A report by the New America Foundation details the systematic undermining of the financial aid system by colleges and universities who are using financial aid to attract wealthy students rather than open doors for poorer ones, forcing poorer students to either not attend or take on high debt burdens.

Right after the primary for the Massachusetts special Senate race a few polls found that Republican Gabriel Gomez within striking distance of Democratic Ed Markey, but new polling shows Markey with a much more comfortable lead.

After handing out trillions of dollars to Wall Street – which we only know about due to a Bloomberg News lawsuit the Fed fought – the Federal Reserve announced victims of fraudulent foreclosure practices were being shortchanged.

House Republicans have a problem. They have trapped themselves in a no man’s land of political hostage taking.

Defense Secretary Hagel recently responded to a report that stated that sexual assaults in the military jumped by more than one-third since 2010 by offering changes to how the Department of Defense handles sexual abuse.

In a rare hearing held by leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), members displayed interest in providing oversight to national security policies and heard testimony on drone operations abroad, drone technology, executive and congressional authority for “targeted killings,” how strikes go beyond what is permitted under international human rights law and dangerous precedents being set by the United States government’s drone policies and program.

❖ “Japanese Movement Against TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] Growing”. They understand the threat to Japan–including their health care system–but some believe it will collapse under its own weight, including in the US because of state’s rights.

❖ Ta-daaaaaah. Teva Pharmaceutical Industry comes to the aid of other industries with a pill for shift workers: Nuvigil for “Wakefulness, and Shift Work Disorder”. And wait’ll you see the side-effects.

❖ Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has introduced her first bill, making student loan rates the same as loan rates for the big banks. This on the day we learn that Boston University (among many others) uses “financial aid to lure rich students while shortchanging the poor, forcing those most in need to take on heavy debt.”

❖ What the ACLU got after it requested info on surveillance of text messages.

James DeMint resigned from the Senate (as a representative of South Carolina) some months ago — so he could get a big pay raise to be the head of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

What better place to be rewarded with seven-figures at a think tank, when this is your big thought.

Nina Simone — Ain’t Got No… I’ve Got Life, at the Harlem Cultural Festival, 1969.

Pepe is right (again) when he concludes that the Partitioning of Syria has been the Neo/Ziocon’s main objective all along. Divide et Impera…!