Word: reformer
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...which oversees the agencies, passed new rules to inject more transparency into the ratings process and to better mediate conflicts of interest. But those rules were severely watered down from what the SEC had proposed the summer before and subsequently dismissed by people who had been hoping for genuine reform. (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis...
...become enshrined in countless laws and private contracts; ratings are a key yardstick in how state and federal regulators determine the safety of banks, insurance companies, money-market mutual funds and other parts of the financial system. Over the summer, the SEC proposed some rules that would start the reform movement at home, undoing the agency's own dependence on the ratings agencies. (Read "A Brief History Of: Ratings Agencies...
...idea of "common schools" that adopt the same curriculum and standards isn't new. It first arose in the 1840s, largely owing to the influence of the reformer Horace Mann. But the U.S. Constitution leaves public education to the states, and the states devolve much of the authority to local school districts, of which there are now more than 13,000 in the U.S. The Federal Government provides less than 9% of the funding for K-12 schools. That is why it has proved impossible thus far to create common curriculum standards nationwide. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush summoned...
...years, much in the way that conservative governors like Palin, Jindal and South Carolina's Mark Sanford were attacked (in some cases by their own base) for threatening to reject - and in Sanford's case actually rejecting - some of Washington's stimulus dollars. As Congress takes up health-care reform, the party will face a similar dilemma about how best to challenge Democrats over an issue on which most Americans are expecting more, not less, help from Washington...
...that the embargo gives Obama and the U.S. as much leverage as they might think. What Obama will find in Trinidad is that the embargo is "the single most unpopular policy in the hemisphere," says Erikson. And with or without democratic reform, Cuba is being brought back into the Latin American fold; last year it was invited into the Rio Group, one of the region's major organizations. Still, Erikson adds, most of Latin America has a positive impression of Obama, which will make it harder for the Castros to ignore or even rebuff his overtures. "They recognize that Obama...