“Education Reform by WalMart” isn’t going to win any awards for marketing slogans so instead the Waltons weaponize their philanthropic dollars by underwriting fronts like Massachusetts Parents United, Educators for Excellence, and Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts. Here are the latest dollar figures. How about $500,000 to Massachusetts Parents United? Remember their creation story, where…
Category: dark money
DFER Massachusetts’ Policy Luncheon: Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain!
Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts had a policy conference Wednesday to tout a report it did comparing schools in Boston and Lawrence. It’s a great case study on how wealthy philanthrocapitalists are able to set the agenda on issues. It was timely too because in the morning I was re-reading a book chapter by Aaron…
MassFiscal Makes the Boston Globe’s Hypocrites Hall of Fame
The honors keep rolling in for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance which was named today to the Boston Globe’s Hypocrite’s Hall of Fame. It’s not as prestigious as MassFiscal’s Award for Fraud in Massachusetts Politics in 2015, but it shows MFA is still on the bottom of its game. The Globe editorial board took notice when…
Waltons Well Represented at FBRC Hearing
The political capacity for pretending something is what it is not amazes. Take yesterday’s FBRC hearing. Families for Excellent Schools would have been there but for it collapsing in corruption but FES’s funders, especially the Walton family of WalMart bucks were well represented by fronts like Massachusetts Parents United, Democrats for Education Reform, Stand for…
The Pioneer Institute, the Kochs, and Voter Disenfranchisement in Massachusetts
Last Monday in CommonwealthMagazine the Pioneer Institute proposed Massachusetts Tie state funding to school committee seats, partially disenfranchising poor and minority communities. I critiqued the proposal as The Beamer vs. Beater Theory of Democracy. If you’re driving a Beamer you get full voting rights. If you’re driving a beater the state takes away your right…
Dinner with Cupid: Matching the Boston Globe with Teachers the Editors Can Romance
The Boston Globe yearns for a more submissive teachers union. Its Sunday editorial Time for a Reset on Education Funding included a call for the Massachusetts Teachers Association to acquiesce and “If not, perhaps a group of teachers who don’t share MTA’s combative mentality could contribute some constructive ideas.” Who could the Globe have in…
A Must Read Piece on MassFiscal from Andy Metzger at CommonwealthMagazine
Compliments to Andy Metzger of CommonwealthMagazine on Fact Checking New Poll on Voter Tax Attitudes, his story today on Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance’s “poll.” The story includes information that a professional political analyst would see and serves the lay reader very well. Let’s get into the good stuff. A group that generally sees eye-to-eye with Republican…
Picking Winners and Losers in Boston’s “Public” Schools: the Un-Virtuous Cycle
This week’s two Boston Globe stories on “public” schools in Boston prompted yesterday’s post Boston: Two Different “Public” School Systems? An article by Tom Edsall on The “Rotten Equilibrium” of the Republican Party illuminates some further aspects of how the city’s Oligarchs pick winners and losers in the schools. A brief summary of the post…
Can Eugene McCain, Dark Money Slots Parlor Impresario Turned Weed Dealer, Snooker Small Towns Rubes?
On December 27 the Globe’s Stephanie Ebbert wrote a fascinating piece about dark money practitioner Eugene McCain’s conversion from front for suspect gambling interests to upright small town weed dealer. What could go wrong, right Holyoke and Lee? To boil down Ms. Ebbert’s story, McCain is seeking pot licenses to operate in Lee and Holyoke…
Naming Rights: How Should the Media Describe Dark Money Groups?
One coverage issue the local media should be reconsidering is how to describe dark and gray money political advocacy groups – operations like Democrats for Education Reform, Massachusetts Parents United, Stand for Children, and the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance. The number one issue citizens should know in considering the positions of such groups is, who is…