Dr. Allison Neitzel writes a blog called “MisinformationKills,” where she exposes charlatans promoting fake cures for COVID. I recommend that you follow her blog. She knows who the fakers and grifters are and calls them out.
She recently discovered that Dark Money was deeply invested in the privatization of education. She posted this link on Twitter and wrote the following commentary on her blog.
Leonard Leo, the former VP of the Federalist Society and current member of the Council for National Policy, was recently outed for his funneling of dark money to a conservative parents group fighting the “woke-ification” of the US school system. While such groups need their “concerned parents” to voice their messages, groups like this do not hold the political power they think they do. They are granted the illusion of grassroots power that actually comes from the astroturfing campaigns of the shadowy, far-right Council for National Policy. These parents are lower level marks recruited into a GOP multi-level marketing scheme that benefits from counting Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s parents of Amway wealth as CNP members.
Like his CNP colleague Charles Koch, Leo has been active in covertly controlling our government for some time. He was instrumental in the halting of Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court where his old friend Clarence Thomas serves as an extremely controversial justice on a rogue court. The organizing efforts of the CNP and Federalist Society since the late 70s/early 80s were successful in overturning Roe v. Wade, despite the majority of the nation supporting abortion.
MisinformationKills’s Newsletter
Roe overturned in win for Council for National Policy
The Supreme Court of the United States voted today to overturn Roe v. Wade. This was a long time coming thanks to “most pro-life president ever” Donald J. Trump’s digital strategist Steve Bannon’s political efforts and influence. Source: Slate Bannon is a former member of the Council for National Policy, part of a shady network of Christian extremist pol…
The CNP brought us the fall of Roe as well as the rise of America’s Frontline Doctors. Ginni Thomas, Clarence’s QAnon wife, served as CNP Action Committee Chair when the pro-Trump, pro-hydroxychloroquine group was created in concert with the Tea Party Patriots for Dr. Simone Gold. The future insurrectionist’s organization appears to have been staffed by the existing far-right American Association of Physicians & Surgeons. Gold, now being sued for embezzling AFLDS’s dirty money, has shown herself to be completely corrupted by proximity to this powerful network. Without her MD or her JD, Gold’s quest for self-importance could have easily led her to Moms for Liberty. She’s now a member of the CNP, naturally.
Gold’s anti-vax movement ties into a larger GOP anti-science movement that includes anti-abortion (for the Christians) and anti-climate science (for the Kochs). Beyond that it is part of a larger anti-truth, anti-regulation movement for an attempted Christo-fascism takeover of the country by the GOP overlords at the CNP. To keep a propaganda machine like this going, they must continue to recruit talent and make sure younger generations don’t wise up to what they are doing. While New Jersey starts implementing media literacy in their curriculums, less progressive states like Florida are banning books and waging war on the culture of the American classroom. Trump’s 2024 CNP heir apparent Ron DeSantis has an AFLDS member as his Florida Surgeon General and has recruited more talent from the existing Koch Network for his own public health “accountability” committee. This is not coincidence.
The CNP has made power grabs for control of the courts, public health, media, and now the classroom. They won’t stop until they have complete control over the American people and our way of life. This is not small government, but rather silent large government. Unfortunately for the CNP ideologue oligarchs, younger generations – including those in medicine – are paying attention and forming real grassroots opposition. Fighting this network requires understanding of the inter-connectedness of their various efforts to take down the many pillars that uphold this decades old house of cards. It requires educating the public about the CNP’s forty year reign and the risk in allowing it to continue. Somewhere in those banned history books are the stories of empires that have fallen before them.
It is time to wake up from our postmodern nightmare of never-ending information warfare, epistemological conflicts/divides, incoherent narratives, and existential despair. We must embrace the hard realities of our complicated and complex world to stop falling prey to the comfort and convenience of simplicity. First and foremost, we need to dispel the myth that an individual can survive independently without responsibilities to others or in a world devoid of trust. It is simple to believe that a person’s success is theirs and theirs alone or even simpler to blame their failures on the distrusted others.
Unlike their attempted coup on January 6th, 2021, this revolution does not require violence – just education, some of that Trump sunlight on the issues, active citizenship, and a great deal of spine from our many American institutions under attack.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This reminds me of soooooooo many things that I had TRIED to educate people on in the school system, “No, it is not ‘asteric’ it is an “asterisk.” Went ahead and used the incorrect term. “Excuse me, ‘its’ is the possessive; ‘it’s’ is the contraction of ‘it is.’ When I read my son’s PE syllabus, it stated, “Students would be required to wear ‘pe cloths’ not ‘pe clothes.'” I told him I didn’t realize they were going ‘Tarzan.’ And another email that went out was a call for the Student Talent Show. They were really in need of ‘rapers.’ Uh, did you mean students could RAP out songs as well? I l alerted the School Board and got a “ho-hum” response. Constant spelling errors and grammatical errors, but it was all “okey-dokey” because I was outnumbered. And then, of course, if one didn’t go along with the ignorance, one was deemed “not a team player.” Bad, terrible, misinformation all along the line — but I was the ignorant one. Just get one complaint and it’s over for you, e.g., not teaching to the curriculum.” And it is soooooooo hard trying to explain conceptual instruction that coincides with metacognitive strategies to people who only know “standardization.” So, in sum, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
Thanks for your keen awareness of errors in spelling and grammar. A misplaced letter or punctuation mark changes the meaning of the words.
My pet peeve: autocorrect changes its to it’s. I know the latter is a contraction and means “it is” but auto correct insists on using it in all circumstances.
