Privatization mania is wreaking havoc on our society. Case in point: what's happened over the past few decades with prison phone services.

It used to be that if you were an inmate at, say, the state penitentiary or the local jail you could call your family collect for as little as $4 an hour. But then, states began signing contracts with private phone companies like AT&T, who, in turn, began charging sky-high rates for phone calls between prisoners and their families.

A 15-minute phone call that used to cost just a few bucks soon started costing as much as $17, which is a lot to ask from inmates who have little to no income or from their families, who often live in poverty.

Of course, while prisoners struggled to find a way to talk to their loved ones without breaking the bank, the phone companies got -- and have stayed -- very, very rich. The prison phone service industry now rakes in around $1.2 billion every year. And it's not just the phone companies that are getting rich off prisoners' phone calls.

Thanks to so-called "commissions" that can account for as much as 94 percent of the cost of a call, prison phone contracts have become a major source of revenue for state and local governments all across the country.

These glorified kickbacks have also become a source of revenue for prisons themselves, and they use them to pay for the healthcare and food services they're already constitutionally required to provide.

In other words, like pretty much every other case of privatization over the past few decades, the rise of private prison phone contracts has nothing to do with "efficiency" or "improving services" and has everything do with making a quick buck for some crony capitalist with a bunch of Republican friends in Congress..

 

Read more here.

 

-Thom

  

Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 10pm... Baltimore Police Admit They Are Part of the Problem (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT or Free Speech TV, and catch past shows on Youtube)

 

Be sure to check out our newest video: RESTORATION - narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio & Thom Hartmann, directed by Leila Conners / Visit GreenWorldRising.org to check out all the videos: CARBON, LAST HOURS & GREEN WORLD RISING - narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio & Thom Hartmann, directed by Leila Conners

 

 

Big Picture Rumble Panel:
- Scott Greer, The Daily Caller    
- TJ Helmstetter, Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC)    
- Kris Ullman, Conservative Commentator/Activist  

 

Best of the Rest: Baltimore Police Admit They Are Part of the Problem
- Rev. Lennox Yearwood, The Hip Hop Caucus    

 

Screwed: The French Patriot Act Exposed!
- Shahid Buttar, Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC)    

 

 

 

Community Square  

 "Nellie Bly Message Still Prevalent Today"  

Wednesday's Daily Stack 

Article: "Hillary just took a stunningly aggressive stance on immigration reform" by Dara Lind.

Article: "Military Lied! Jade Helm is Training to Kill Patriots, Gun Owners, Dissidents! National Guard Labels Americans as "Enemy" or "Adversaries!" The Biggest Build up of Military on U.S. Soil Taking Place Right in Front of Us!" by Lisa Haven.

Article: "Louie Gohmert Sounds The Alarm About Possible Military Takeover Of Texas" by Catherine Thompson.

Article: "Bread and Circuses" by Dictionary.com.

Article: "How $1.4 billion in budget cuts will impact Veterans" by VA.

Article: "My husband and I are being sued for being homosexuals" by Steven Payne.

Article: "Jade Helm: The Conspiracy Theory That's Divided Texas Politicians" by Taylor Wofford.

Article: "Conservatives Keep Pouring Fuel On The Texas Takeover Fire" by Catherine Thompson.

Article: "First Amendment to the United States Constitution".

Article: "2nd Amendment". A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Article: "US trade deficit jumps to $51.4 bn in March" by AFP.

Article: "Quarterly Update: Foreign Ownership of U.S. Assets" by Dinah Walker.

Article: "Sanders Files Bill to Break Up Big Banks" by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Article: "Bernie Sanders Says More Than 200,000 People Have Signed Up to Help His White House Bid" by David Weigel.

Article: "Shoes for Industry" by Firesign Theatre.

Article: "Sheriffs Threaten Retaliation If The Price Of Prisoner Phone Calls Is Regulated" by Alice Ollstein.

