The three interest groups pushing to undermine the Massachusetts senate’s education funding bill are all Walton funded, two of them essentially full-time agents of the Waltons. They have to solve a problem for the right-wing Wal-Mart heirs: not that funding public education might fail, but that it will succeed. The Waltons, who contributed over $2…
Category: dark money
Headline: Arkansas Billionaires Fight to Change Massachusetts Education Policy
“Arkansas Billionaires Fight to Change Massachusetts Education Policy.” Interesting headline, and true. No Walton family of Arkansas, no Massachusetts Parents United. No Walton family of Arkansas, no Democrats for Education Reform of Massachusetts. It’s that simple. But the Boston Globe and MassLive, among others, simply ignore that fact. It’s the politics of pretending. Readers deserve…
Special Climate Strike Day Edition of Dark Money
From Jane Mayer, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, pp. 205, 207, study by Dr. Robert Brulle: Mayer climate change denialism
CommonWealthMagazine Answers Reader Questions
Last week I posed a Reader Question to CommonwealthMagazine and lo and behold, CW answered the question. I wondered if online polls (CW had a story on one) are reliable. And the answer, according to CW’s Steve Koczela and Rich Parr, is yes. I recommend Koczela and Parr’s Polling, like everything else, is moving online…
Koch, Kennedy, Did I Miss Anything Else?
David Koch died, Congressman Joseph Kennedy announced he’s looking at a race to unseat Senator Edward Markey in a Democratic primary – did I miss anything else? The devastation of Hurricane Dorian and increasingly unstable weather patterns as climate change presses upon us serve as miserable reminders of the political legacy of David Koch. He…
Stand Falls: Public School Privatization Front Stand for Children Abandons Massachusetts
In 2011 Stand for Children CEO Jonah Edelman boasted to the Aspen Ideas Festival of a legislative win over unions in Chicago, crowing that Stand had been able to “jam this proposal down their throats.” He won’t be invited back to brag on Boston. Last Friday Edelman announced that Stand for Children would abandon Massachusetts….
The Boston Globe’s Latest “Bold Types.” Or, How New England Aquarium Learned to Love Koch Industries
The Boston Globe’s latest “Bold Types” entry sponsored by Koch Industries is out and the phrase “jumped the shark” may need to be retired. The climate denying Koch Brothers paying for a puff piece with the ocean hugging CEO of New England Aquarium? On Tuesday afternoon I scrolled down my phone onto the home page…
Answering that DFER Candidate Questionnaire: Are You for Dark Money, or Are You for Democracy?
Municipal candidates are busy filling out questionnaires from interest groups including one from Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts. I can help with that one because there’s only one real question: do you stand for dark money in politics, or will you fight for democracy? Dark money is vast sums poured into a front organization from…
The Boston Globe-Barr Foundation Marriage and the Rise of Philanthro-Interest Group Journalism
The announcement last week of the $600,000 grant from the Barr Foundation to the Boston Globe was presented as a public spirited philanthropy offering the Globe the means to research our education system’s failures and report back on how to fix them. It is not. It is the dawn of philanthro-interest group journalism. That’s a…
Masslive Misfires on Editorial on Massachusetts Parents United of Arkansas
Back on June 10 Masslive.com ran an editorial titled Meet the Newest Education Union: Parents which turned out not to be about education or unions at all but about the WalMart-heir front Massachusetts Parents United of Arkansas. Helpful as always I sent an op-ed to Masslive setting the record straight but they paid no attention….