Bill Moyers profiles Wendell Berry, one of America's most influential writers, on an edition of his show Moyers & Company, which will be available on local public television stations starting on October 4, 2013.
DBA Press releases an additional 1,784 pages of Phoenix Police Department Homeland Defense Bureau (PPDHDB) records pertaining to Occupy Phoenix and other Phoenix area activist groups.
-- by Ron Seely, Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
Prions -- the infectious, deformed proteins that cause chronic wasting disease in deer -- can be taken up by plants such as alfalfa, corn and tomatoes, according to new research from the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison.
The data is in and K12 Inc.'s brand of full-time public "cyber school" is garbage. Not surprising for an educational model kicked off with a $10 million investment from junk-bond king Michael Milken.
Some interesting emails were released as part of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's ongoing investigation of a $500,000 taxpayer grant awarded to the Koch-tied United Sportsmen's group. The grant was tailor-made for United Sportsmen and slipped into the budget by State Representative Scott Suder as one of his last acts as a state legislator. (Suder, who also served as ALEC's Wisconsin State Chair, was given a new job at the Public Utilities Commission and a $45,000 pay raise by Governor Scott Walker.)
This week CMD launched a new web resource, OutsourcingAmericaExposed, where we will detail the privatizers and profiteers selling out our democracy. The website will be populated with "rap sheets" or corporate profiles of America's top outsourcing companies.
-- by Joshua Frank
Snow drifts arc along the Interstate as a frigid wind rips through this austere landscape of western North Dakota. The scene is something out of a colorful and lonely C.M. Russell painting. If it weren't for the long line of semi-trucks backed up along Highway 85, leading into the nearby rural enclave of Williston, you may not have any idea there is something huge going on in this remote region that straddles Montana's eastern-most border.
-- by Rebekah Wilce and Mary Bottari
Since the 2008 financial crisis, cash strapped states have accelerated the outsourcing of America in hopes of delivering the same services more cheaply. "Desperate government is our best customer," said one executive specializing in infrastructure purchases.
Earlier this year, DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy launched an investigation of the influence of the private prison industry on state policies. The review of public records this summer revealed a surprising connection between Arizona Department of Gaming Director Mark Brnovich and the Corrections Corporation of America. In the midst of this story being written, Brnovich announced he would be leaving his post in state gaming regulation, which paves the way for him to seek the post of state Attorney General.
Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has taken the unprecedented step of asserting that a state legislator cannot be held accountable for refusing to disclose public records in response to a lawful open records request by the Center for Media and Democracy.
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