Betsy DeVos is the unlikeliest villain you ever met. She is warm, polite, earnest, and generous. A wealthy woman, she has devoted her life to getting poor children a better shot at life. She is the education secretary, as you know. And during her confirmation process, Bruce Kovner sent me a note.
Kovner, like DeVos, is a philanthropist and education reformer. He wrote, “Betsy is one of the most selfless souls I know, totally devoted to helping disadvantaged kids. Works so hard at it, it should be inspiring. It’s disheartening to see her opponents enjoying their chance to maul her. But Betsy can take it.”
She could do almost anything in life, including put her feet up at the beach. (Any beach.) Yet she is in the political and policy trenches, fighting for school choice and other reform, not for the sake of rich kids but for the worst off. For her pains, she has been called a “white supremacist,” a “rape apologist” (yes), and virtually every other name in the book.
Above, I wrote, “She is the education secretary, as you know.” I felt justified in saying “as you know” because DeVos’s name recognition is extraordinarily high — something like 80 percent. Can you name the previous secretaries of education, under Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Bush? It’s not easy, even for those in the “business.” Almost certainly, DeVos is famous because she is vilified — and yet she can use this to her advantage, as people pay attention to her.He takes quite a deep dive into her life and the formation of her views on education. Good stuff.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a problem with Amazon bringing 25,000 jobs to the New York area because Amazon is a corporation.
You'd think she'd be pleased that NY state
Hamas launched 200 rockets from Gaza into Israel in one day (yesterday).
The face of Satan:
The Chinese Communist Party is expanding its control of the Chinese government with increasing momentum.An ad in support of Planned Parenthood featuring a live baby girl with the caption "she deserves to be a choice" is eliciting horror across the internet.The 40-second ad, which is about three years old but gained attention over the weekend, hails from the Agenda Project Action Fund, a left-wing advocacy organization, after Nigerian pro-life activist Obianuju Ekeocha posted the video on her Twitter feed Friday. She received several notable retweets, including Texas Governor Greg Abbott and actress Patricia Heaton, both of whom were disgusted and incredulous.With lullaby music playing in the background, footage of a cooing baby girl wearing a white cap is interspersed with the message: "She deserves to be ... loved, She deserves to be ... wanted, She deserves to be ... a choice."The ad concludes with the hashtag #StandwithPP.
These corps know how to wrangle tax subsidies don't they. They squawked and squawked to get their permanent tax cuts the Pubs handed them too. And all we got was an even greater deficit you astounding dumbasses!
ReplyDeleteYou're mixing two separate issues and it's important to keep them distinct.
ReplyDeleteVery large corporations do indeed operate on a different basis from businesses of any other size, and wrangling subsidies is part of what I mean by that. And it's anti-free market. And it is indeed pathetic to see municipalities around the nations puke all over themselves to compete for who can give the likes of Amazon the best sweetheart deal. (Corporations in that size category tend to skew left in terms of policy, going in for such crap as diversity and sustainability.)
That said, the corporate tax cut went to corporations of all sizes, most of them far smaller than the likes of Amazon, and they have indeed been the catalyst for the recent spurt of economic growth as a result of getting to keep more of their money.
Which gets to the basic point: It's always good when any private organization - and certainly individual person - gets to keep more of their own money. Keeping what belongs to you is the basis of freedom.
I know they are different but not really. They are each tax cuts. Kissing the corporate ass.
ReplyDeleteIt is easier for me to understand A O-C's position having had the gift of friendship with the late and incredible August Tindell. A deal as awesome as AHQ2 is going to push some folk aside just by virtue of size. What Augie taught me is that the victims of such growth, no matter how many gentle utterances made by the beneficiaries, are never never never EVER made whole without raising ten kinds of hell first. She can, as Augie was very good at doing, welcome the enormous benefits of the new development and still represent the people of the district she was elected to represent.
ReplyDeleteYou lost me at "victims."
ReplyDelete