Diane — Always taught the kids, “You cannot rely on autocorrect. A computer does not understand how YOU want to say what you need to say. The other day I was trying to text my friend, “Yoda,” and it kept changing the name to “today.” On another note, I have worked with highly-educated parent groups who made for a “better tomorrow” especially when my wife and I worked with the marching band. I was fortunate enough to teach their children in middle school as well. But, all it takes is ONE to run programs into the ground based on bad information and “tribal mentality.” All I ever wanted to do is “get to the truth”, teach kids how to think, understand others (even when one disagrees), and love learning. I am not sure why so many people want to complicate it. I guess life is the “Yin and Yang” and when studying “The Lord of the Flies,” a question posed was, ‘Is man inherently evil?” Biblical. Love your blogs. It keeps me on my toes and a connection to the outside world.
Thank you.
Back in my day, autocorrect was various types of corporal punishment, ranging from a threatening stern look to a visit to the assistant principal’s office. Excuse me as I groan when standing up.
Once my husband and I were driving to school together (We taught at the same school.) and on the electronic billboard outside the school, it said, “COLLAGE FAIR TODAY.” Well, I was all excited because I love collage. My husband said, “No, dear, they spelled “college” wrong.” Well, I was horrified at the spelling mistake in front of a school and depressed that I wasn’t going to see any collages that day.
How sad. I occasionally make errors on this site. It is always a failure to proofread. I am a good speller and embarrassed to make spelling errors.
We’re a dying breed, Diane! We’re dinosaurs that come from a time when it was important to learn to spell. Spell!!! Heck, I was diagramming sentences in 5th grade! I had a teacher who called us “Dunderheads” and said if we didn’t learn how to spell, we would look stupid!
Mamie,
I learned to diagram sentences. It helped me understand the structure of sentences and to think more clearly about language. It’s a shame that diagramming and grammars are often overlooked.
@mamie — I always joked about how upset the “art kids” were when they found out it was a “college fair.” Here’s one for you. Waaaaay back in the day, our local newspaper with a giant headline read, “Pubic Schools Week.” Honest mistake, but nowadays schools are closed because of it, eh?
Forgetting the “L” in public is a common error.
Auto correct won’t catch the missing L.
@Mamie — and then there was the time the kids had a “Career Fair” where the “who’s who” of town stopped by to talk about education and career fields. There was a big yellow sign that said, “Welcome to Carryr Week.” C’mon on now.
The real Deep State has been revealed and there isn’t a liberal or progressive to be found there.
ALEC, the Federalist Society, the Council for National Politics, et al. They are the real deep state. One of the tactics of fascists like this real Deep State is to blame the opposition for what they are doing.
@diane — No one is perfect. That’s why when I worked for the Santa Cruz Sentinel, we had the “three eye rule” before our articles went to print. What’s really funny is how closed captioning tries to capture what the people are saying, but makes funny errors. But when one is cognizant of the error and still does nothing, there is a problem. I walked by so many classrooms with misspelled words — shocking. I always apologized to kids when I made a mistake because I am supposed to “teach them well.” In another instance, I read a memo sent to our superintendent from our principal. I ran to the office and told the office, “Did he send this out? There are at least sixteen grammatical errors in this memo.” They replied, “We tried to tell him and he sent it anyway.” The scary thing: the super didn’t notice either. Egads!
Reblogged this on Lloyd Lofthouse and commented:
The real Deep State has been revealed and there isn’t a liberal or progressive to be found there.
The person referenced in this article “recently” discovered that Dark Money folks are behind the plot to destroy public education? I’m shocked. Does this person read this blog? Diane and others have been saying this for YEARS!
I wish everyone read the blog. No one would be surprised to learn about the Dark Money seeking to destroy the commons.
It seems that the deflection trolls are now flocking to this blog to top actual conversation about the issues raised by the stories here. Lloyd’s comment below is the only relevant one of the bunch. The story is about the hostile, anti-democracy takeover of America from within and folks here are yammering on about spell check and grammar? Disgusting!!!!
Let me get you a mirror. 😊
Let me get you a mirror.😊
Jon, you’re spot— unfortunately.
Facilitating the politicking of the right wing Catholic church, is the omission that three of those identified in the posted article, Leonard Leo (father of 9 kids), Steve Bannon and Ginni Thomas, are conservative Catholic.
The CNP has politically powerful conservative Catholics and evangelical Christians as members.
As someone that has followed the privatization of education for many years, I found this story very relevant. In the beginning the whole “failing schools” narrative told hold in the media despite the fact it was patently false. As attacks increased along with testing, school closures and charter school expansion, I assumed all we needed was evidence to stop the trend. Now we have had ample evidence to show that charter schools are not worth the disruption they cause, but evidence has not stopped charter school expansion. Now we are sliding into vouchers, home schooling, religious schools funded by taxpayers and even universal vouchers. The fact is evidence does not seem to matter when billionaires and their funded groups lead the misinformation campaign. Mainstream media then amplifies the outrageous assertions, and the snowball of propaganda picks up speed.
We live in an oligarchy that can buy political will even if their agenda is contrary to what most voters want. Both parties are guilty of selling out, but the GOP has sadly gone off the rails.
cx: took hold in the media
Wow! All for accuracy but as the line says, “The fall is gonna kill you.”
Dark money buying elections? Ehh. I’m just glad these new board members will spelling taught correcly and teach cursive again”
What’s that song?
“Who gives a ____ about an Oxford comma?”
Here are three found on a WordPress blog.
And, thanks for this procrastination moment.
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