On Tuesday dark money front Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance will get back into the voter suppression business by hosting a forum featuring Hans von Spakovsky. Could this be the same Hans von Spakovsky found by a federal district court to be not at all credible as an “expert” on voter fraud? Why yes, it is that…
Massachusetts Parents United, National Parents Union, and the Christian Right
Two of the important props of the far right in America are Christian conservatives and economic royalists like the Waltons and Charles Koch. Those ties are becoming evident in school privatization including in financial support the Massachusetts Parents United has offered to a Christian right group and in National Parents Union’s funding from a Koch-Walton…
The Baker-Teachers Union Battle Traces Back to 2016
Could the current conflict between Governor Charlie Baker and the teachers unions over vaccinations be traced back to the charter schools ballot question in 2016? The Boston Globe raises that question in a story today by Adam Vaccaro, Baker, teachers unions trade barbs as educators seek quicker vaccines or delay to full school openings. Here…
National Parents Union: Turmoil at the Top
National Parents Union, funded by the Waltons, Charles Koch, and other oligarchs has churned its leadership in one year so much that it deepens questions about NPU’s legitimacy. Two sets of boards of directors and the departure of a co-founder and board member will do that. Two boards? Yep. When you visit the National Parents…
Rhode Island: Dark Money Backs “Parents Group” for More Charter Schools
The following was posted first on Diane Ravitch’s Blog, and you can find the original here. I’ll only add that it is not uncommon today to find ostensibly “grassroots parent groups” that suddenly find themselves awash in hundreds of thousands of dollars in dark money. Also, if the Boston Globe can have a Rhode Island…
Let’s Try to Help Massachusetts Parents United with “Transparency”
Last week I was mentioned in a news story as leading the charge to scrutinize the funding behind politically active “foundation-backed groups, particularly Massachusetts Parents United.” I need to live up to my press clippings because there is more to the story of Massachusetts Parents United. The mention came in Shira Schoenberg’s excellent Getting a…
MassGOP: The Party of Lincoln, Ignorant of Lincoln
What do you call a political party that claims to be “the Party of Lincoln” but has no knowledge or understanding of Abraham Lincoln and no interest in learning? You call it the Massachusetts Republican Party. The other day the state party sent out an email commemorating Lincoln’s birthday: Well, yeah, I agree we would…
Mass Fiscal Goes RINO Hunting for Charlie Baker
“Bring me the head of David Ismay!” cried out Paul Craney, and it was so. And thus an early skirmish in the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance’s campaign to hunt down and kill off RINO Charlie Baker ended in a decisive rout for the dark money front Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance. Ismay was Governor Baker’s undersecretary for climate…
Is the Guv in Trouble?
Seems like dissatisfaction with Governor Baker is getting a lot of media attention lately. Of course, my view might be off since my Boston Globe subscription lapsed and I’m resisting renewal because their education rate sucks. Thank God for Commonwealth Magazine. Pardon the digression. Anyway, the vaccine roll out in Massachusetts has had some hiccups…
Abuse of Power is Fueled by Abuse of Context
The difference between reasonable and unreasonable analysis or argument can very often be found in the treatment of context. The University of Iowa Law Professor who wrote the NYT op-ed published yesterday arguing that “Democrats have been shameless about your presidential vote too” clearly understood that he was playing fast and loose with context. He…