Center Obsession With OWS: Monitoring Jesse Jackson, NDAA Protestors and Anything Else Deemed To Be a Threat

    by Beau Hodai — May 23, 2013 - 8:30am
  • Topics: ALEC Exposed

    • As detailed in "Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street," through 2011 and 2012, "fusion centers" and other "counter terrorism" agencies engaged in widespread monitoring of Occupy Wall Street activists. This article examines some instances of this counter terrorism monitoring of activists.

    The primary fusion center discussed in this article is the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center (ACTIC). ACTIC's establishment and function is further described here. Perhaps the most widely utilized feature of ACTIC is the Terrorism Liaison Officer Program. The function of ACTIC Terrorism Liaison Officers is to disseminate ACTIC intelligence and "critical infrastructure/key resources" "threat and vulnerability assessments" within their respective law enforcement agencies, and to feed intelligence gathered by these agencies back into ACTIC, for the use of other ACTIC-engaged entities (both in the public and private sectors).

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