The crusade against for-profit colleges has been raging for the better part of a year with Congressional hearings and the potential for new regulations making financial aid for students attending those school impossible to get. Democrats have declared for-profit schools unworthy of educating students in need of financial aid, which would disproportionally harm lower income and minority students, who make up a large percentage of their student body. But while these for-profit school have be fighting for their lives, others, with the apparent help of regulators from the Department of Education, have been fighting “for profits” of their own, and this starting to catch the eye of elected officials in Washington.

The first red-flag in the crusade against for-profit colleges came when Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) held a hearing where Steven Eisman, a noted Wall Street short-seller, was called to testify against for-profit colleges, something about which he had zero expertise. Then the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) discovered the possible explanation as to why Mr. Eisman was so interested in an issue in which he had no expertise. From documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, CREW discovered that, as the Daily Caller described it, “…Eisman and other short sellers may have been given advanced notice of key regulatory moves by the agency, which would have allowed them to position themselves early in the market, and profit handsomely.”

This used to be called “insider trading,” a term from the 80s that seems to have gone out of vogue, but is still illegal.

CREW sent a letter to Robert Khuzami, Director of the Division of Enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission, informing him of their findings and calling for an investigation into possible illegal activities by Eisman and several people inside the Department of Education who, as the emails and documents they obtained suggest, may have fed Eisman and his colleagues the information.

A further investigation by the Daily Caller found that, in addition to Eisman, another short-seller, Manuel Asensio, a man “securities regulators debarred…from employment as an investment banker for the rest of his life for refusing to answer questions and provide documents about his investment practices,” is now lobbying against for-profit colleges.

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Lawmakers in New York and Illinois were quick to recognize that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s trial offered a new opportunity to secure billions of additional taxpayer funds.

Both states are reeling from the combined effect of economic slowdown and years of profligate spending on government, grown far beyond what the tax base will support.   Thanks to President Obama’s decision to transfer terrorists from GITMO to U.S. soil, both states, and the city of New York, are going to be paid almost $3 billion dollars to secure, transport, administer, house, and contend with the requirements associated with having these terrorists in the United States.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the four other terrorists and all Americans associated with the trial, will require rigorous, differentiated security measures: twenty-four hour a day surveillance, transportation, housing and judicial security.  Certainly, New York will be required to raise its threat level to better prepare and respond to the new threat of  sympathetic  jihadists using the trial, as a showpiece of their own, to make a violent, retaliatory public statement.

Federal security and law enforcement agencies, such as DHS, FBI and US Marshals  will be working round the clock to provide the appropriate security, but will be unable to do all of the work required. New York, state and city, law enforcement officers will be required to share the burden, and will expect compensation from the federal government to provide this level of support.  Heavily-unionized, public employees in both states, are about to receive the most coveted of all Labor Union prizes, unlimited overtime that extends for years.

Bringing KSM to trial will be hugely expensive and will essentially represent a federalization of much of the New York state and city law enforcement and public services for the 5+ years that the trial process is likely to run.

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