Hour Two: How Corporate America Invented Christian America
- Prof. Kevin M. Kruse, One Nation Under God/Princeton University  

Article: "57 Percent of Republicans want to Overthrow the Government" by bluntandcranky.

Quote: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people" - Karl Marx".

Speech: "Farewell Address", by Dwight David Eisenhower, January 17, 1961 (transcript).

Article: "Republican Party Platform of 1956", August 20, 1956.

 

Book: "The Prophet's Way" by Thom Hartmann.

Book: "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Revised and Updated: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Chipper (tobacco)" (chipping) by Wikipedia.

Article: "F.E.C. Can't Curb 2016 Election Abuse, Commission Chief Says" by Eric Lichtblau.

Article: "Yellen Says Stock Valuations Are 'Quite High,' Bond Yields Low" by Jeff Kearns, Jeanna Smialek.

Article: "For Top 25 Hedge Fund Managers, a Difficult 2014 Still Paid Well" by Alexandra Stevenson.

Article: "The Danger of American Fascism" by Henry A. Wallace.

Case: "Buckley v. Valeo", 1976.

Article: "Bill De Blasio plans 'Contract with America' for left" by Mike Allen.

Article: "This one-of-a-kind mini-mall in Portland is a vegan paradise".

Article: "High-Profile Tennessee Republicans Lash Out at Koch Brothers Group: 'We're Aggravated By It'" by Zaid Jilani.

Case: "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission" (2010).

Site: The Commercial Club of Chicago.

Article: "Rauner to Council: State can't 'bail out Chicago'" by Fran Spielman and Tina Sfondeles.

Article: "George Romney: Braver than Mitt" by Alex Pareene.

 

Talk Radio News Segment:
- Luke Vargas 

Site: "Goats for the old Goat".

Article: "TRNS News Notes- 5/6" by Victoria Jones.

Article: "TRNS News Notes- 5/5" by Victoria Jones.

Article: "U.K. votes 2015: Scotland's separatists could be kingmakers" by Nahlah Ayed.

Article: "'Why we want the Tories out': Ordinary people in Austerity Britain write moving open letter" by Jeremy Armstrong.

Article: "Benjamin Netanyahu Forms Israeli Government Minutes Before Deadline" by Jodi Rudoren.

Article: "Lawmakers back spy bill dubbed 'French Patriot Act'" by AFP.

Article: "Bill De Blasio plans 'Contract with America' for left" by Mike Allen.

Article: "Debt-Free College is Doable" by Mark Huelsman.

Article: "Poll Of Likely 2016 Voters" by GBA Strategies on behalf of the Progressive Change Institute.

Book: "Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country" by Thom Hartmann (read online).

Book: "Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country" by Thom Hartmann.

Site: Mondragon Corporation

Article: "Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement" (TPP) by EFF.

Video: Why Is Obama Pushing The TPP?.

Letter: "to Edgar Newton Eisenhower, November 8, 1954" by Dwight Eisenhower. "Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

Site: Killed By Police.

Video: Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine, 1961.

Article: "Salt-Water Fish Extinction Seen By 2048" by Daniel DeNoon, November 2, 2006.

Event: London, 22-26 June, 2015: "Saving the World From Extinction - How To Create A World That Works For All" With Thom Hartmann and special guests.

Article: "Report: USDA agency kills 2.7 million wild animals in 2014".

Article: "Sanders hires Obama digital veterans for 2016" by Julie Pace.

Article: "New Democrats win Alberta election as Canada's oil sands dump conservatives" by Reuters.

Book:"Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else" by Chrystia Freeland.

Site: Chrystia Freeland, MP.

Article: "Bernanke chooses hedge fund for first post-Fed job" by Sam Fleming.

Article: "The Financial Markets Now Control Everything" by Tyler Durden.

Article: "The Century of the Self" by Adam Curtis.

Article: "The Power of Nightmares" by Adam Curtis.

Video: The Mayfair Set ( Episode 1: "Who Pays Wins") - Adam Curtis.

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