The elder Jesse Jackson has grown wealthy these past couple decades mainly by shaking down corporations. One of his sons, former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill. (see photo), has preferred a different path to wealth: his campaign till. That path is now leading to federal prison. On Wednesday, February 20, the younger Jackson, who served nine terms in Congress before resigning last November 21, pleaded guilty in District of Columbia federal court to diverting about $750,000 in re-election funds to personal use. Jackson, who since last June has been hospitalized twice at the Mayo Clinic for bipolar disorder and other problems, told U.S. District Judge Robert L. Wilkins that in pleading guilty to wire and mail fraud, he had "no interest in wasting the taxpayers' time or money." His wife, Sandi, until recently a Chicago city alderwoman, hours later pled guilty to a related tax fraud charge.
College loan debt has become a red-flag issue rivaling that of home mortgage debt a half-decade ago. Ironically, the White House, like Congress, in the haste to avert disaster, might create it. President Obama's Fiscal Year 2014 budget includes a plan to 
Nobody doubts for an instant that rebuilding the New Jersey coastline in the wake of Hurricane Sandy will be costly. But a little over two weeks ago Republican Governor Chris Christie took a step that should make it a good deal less so. On April 15, 
Thomas Perez embodies ethnic identity radicalism. Whether the U.S. Senate has the courage to challenge him is yet unknown. President Obama today 
Hurricane Sandy did about $30 billion of property damage to New Jersey communities late last October. And construction unions and their political supporters aren't about to let a good crisis go to waste. In mid-January 
That the cost of higher education is escalating is hardly news, least of all to families who borrow to pay for it. Less understood is that the relative ease of availability of college loans is a major reason for those rising costs - and resulting defaults. Late in January, FICO Labs, a San Jose, Calif.-based credit research company, 
The National Labor Relations Board may be inoperative at present. Yet one of its rulings last month, unless undone, will curtail a longstanding right of employers and individual workers. On December 12, in WKYC-TV Inc., 
When is a presidential recess appointment less than an appointment? It would seem when Congress isn't in recess. This Friday morning, January 25, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia 
The increasing overlap of labor and political activism is an insidious form of public corruption in this country. It enables union officials to deemphasize their role of representing workers at the bargaining table in favor of advocating policies to socialize the economy, building incestuous relationships with politicians, and fattening their bank accounts. This tendency was heavily felt in 2012, a presidential election year. Union leaders recognized the need to re-elect their ally and benefactor, President Barack Obama, over someone a wealthy Republican with a strong business background; i.e., someone they truly could despise. They got what they wanted. In the process, they further built a political infrastructure. Yet union leaders also experienced reversals of fortune at the state level - most of all, in Michigan - where they had been used to getting their way.
A presidential re-election typically triggers a cabinet reshuffling. The U.S. Department of Labor is now part of the process. On Wednesday afternoon, January 9, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis 
