Daniel Loeb, billionaire chair of the board of Success Academy Charter Schools, slandered State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, an African-American woman who is the Democratic leader of the State Senate.
The backstory is that Cuomo has collaborated with a group of breakaway Democrats who side with the Republicans in the State Senate. Although Democrats have the majority in the Senate at 32-31, the so-called Independent Democrats vote with the Republicans, assuring that Republicans continue to control the Senate even though they are in the minority. Charter supporters, like Daniel Loeb, know that the interests of both charters and the financial community are safe with the Republicans. If Democrats had enough votes to control the State Senate, Senator Stewart-Cousins would be majority leader. Cuomo likes having Republicans in control because it allows him to be the broker between the Assembly and the Senate. Cuomo prides himself on his fiscal conservatism, so he is happy to have Republicans running the upper chamber of the legislature. It also guarantees that Cuomo won’t be forced to veto progressive legislation.
In a private meeting with Democratic members of the State Senate, trying for unity, Cuomo noted that most of the Senate members were from New York City, and that the leader of the Independent Democrats, Jeffrey Klein (whose district is mainly in the Bronx, with a sliver in suburban Westchester), had a better understanding of the suburbs than the city representatives. At that point, Senator Stewart-Cousins objected and pointed out that she represents the suburbs of Westchester.
After this story appeared, Daniel Loeb hurled a slur at Senator Stewart-Cousins on Facebook.
The hedge fund manager Daniel S. Loeb, a prominent supporter of charter schools and a major financial backer of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and congressional Republicans, accused the African-American woman who leads the Democrats in the New York State Senate of having done “more damage to people of color than anyone who has ever donned a hood.”
Mr. Loeb made the reference, apparently to the Ku Klux Klan, in a posting on Facebook in response to an article in The New York Times this week in which the Democratic leader, Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, confronted Mr. Cuomo about prejudging her based upon race and gender.
In a private meeting last month, The Times reported, Ms. Stewart-Cousins said to Mr. Cuomo during a debate over who best understands suburban voters: “You look at me, Mr. Governor, but you don’t see me. You see my black skin and a woman, but you don’t realize I am a suburban legislator.”
Mr. Loeb weighed in on behalf of Senator Jeffrey D. Klein of the Bronx, the leader of a group of Democrats that has split from Ms. Stewart-Cousins.
“Thank God for Jeff Klein and those who stand for educational choice and support Charter funding that leads to economic mobility and opportunity for poor knack kids,” Mr. Loeb wrote, with “knack” apparently a typographical error for “black.” “Meanwhile hypocrites like Stewart-Cousins who pay fealty to powerful union thugs and bosses do more damage to people of color than anyone who has ever donned a hood.”
Mr. Klein leads a group of eight Democrats who in 2011 broke away from the main Democratic conference, led by Ms. Stewart-Cousins. Mr. Klein’s group, the Independent Democratic Conference, has in the past sided with the Republicans in the Senate to keep Ms. Stewart-Cousins out of the powerful post of majority leader.
Daniel Loeb is a major player in the charter world because of his chairmanship of Success Academy. He is also a major player in politics because he is a big donor. When Ivanka Trump visited New York City, Loeb escorted her on a tour of one of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter schools.
Mr. Loeb and his wife have donated more than $170,000 to Mr. Cuomo in recent years, state records show. He has also supported Republicans, with contributions including $500,000 to a super PAC that supported Jeb Bush in 2015, $150,000 to the Republican National Committee that year and $700,000 to a super PAC supporting House Republicans in 2016.
Carol Burris wrote recently that Loeb had given even more money to Cuomo than the Times reported:
Success Academy Chairman Daniel Loeb, founder and chief executive of Third Rock Capital, and his wife, have directly contributed over $133,000 to Cuomo. Since 2015, Loeb has added $300,000 to Moskowitz’s PAC, and another $270,000 to other PACs that support Cuomo. That’s more than $700,000.
Daniel Loeb shows the true colors of the charter industry in New York City. He doesn’t pretend to be a liberal. He has the nerve to call an African-American legislator “worse” than the Ku Klux Klan. What do you call a man like this? Indecent? Shameless? Arrogant?
For many reasons, I place billionaire Daniel S. Loeb on this blog’s Wall of Shame.
He is an arrogant ruthless billionaire thug- intent on mowing down anyone who gets in his way — which in this case are the NY Senate Democrats, who oppose his goal of privatizing public schools.
Exactly. And Loeb paid good money to get what he wanted from politicians and he doesn’t like it when a few like State Senator Stewart-Cousins don’t follow his marching orders like Governor Cuomo does.
Dan Loeb grew up in Pacific Palisades, California, and went to the Palisades Charter High School….which shaped his thinking. He matriculated to the U.of California at Berkeley, the same public university the junior Senator from California attended before she went to their Hastings law school. They are about the same age. It would be interesting to know what Kamala thinks of Dan.
His aunt started Mattel toys, and evidently she invented the Barbie doll. And his father was a top lawyer/partner at the LA firm of Irell and Manella which is considered to be a class firm which caters to many billionaires. Somewhat like Kathleen Brown, our governor’s sis who is a partner at Manatt, Phelps…also big supporters of charter schools since most of the big name Mommy and Daddy Warbucks are their clients.
All of these folks are Democrats.
All pal around with the Clintons and with Eli Broad.
And most are major art collectors, and patrons of the arts, philanthropists, and yet strangely, anachronistically, support American Enterprise Institute. Somewhat schizophrenic to be sure.
So who needs to derail Repubs when we have so many Dems who have taken it, and us, all over.
Do we see a pattern emerging???
