By Elaine Magliaro

EDUCATION

Rotten to the Core: How an Apple mega-deal cost Los Angeles classrooms $1 billion—Bad business and worse ethics? A scandal is brewing in L.A. over a sketchy intiative to give every student an iPad (Salon)

The great charter school rip-off: Finally, the truth catches up to education “reform” phonies—Fraud, financial mismanagement, lousy results: Reports highlight awful charter schools and people are catching on (Salon)

Venture Capitalists Are Poised to ‘Disrupt’ Everything About the Education Market: Venture capitalists and for-profit firms are salivating over the exploding $788.7 billion market in K-12 education. What does this mean for public school students? (The Nation)

The Remarkable Idiocy of ‘Economically-Driven Education’ (Huffington Post)

Professors on food stamps: The shocking true story of academia in 2014—Forget minimum wage, some adjunct professors say they’re making 50 cents an hour. Wait till you read these stories (Salon)

Ego, money and false promises: Michelle Rhee’s big secret and the collapse of education “reform”—There’s big money in education “reform,” and now it’s flowing to tech companies that want to disrupt public schools (Salon)

Teacher-Hating Right-Wing Shill Campbell Brown Deserves All The Criticism She’s Getting (Politicus USA)

Students Use Civil Disobedience To Protest Removing It From History Curriculum (Talking Points Memo)

Fox Host Rails Against ‘Punks’ Protesting AP History Censorship: ‘Get Out’ (VIDEO) (Talking Points Memo)

Fox News’ Ben Carson Thinks New AP U.S. History Course Will Make Students Join ISIS (Huffington Post)

Denver Area Students Walk Out Of School In Protest (Huffington Post)

Bill Gates plugs Common Core, Arne Duncan (Politico)

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POLITICS

The South’s victim complex: How right-wing paranoia is driving new wave of radicals—New wingnut pols may be laughed at as they enter Washington, D.C. But here’s why their anger is deadly serious (Salon)

Mitt Romney’s Latest Excuse for His 47 Percent Remarks Is a Doozy: You won’t believe who he’s blaming now. (Mother Jones)

Home-Grown, Right-Wing Terrorism: The Hate the GOP Refuses to See (The Daily Beast)

Report: Secret Service Agent Leaked Obama Locations To Romney Campaign In 2012 (Talking Points Memo)

Court Strikes Down GOP-Backed Voting Restrictions In North Carolina (Huffington Post)

10 red states that mooch off the federal government: Republicans claim they’ve had it with American socialism. Maybe they should return the tax dollars subsidizing them (Salon/AlterNet)

GOP war on black voters quietly re-ignites: New ploys show it’s not just ancient history
How the long history of Southern states trying to disenfranchise African-Americans got an ugly new boost this month (Salon)

Rick Perry Cites Joan Rivers’ Death In Defense Of Controversial Anti-Abortion Law (Huffington Post)

GOPer Can’t Vote In Arkansas After Clerk Finds She Registered In Other States (Talking Points Memo)

State rep candidate voted in Illinois and Wisconsin (Sun Times)

Excerpt:                                                                                                                              Republican Kathy Myalls is urging voters to elect her to a seat in the Illinois State Legislature.

But will she vote for herself?

It’s a fair question, since records show Myalls has voted in both Illinois and Wisconsin in recent years.

In one case, she cast a vote in a primary election in Illinois. Then just three months later, records show she voted in Wisconsin to cast a ballot in the state’s recall election. The effort was aimed largely at recalling Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — someone with whom Myalls is pictured on her Facebook page. Myalls then voted in Wisconsin’s presidential general election in 2012 before returning to Illinois to vote the following spring.

When asked about her vote in the Walker recall, Myalls said in a phone interview:

“No. I don’t think I did,” she said. “I don’t think they canceled my registration up in Fontana. And that may be what you’re seeing. They didn’t automatically cancel it.”

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FINANCIAL NEWS

Goldman Sachs Said to Prohibit Bankers From Buying Stocks (Bloomberg)

Reports: Regulators deferred to Goldman Sachs (USA Today)

Maryland Shift of Pension Cash to Wall Street Delivered Below-Median Results: Study (International Business Times)

Wall Street’s new jackpot at taxpayers’ expense: A quarter of all pension funds are now tied up in private equity, and the public is getting hosed on its investment (Salon)

Christie’s Pension Overseer Invested New Jersey Money In Fund He Is Linked To Privately (International Business Times)

A public pension jackpot — for Wall Street (SFGate)

Excerpt:                                                                                                                                        Most consumers understand that when you pay an above-market premium, you shouldn’t expect to get a below-average product. Why, then, is this principle often ignored when it comes to managing billions of dollars in public pension systems?

