In the world of dark money, things are never what they seem. So as the Democrats try to pick a presidential nominee is it a surprise that the Waltons and Charles Koch (?) are funding front operations to influence the process, disrupting an Elizabeth Warren speech, forming an anti-union “union”, and trying to nudge the party toward its corporate wing?
There are transparent signs of right wing involvement so far, the Warren speech disruption and the formation of the National Parents Union but what about the half (Maybe 3?) way? That would be The Welcome Party which is harder to assess because it is hiding its funding source. But we can make some inferences.
I wrote Walton Family Political Front Disrupts Elizabeth Warren Speech back in November just as several usually stealthy billionaires went public bemoaning how unfair her 2 percent wealth tax is to them. The front group the Waltons funded was tax deductible to America’s richest family. My conclusion:
When the Waltons push charter schools, what they really mean is lower state and local taxes on Wal-Mart. When the Waltons try to shout down Elizabeth Warren, it’s about the wealth tax. The Waltons do all this with tax deductible political fronts. Taxes, taxes, taxes.
As for National Parents Union it’s a Walton and Koch funded (?) operation designed to undermine unions in the Democratic Party, as I wrote in Waltons Dive into Democratic Primaries Behind National Parents Union. See more on the faux NPU here, here, and here. But I neglected something and here it is, from an NPU board member’s bio:
Gerard Robinson is the Executive Director of the Center for Advancing Opportunity (CAO), a Washington, D.C.-based research and education initiative created by a partnership with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, the Charles Koch Foundation and Koch Industries.
Charles Koch has a seat on the board of National Parents Union. How does that happen? Most likely Koch has substantial money invested in NPU.
I don’t want to leave National Parents Union without noting the latest fiasco in its right wing rollout, an interview of NPU’s founders with the Heartland Institute, a dark money front most well-known for tobacco industry shilling and climate denial. Heartland president Joseph Bast once testified in Texas in favor of school vouchers. The court found Bast claimed to be an economist but had only a high school degree. Also:
Mr. Bast testified that he is 100% committed to the long-term goal of getting government out of the business of educating its own voting citizens. . . . his admission that the long term goal of his advocacy of vouchers is to dismantle the “socialist” public education system further undermine his credibility with the Court.
As to the half involvement, welcome The Welcome Party, now operating in New Hampshire and South Carolina. I can’t say this is a Walton funded operation because I just don’t know. It’s dark money and if the true source of the money is ever revealed it won’t be soon. I asked on Twitter a few weeks ago and had a very nice exchange with The Welcome Party president Liam Kerr but I came away with the impression that I wasn’t going to find out who the funders are. Nor are the voters.
But there’s half a chance (at least) the funding is from the Waltons. Kerr is head of Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts and DFER funder Education Reform Now is one-third underwritten by the Waltons—and historically funded by a grab-bag of right-wing radicals, oligarchs, conservatives, and libertarians including Rupert Murdoch. DFER MA shifts money around to hide the fact that its Democratic sounding affiliates like the Advancing Obama’s Legacy on Charter Schools ballot committee are Walton funded.
Democracy requires trust. No matter what good intentions a political operation proclaims, dark money groups are bad for democracy and just now democracy needs all the friends it can get. When we hear a political pitch we need to know who is really speaking to us and what their interest might be. How can we trust what we’re hearing when piles of dark money are hiding the true speakers?
Money never sleeps. Follow the money. Ask questions. As a citizen you deserve answers.
“So the nut of what happened tonight in ATL is that a pro-charter group funded by the Waltons protested a Warren speech about a pioneering union led by black women. And, bc it’s all so on the nose, Warren had been talking about corrupt systems are designed to exploit ppl in pain.”—Greg Krieg, CNN
[Full disclosure: as an educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money, not education.]
Images: Flickr.