Chicago -
By David Rutter
The Steve Easterbrook Story should be a movie soon on Hallmark, as soon as Hallmark develops an X-rated romance channel.
The movie? Call it “The Hamburglar of Passion.”
In the meantime, we must console ourselves with unintended real-life comedy taken to the heights – or maybe lowest depths – of American capitalism.
Posted on August 10, 2020
By Andre Perry/The Hechinger Report
Soaring unemployment and underemployment, a result of the coronavirus pandemic, are forcing college borrowers to defer loan payments to make room for things like food and rent.
Back in March, student loan borrowers received a reprieve with the passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which included provisions that suspended loan payments.
But those provisions are set to expire next month.
The effects of the pandemic on economic activity will last well beyond the end of the social distancing, as my Brookings colleagues have pointed out. Many economists predict a long, drawn out recovery, spanning years. Even if borrowers defer their loans for an extended period of time, the albatross of debt, which weighs heavier for borrowers of color, will continue to be a drag on the overall economy.
Posted on August 10, 2020
By Ralph Nader/Common Dreams
The combination of greed and power often spin out of control and challenge the enforceable rule of law and the countervailing force of the organized civic community.
When greed and power are exercised by giant multinational corporations that escape the discipline of the nation-state, the potential for evil becomes infinite in nature. Enough is never enough.
Posted on August 8, 2020
By Jill Barshay/The Hechinger Report
As the coronavirus pandemic spread through the country, a common (socially distanced) conversation among friends and families compared how many hours of remote learning kids were getting. Preliminary results from a new survey of school districts confirm what many parents learned through the Zoom grapevine. The number of hours your kids got varied wildly depending on where you happen to live. But the amount of time was not the only difference, according to a recent survey: the type of instruction students received also diverged dramatically.
Posted on August 1, 2020
By Abe Scarr/Illinois PIRG
On Wednesday, the Illinois Commerce Commission heard from the Commonwealth Edison Company to address recently implemented ethics reforms. Illinois PIRG director Abe Scarr made the following comments during the public comment period.
Good morning. My name is Abe Scarr and I am the director of Illinois PIRG. Thank you for the opportunity to provide comment today. Also, thank you to the new Commission leadership for your commitment to operating with increased transparency.
We’re here today because of the recent revelations of ComEd’s corrupt and illegal schemes, but this corruption is not news. It has been plain to see to anyone willing to look: ComEd and Exelon have used political power to corrupt utility regulation in Illinois.
Posted on July 30, 2020
By Andre Perry and Annelies Goger/The Hechinger Report
“Students want and need to come back to school,” Kimberly Martin, a principal of Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, D.C. told me two weeks ago. Martin explained that although social distancing may reduce exposure to coronavirus it also distances children from services and supports that are critical to their well-being.
As an example, Martin told of a student in special education who returned to Wilson High for support when he was confused about how to obtain a necessary work permit for a new job.
“After he met with me and the social worker to address the work permit issue, I saw him just hanging around the school staff, and I realized how much he missed them.” Martin added, “Many students miss the network of adults that provide their needs, including teachers, custodians, social workers and all non-instructional staff.”
Posted on July 29, 2020
By David Rutter
In fourteen hundred, ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. But he was lost. Oh so lost.
And when he slogged ashore in the Bahamas the morning of October 12 – a Thursday – he had become the first official male traveler who got lost because he wouldn’t stop to ask for directions.
“Is this Fort Lauderdale?” he reportedly asked the first person he met.
“No,” said Bruce, the first AAA Indigenous Peoples’ Travel Agent.
“Which direction is Fort Lauderdale? And where’s the gold?”
“Dunno,” said Bruce.
Posted on July 27, 2020
By David Rutter
Note to Hamilton author Lin-Manuel Miranda. Yes, we all loved your brilliant invention, but every day I love it less.
Every day I wonder more what I liked about it. What’s wrong with me?
Posted on July 24, 2020
By The Electronic Frontier Foundation
The European Union’s highest court last week made clear – once again – that the U.S. government’s mass surveillance programs are incompatible with the privacy rights of EU citizens.
The judgement was made in the latest case involving Austrian privacy advocate and EFF Pioneer Award winner Max Schrems. It invalidated the “Privacy Shield,” the data protection deal that secured the transatlantic data flow, and narrowed the ability of companies to transfer data using individual agreements (Standard Contractual Clauses, or SCCs).
Posted on July 20, 2020
By Patrick Rucker/The Capitol Forum
In the spring of 2018, bank regulators trained to spot discriminatory lending detected something alarming at Bank of America. The bank was offering fewer loans to minority homebuyers in Philadelphia than to white people in a way that troubled examiners from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, according to two people directly involved in the probe and internal documents reviewed by ProPublica and The Capitol Forum.
The officials suspected the second-largest bank in the United States was “redlining,” or deliberately turning its back on minority homebuyers, the people said. But after complaints from Bank of America, the OCC’s investigation stalled by September 2018. The OCC, which is part of the U.S. Treasury Department, never sanctioned the bank.
The abandoned Bank of America inquiry is part of a larger, previously unreported pattern in which the Trump administration has pulled back on civil rights enforcement as a part of its overall relaxation of bank oversight. Since Donald Trump took office, the OCC has quietly shelved at least six investigations of discrimination and redlining, according to internal agency documents and eight people familiar with the cases.
Posted on July 18, 2020