This is one of the most significant questions facing states and cities as they struggle to meet their contractual obligations to public employees. In recent years, public officials have shifted more of those workers’ pension money into private equity, hedge funds, venture capital and other so-called “alternative investments.” In all, the National Association of State Retirement Administrators reports that roughly a quarter of all pension funds are now in these alternative investments — a tripling in just 12 years.

Those investments are managed by private financial firms, which charge special fees that pension systems do not pay when they invest in stock index funds and bonds. The idea is that paying those fees — which can amount to hundreds of millions of dollars a year — will be worth it, because the alternative investments will supposedly deliver higher returns than low-fee stock index funds like the S&P 500.

Unfortunately, while these alternative investments have delivered a fee jackpot to Wall Street firms, they have often delivered poor returns, meaning the public is paying a premium for a subpar product.

Too Big to Punish (Truthdig)

Excerpt:                                                                                                                                              A few months ago, in a press conference about the felony conviction of Credit Suisse, Attorney General Eric Holder said, “This case shows that no financial institution, no matter its size or global reach, is above the law.”

Yet, earlier this month, the Obama administration announced its proposal to waive some of the possible sanctions against Credit Suisse. The little-noticed waiver, which was outlined in the Federal Register, comes amid criticism that the Obama administration has gone too easy on major financial institutions that break the law.

In its announcement outlining the waiver, the Department of Labor notes that Credit Suisse “operated an illegal cross-border banking business that knowingly and willfully aided and assisted thousands of U.S. clients in opening and maintaining undeclared accounts” and in “using sham entities” to hide money.

Under existing Department of Labor rules, the conviction could prevent Credit Suisse from being designated a Qualified Professional Asset Manager. That designation exempts firms from other federal laws, giving them the special status required to do business with many pension funds. The Obama administration’s is proposing to waive those anti-criminal sanctions against Credit Suisse, thereby allowing Credit Suisse to get the QPAM designation needed to continue its pension business.

The waiver proposal follows a larger pattern. In June, Bloomberg News reported that federal prosecutors have successfully pushed U.S. government agencies to allow Credit Suisse to avoid many regulatory sanctions that could have accompanied its criminal conviction.

 

CLIMATE/POLLUTION/ENVIRONMENT

The World Spewed More Carbon Pollution Into The Air Last Year Than Ever Before (Huffington Post/AP)

Excerpt:                                                                                                                         WASHINGTON (AP) — Spurred chiefly by China, the United States and India, the world spewed far more carbon pollution into the air last year than ever before, scientists announced Sunday as world leaders gather to discuss how to reduce heat-trapping gases.
The world pumped an estimated 39.8 billion tons (36.1 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide into the air last year by burning coal, oil and gas. That is 778 million tons (706 metric tons) or 2.3 percent more than the previous year.

Climate Science Is Settled Enough: The Wall Street Journal’s fresh face of climate inaction. (Slate)

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HERE & THERE

Cop Allegedly Shot Unarmed Man Parked In His Own Driveway (Huffington Post)

Ted Nugent Slams ‘Ferguson Thugs’ And The ‘Plague Of Black Violence’ (Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/02/ted-nugent-thugs_n_5923204.html

Tennessee Man Demonstrates Open Carry Near School Wearing Rifle (Talking Points Memo)

CNN Does Not Get to Cherrypick the Rules of Journalism: The news is evolving. Old media is not evolving with it. (Esquire)

Fox ‘The Five’ Co-Hosts Greg Gutfeld And Eric Bolling Crack Sexist Jokes About Maj. Mariam Al Mansouri (Huffington Post)

Holder Backs Suit in New York Faulting Legal Service for Poor (New York Times)

Excerpt:                                                                                                                              WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who last year declared a crisis in America’s legal-defense system for the poor, is supporting a class-action lawsuit that accuses Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the State of New York of perpetuating a system that violates the rights of people who cannot afford to hire lawyers.
The lawsuit claims that public defenders in New York are so overworked and overmatched that poor people essentially receive no legal defense at all. It describes a system in which indigent defendants navigate courts nearly alone, relying on spotty advice from lawyers who do not have the time or money to investigate their cases or advise them properly.

Because of substandard legal aid, children are taken from their parents, defendants in minor cases are jailed for long periods and people are imprisoned for crimes for which they might have been acquitted, the civil rights lawyers who filed the suit said.