bodner079

STOP THE PRESSES!!!   I’ve had a lot of interesting conversations in my life – and this ongoing one with Diane Ravitch certains ranks up there.   If I recall correctly, we first exchanged emails a few years ago when I send her my presentation about K12, the awful for-profit online charter school operator. I knew we’d have common ground there, as she’d also exposed K12’s misdeeds in her book, Reign of Error .   I reached out to her again recently because I knew we’d have common views on North Carolina’s hateful HB2 law (in fact, we’ve both now published articles in the Huffington Post on this; here’s mine: An Open Letter to a North Carolina State Legislator ; and here’s hers: That Dumb Bathroom Bill in North Carolina ).   Our common views got me thinking: how is it that two well-informed people can agree on so much in almost all areas, yet apparently disagree on so much in one area...

STOP THE PRESSES! Run, don't walk, to read Jane Mayer's Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right , which I just finished reading. Mayer, a reporter for the New Yorker since 1995, exposes the secret web of ultra-wealthy individuals, families and businesses, most notably the Koch Brothers, who have pushed, with enormous success, a radical libertarian agenda, which traces back to the John Birch Society, that – surprise! – aligns perfectly with their self-interest, most notably to pay lower taxes and reduce (ideally to zero) regulation of Koch Industries, the #1 producer of toxic waste in the country in 2012.   It is truly frightening how much power the "Koch Network" has – in many ways, it's larger and more influential than the Republican Party – and how it's used this power.   Here are excerpts from the NY Times' review of Meyer's book (my emphasis added): "Dark Money," the re...