Common Dreams:
"Public education advocates on Wednesday rejected New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's pledge to work with billionaire entrepreneurs like Microsoft founder Bill Gates to 'reimagine' his state's school systems once the coronavirus pandemic subsides. ...
Critics including New York State Allies for Public Education, Class Size Matters, and the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy were wary of handing the state's education system over to Gates, who previously launched—among other 'education reform' projects—a $1 billion initiative in three states to improve 'teacher effectiveness' which policy think tank RAND found did 'more harm than good' for students.
'Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation have promoted one failed educational initiative after another, causing huge disaffection in districts throughout the state,' wrote the three organizations in a letter to the governor. 'Whether that be the high-handed push by the Gates Foundation for the invalid Common Core standards, unreliable teacher evaluation linked to test scores, or privacy-violating data-collection via the corporation known as inBloom Inc., the education of our children has been repeatedly put at risk by their non-evidence based solutions, which were implemented without parent input and despite significant public opposition.' "
-->We have a governor who is so enamored by the billionaires he wants them to help him dismantle public education. Don't the people get any say at all? The NYT wasn't interested in printing this story, although its webpage carried the Reuters article.
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Common Dreams:
"Five major U.S. corporations that have laid off thousands of workers in recent weeks have simultaneously dished out hundreds of millions of dollars in cash dividends to wealthy shareholders, drawing outrage from Sen. Bernie Sanders and others who say the companies should be using the money to keep people employed.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that manufacturing giant Caterpillar, toolmaker Stanley Black & Decker, clothing company Levi Strauss, office furniture company Steelcase, and World Wrestling Entertainment have paid out a combined $700 million in cash dividends to shareholders while they shutter operations and lay off employees as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to ravage the U.S. economy. ...
[Quoting Sanders] 'Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on dividends to enrich wealthy shareholders, Caterpillar, Black & Decker, Levi Strauss, and other corporations should be using this money to compensate the thousands of workers they laid off.' "
-->Even Apple got a huge payout from the government and bought back their own stock, giving their shareholders hundreds of millions. But our "newspaper of record" just can't bring itself to cite these ripoffs, much less expose the two top Democrats, Pelosi and Schumer, who resisted efforts to limit what corporations can do with Covid-19 bailout money.
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Common Dreams:
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has thrown her support behind a proposal to allow corporate lobbying groups to receive bailout money from a Covid-19 relief program meant for small businesses, a move one critic bluntly described as the 'dumbest political maneuver you could possibly make right now.' ...
Pelosi's support for a lobbyist bailout comes as she is facing pressure from outside progressives, including nurses, to advance a bold Covid-19 stimulus package and stop rubber-stamping piecemeal legislation that provides insufficient relief to frontline workers, the unemployed, and states and localities.
In a blog post on Thursday, David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, offered a scathing assessment of both Pelosi's leadership and the refusal of Congressional Progressive Caucus leaders to raise their voices in dissent."
-->The NYT does not do stories about top Democrats selling out to the corporations, and now even to the various lobbying groups in Washington. Our media promotes the fantasy that our two corporate controlled parties are a functioning democracy.
