Posts

Welfare program for laid-off workers doesn’t work; renewed anyway

By Yaël Ossowski | Watchdog.org A billion-dollar welfare program to help laid-off workers displaced by foreign competition has been saved from extinction, even though it’s been judged ineffective and wasteful according to the federal government’s own commissioned studies. Flexing his bipartisan muscle, President Obama signed the bill Monday renewing the Trade Adjustment Assistance program until 2021, which gives welfare payments and training to workers who…

Read More

Deval Patrick’s travel slush fund no longer secret

By Yaël Ossowski | Watchdog.org If your governor had a secret travel slush fund worth tens of millions of dollars used to jet set to Japan, Israel and the United Arab Emirates, wouldn’t you want to know about it? That’s the question put to Massachusetts residents this week after revelations former Gov. Deval Patrick used off-the-record bookkeeping to conceal more than $37.5 million driven to…

Read More

‘Another sad day for Connecticut’ as $2 billion tax hike set to pass

By Yaël Ossowski  / June 1, 2015  / Watchdog.org He once promised to balance Connecticut’s books through spending cuts alone. Now Gov. Dannel Malloy says he’s ready to OK a nearly $2 billion tax increase no later than June 3, when the legislative session ends. A new budget, passed by the Democratic supermajority on Monday, will raise the state’s top tax bracket to 6.99 percent,…

Read More

Speech in Plovdiv, Bulgaria

On Saturday, 23. May I gave a speech at an event organized by my friend and European Students For Liberty Chairman Stoyan Panchev in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. It was my speech on Free Immigration: Defending the Right to Live and Work Anywhere and Everywhere. Plovdiv was the 5th city and Bulgaria the 4th country I’ve given this speech in.

At education summit, opponents protest success of charter schools in New Orleans

By Yaël Ossowski | Watchdog.org Charter schools in New Orleans have enjoyed growing popular support over the years, but at least one group is hoping to quell the praise for reforms. The Dignity in Schools Campaign, a nonprofit group against zero-tolerance behavior policies in schools, brought their protest signs to the American Federation for Children Policy Summit held in New Orleans over the weekend to…

Read More

DISH CEO Charlie Ergen flooded GOP with cash while it held FCC

By Yaël Ossowski | Watchdog.org Anywhere the wind blows in politics, the money is sure to follow. As for DISH Network CEO Charles Ergen, a top political financier in the U.S. wireless broadcast game and regulation, it hasn’t just been a one-sided venture. Reported by Watchdog.org on Monday, Ergen’s hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations to top Democratic leaders, those who lobbied the FCC…

Read More