Lucky you, Massachusetts! Texas billionaire John Arnold is going to save democracy in the Bay State! Unfortunately he is helping to destroy democracy in the process. That is the upshot of today’s outstanding Matt Stout story in The Boston Globe, Who Are The Out-of-State Billionaires Backing Ranked Choice Voting in Massachusetts? According to the story…
Category: dark money
I apologize to Sen. Mike Lee. He’s Right, America’s isn’t a Democracy.
I apologize to Republican Senator Mike Lee. Yesterday Sen. Lee tweeted out that America isn’t a democracy at all, and I made fun of him. I’m embarrassed because Sen. Lee is right. American is not a democracy. It’s an oligarchy. Here’s the tweet from Sen. Lee (R-Quarantine) that set off Twitter: True Sen…
UnKoch Tufts
Massachusetts has a new Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University to provide analysis of pending legislation and that’s good news. The center is being funded by Charles Koch and that’s bad news. The basics of the new center are laid out in CommonwealthMagazine in New Tufts Center to Offer Independent Analysis of Legislation,…
One of #Mapoli’s Biggest Influencers is John Arnold of Texas
Here’s a little something from Matt Stout’s story in today’s Boston Globe, After Centuries of Picking One Candidate per Office, Should Voters Rank their Preference Instead? Concerning the fundraising of The Ranked Choice Voting 2020 Committee: John Arnold has pumped some of his billions into Massachusetts policy and politics in recent years. John…
Charles Koch Buys into National Parents Union
There’s millions of dollars sloshing around Massachusetts Parents United and National Parents Union these days. Some of it is from Charles Koch. That’s the takeaway from a recent story in the Walton-funded online publication The74: The Koch connection was apparent when Charles Koch put a proxy on the board of National Parents Union….
True or False, Allegations Against Alex Morse Should be Ignored by Primary Voters
You don’t have to be Nostradamus to know that Alex Morse never had a realistic chance of beating Richie Neal. On the other hand, you don’t need to be Perry Mason to know that UMass College Democrats’ allegations of misconduct against Alex Morse, irrespective of the merits, are an attempt to ensure that Morse’s margin…
National Parents Union: Not a Union, Not National, Not About Parents
One unsurprising characteristic of the Walton family sponsored National Parents Union is that it has so few parent members. Here is how NPU describes itself on its website: I wanted to look at two aspects of NPU’s claims, that it is a parent organization and that it has members in all 50 states. It seems…
Politics of Coronavirus: Democracy or Oligarchy?
Never listen to anyone tell you to put aside politics in a time of crisis. The politics of coronavirus provides another battleground in the American contest between oligarchy and democracy, a fight oligarchs have been winning for decades. This is on my mind today having just finished reading Heather Cox Richardson’s How the South Won…
Coronavirus Politics: Follow the Money
Politics doesn’t recede in times of crisis it accelerates, because crisis provides ideologues and interests the opportunity to advance their pet policy prescriptions. Just scrolling down Twitter this morning provides a sense of this. Read this retweet from that unmatched source of education information in Massachusetts, Tracy Novick: OMG, taxes on…
‘The beauty of the 501(c)(4)’: Why We Should Care About Dark Money
“I think the play here is to set up an independent expenditure committee for your re-election, specifically with a goal of raising two million or something. . . . the beauty of the IE, it’s a 501(c)(4) corporate donations are allowed and they’re unlimited. . . . I can put in a million or two…