Addendum….Danny boy also was a major supporter of Harry Reid. Tell me about that one. And Loeb and his twin-in-many-ways, Tilson, as with hedge funds, teaching clients how to profit from investing in ‘public’ schools, their similar family history and backgrounds, and their penchant for surfing. But Loeb went on the graduate from Diane’s university, Columbia. Makes my head spin.
The weaponized philanthropy of America’s richest 0.1% demands a review of their “charitable giving” and its projected effect on bottom lines which benefit the wealthy.
Contractor (charter) school debt returns 10-18% to Wall Street.
The NAACP has earned its credibility by sacrifice. Black and White laborers create the nation’s prosperity by building GDP.
What has Loeb earned?
The financial sector is responsible for an estimated 2% drag on GDP.
I can’t imagine how anyone can doubt that Daniel Loeb cares a lot about the poor. He cares just as much as Betsy DeVos and Eva Moskowitz, his very good friends. And when he speaks, Andrew Cuomo acts like a trained dog and does his bidding.
This is interesting. The ed reform battle to deregulate teacher licensing may harm women and minorities:
“Advocates for overhauling the current system say it can discourage people from entering desirable careers or relocating across state lines, while raising prices for consumers.
Who benefits? Those who get licensed, who earn more than other Americans. And new research shows their pay is more equal as well, with occupational licenses appearing to boost earnings for women and black men relative to higher-paid white men.
“The traditional view has been that the license is just a barrier to entry,” said Clemson University economist Peter Blair, who co-authored the paper with Clemson graduate student Bobby Chung. But, he said in an interview, licenses also provide potential employers with information about the workers who have them: Many require special training, or bar people with criminal records.”‘
Once again they throw the baby out with the bath water in a reckless and IDEOLOGICAL drive to deregulate.
https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2017/08/11/how-much-criticized-occupational-licenses-may-reduce-racial-and-gender-pay-inequality/
I read a lot of ed reformers and I look for mention of public schools-partly because public schools are so rarely mentioned in ed reform, except in a derogatory fashion.
This is a great piece from the Walton people because to me it shows JUST HOW MUCH of an echo chamber this “movement” is.
They attribute every gain in any public school to charter schools:
http://blog.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/2017/july/how-chartering-can-help-all-schools-improve?utm_content=sf103070003&utm_medium=spredfast&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=Walton+Family+Foundation&sf103070003=1
Public schools cannot even get credit WHEN THEY IMPROVE. Instead the credit is given to charter schools. Public schools ONLY improved due to charter schools. There is no other possible reason.
Come on. This isn’t “science”. “Science” wouldn’t decide that any gain at any public school in the country was due to charter schools! That’s so biased towards charters it’s ludicrous.
If a public school doesn’t improve it is the fault of the public school. If a public school DOES improve they credit “charter schools” with the public school’s gain.
Public schools cannot win and charter schools cannot lose in this fake “science” scheme they’ve set up.
Yes, their “science” – if practiced by real scientists looking to prove the value of a new drug — would get them kicked out of science altogether just like the researchers who bias research to show a drug had miraculous results are kicked out.
As soon as it is learned that a scientific researcher used a “got to go” list to eliminate patients who failed a drug trial, everyone understands that it was done to prove something that could not have been proven by honest means. So the researcher could please the people who pay him.
Junk science along with junk morals and junk ethics = pro-charter billionaires making sure your bank account is nicely enriched.
NYC publc school teacher,
Your last sentence is stellar: “Junk science along with junk morals and junk ethics = pro-charter billionaires making sure your bank account is nicely enriched.”
I love REAL SCIENTISTS. And programmers are NOT scientists. Programmers program; they don’t do science.
And REMEMBER John Dewey. He would be appalled.
http://www.thepositiveencourager.global/john-deweys-approach-to-doing-positive-work/
Thank you.
I just wanted to clarify I am a parent, not a teacher! I would not last a week doing what teachers do. After half a day chaperoning a field trip I am wiped out and in awe of how teachers manage.
There are places in this country where there are few or no charter schools. Have any of those public schools improved?
Are those gains also due not to the work of people in public schools but instead to charter schools?
This “science” is mighty convenient to charter promoters, I must say.
All gains in any school are credited to charters and all losses in any school are attributed to public schools.
Any gain in any public school in the country can all be traced to opening the first charter school in Minnesota? Yeah, sure. Tell me again about how these folks are “scientists”.
They may be political scientists. They’re very good at promoting and lobbying.
“Daniel Loeb shows the true colors of the charter industry in New York City. He doesn’t pretend to be a liberal. He has the nerve to call an African-American legislator “worse” than the Ku Klux Klan. What do you call a man like this?”
Success’ founder and CEO Eva Moskowitz said that Loeb is someone who always has “great ideas” and is “incredibly engaged” when it comes to charter schools.
http://www.businessinsider.com/success-academy-spring-benefit-gala-2014-4
Contractor school debt returns 10-18% to Wall Street. And, there are the lucrative real estate deals.
Wall Street has always been such a great source of support for the middle class and poor (sarcasm).
Once they become too arrogant, racists and white supremacists like Daniel S. Loeb reveal themselves in social media rants in the traditional media during interviews. Their role model is #FakePresdient Trump’s Twitter rants. Trump is a “bad” role model for the Loebs of this world, and that is a good thing for the rest of us because we then find out what they really are.
Loeb and Trump… one in the same.
No way…Loeb is far more intelligent than the ignoramus in the WH.
A case can be made that the amount of harm caused by an individual is unrelated to intelligence. On the other hand, the more unrestrained wealth, the more detriment to the 99%.