As 2021 closes three recent political developments reveal truths we are not always privileged to see: coverage of the death of philanthropist Jerome Rappaport; Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl turning a blind eye to racist attacks against Boston mayor Michelle Wu; and more accurate descriptions of privatization fronts like billionaire funded National Parents Union. Rappaport…
Category: Walton family
The Globe Keeps Missing a Huge Schools Issue. Why is That?
Suppose WalMart swept into Boston and spent millions to acquire Market Basket. The town would go ballistic. It would be covered every day in every media outlet, front page of the Boston Globe. But the Walton Family Foundation of Arkansas—the exact same heartless* mercenaries—spends millions of dollars to take over public schools and it gets…
Your National Parents Union Reader
The Walton Family’s fantasy of what a union should look like, the National Parents Union, is having its Virtual Convening on May 15, so what better time could there be to look back at a year plus of peeling the onion off of this fake progressive group? By popular demand, Your National Parents Union Reader!…
Why Don’t the Waltons Like Massachusetts Charter School Students?
Don’t ask me, I don’t know why the Walton family doesn’t like Massachusetts charter school students. Sometimes we hear “we measure what we care about” and the money trail shows that what the Waltons care about is not kids but their political fronts like Massachusetts Parents United. The Waltons pour money into political operations to…
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…
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…
Gov. Baker’s School Reopening Panel–Waltons Win Again?
With the national coronavirus situation grim Massachusetts is doing better and is preparing to reopen—including schools. Governor Charlie Baker’s reopening panels (No Place for Heroes) have been long on C-suite types (Zoom!) and short on front line workers. In the case of the school reopening panels, a solid five of the five “parent” members are…
Attorney General Maura Healey Strips the Bark off WalMart. It’s Ugly.
Attorney General Maura Healey has joined the attorneys general of several states in demanding accountability of WalMart over its failure to protect workers from coronavirus. The AGs sent a letter to WalMart CEO Douglas McMillon on June 2 and its allegations are scorching. But first some context. You may be asking, how are the WalMart…
National Parents Union, a Unit of the Billionaire Boys Club
Last week I explained how the National Parents Union is not a union, not national, and not about parents. Today we’ll go into more detail about what NPU is: a political unit of the Billionaire Boys Club. Education scholar Diane Ravitch popularized the term Billionaire Boys Club in her 2010 book The Death and Life…
‘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…