Under normal circumstances, when a process is found to be corrupt, any outcome or recommendation from that chain of events is either cancelled or put on hold until the full extent of the corruption can be uncovered. Essentially, good practice dictates that you start from scratch, to ensure that there is no undue influence.

But that’s not how the Obama Administration works when the final outcome is something they want. Displaying the “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” attitude they’ve come to be known for on everything from health care and spending to cap & trade and net neutrality, the Obama administration is on the verge of adopting rules governing for-profit educational institutions, even though they have emerged from a wholly corrupt process that, to paraphrase Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), may end up with people going to prison.

It all started last summer when Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, held a hearing on whether or not students attending for-profit colleges should be allowed to receive federal financial aid. Harkin strongly supports a proposed Department of Education (DoE) rule, known as Gainful Employment, which would severely damage those institutions and kill higher education opportunities for thousands of Americans.

It was odd that one of the witnesses Senator Harkin chose as an “expert” on for-profit colleges had no expertise in the industry whatsoever. Steve Eisman is a Wall Street short-seller with no background or expertise on education policy. But with the stock prices of private-sector colleges and the companies that run them risking collapse, he does have a lot to gain by ensuring that happens.

This was just the first of what would be many curious developments in the Progressives’ crusade against for-profit education.

(more…)

Liberals will tell you they support freedom of choice, but they won’t tell you that freedom they are willing to extend you begins and ends with abortion. Try to exercise it in any other aspect of your life and they’re there, ready to pounce with some regulation or law forbidding you from moving forward with your liberty workout. It doesn’t matter to them what the impact is, they want what they want and they’re willing to step all over you to impose it.

The latest whipping boy in the crosshairs of these statists is the post-secondary for-profit education system. Odds are this battle won’t impact your life directly, but their attacks rarely do. They never attack the heart of that which they seek to control or destroy, they chip away at the edges until it no longer resembles that which it was. It still exists, but in such a way so as to no longer function effectively and eventually dies. Look at what they’ve done to off-shore drilling without so much as passing a law.

For-profit education is the choice for millions of Americans who, for any number of reasons, can’t or choose not to matriculate to traditional colleges and universities. The reasons vary – poor grades in high school, young children at home, etc. These schools serve mostly poor, underprivileged students who have very limited options. You’d think liberals would be for anything that helps the very people they claim to champion. But their rhetoric rarely matches their actions.

(more…)

A few weeks ago we told you about J. Dudley Butler, the former (and future) trial lawyer who spent his career suing the very industry he has been appointed by President Obama to regulate.

He’s currently working in the Agriculture Department as Administrator of the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration (GIPSA) and, according to former Republican Congressman Bob Barr, “Butler is actively pushing to expand the scope of the decades-old Packers and Stockyards Act — which will make it easier for trial lawyers (such as Mr. Butler) to successfully sue meat and poultry companies.”

Last week this piece in The Daily Caller looked into the conflict of interest and concluded, “Whether or not J. Dudley Butler is implementing rules that will help him and his friends in their legal cases is something for time to judge. But the fact that he is in a position to do so, to aid his cause and line his pockets when he returns to the private sector, is enough to call for his resignation.”

Conservatives calling attention to the conflict of interest of a liberals Administration’s political appointees is not new, nor is the reverse. But this cause has been joined…

CREW, the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the liberal government watch-dog group, has joined the fight.

In a press release Monday, CREW asked “Is a former trial lawyer turned government official making policy decisions at the Department of Agriculture that will serve his future personal financial interests?” We don’t often agree with CREW, but in this case they are correct.

(more…)

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Chair of the Senate Ethics Committee, has paid some $30,000 since 2004 for the endorsement of embattled Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) in the context of a scheme that critics charge is unethical and amounts to Waters using her political station to benefit her family members.

According to the Washington Times, Waters “has turned political endorsements into a family business, using federal election laws to charge California candidates and political causes to include their names as her personal picks on a sample ballot, or ‘slate mailer,’ she sends to as many as 200,000 South Central Los Angeles voters.”

The slate mailer business, it turns out, is run by Waters’ daughter, Karen, via her public relations firm.  Records show that Karen Waters’ firm has been paid more than $350,000 since 2004, and has billed a further $82,000 since California’s June primary, for its services in this regard.

It is a scheme that has been criticized by good governance groups including the Sunlight Foundation and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

(more…)

It has been reported, a company by the name of PharmAthene, which is closely tied to the late Congressman John Murtha and Tara O’Toole, an Under Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has received preferential treatment by our good friends in the federal governmenat the expense of Joe Taxpayer.

BIG GOVERNMENT has learned that a little known entity named the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is adding millions of dollars to a contract awarded way back in 2003 that PharmAthene inherited, rather than conducting a fair and open competition. In government speak, that means PharmAthene is about to get huge sums of additional cash without ever having competed for it. Coverage of this sole-source award has already received significant news coverage and attention from numerous outlets, including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

But it’s not as if PharmAthene is hiding it. They’re actually promoting the fact that they’re getting sole-source contracts that do away with any competition and fatten their bottom line.

According to a recent PharmAthene press release:

(more…)