TPP Is Designed by ICS (International Corporate Socialists)

So the Tea Partiers were right, um, sort of: Obama is a socialist, but not one of those Marxist varieties.

Obama is a true blue corporate socialist, as in supporting profiteering by international fascist corporations.

The latest Wikileaks reveals TPP language to make sure that Big Pharma controls drug prices and future health care decisions by Medicare and other governmental programs.  Truly non-Marxist.

From HuffPo:

According to an analysis of the leaked document by Jane Kelsey, a law professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, these rules are enough to expose national health authorities to legal challenges under TPP’s investor-state dispute settlement process, or ISDS. ISDS empowers companies to challenge countries’ domestic laws before a tribunal of international judges if they believe the laws unfairly limit investment. The tribunals have the power to impose significant fines on countries if their laws are found responsible for the investment hardship in question. While pharmaceutical companies could not challenge national health programs’ policies through ISDS, their grievances would be eligible for ISDS if the companies claimed the policies hindered investment.

Profiteers on the Move in MA to Expand Charters in 2016

From Lisa Guisbond at CPS:

Charter proponents may have been shocked to be handed a rare legislative defeat, but they are not sitting back on the heels of their designer shoes. The State House News Service reported this week that charter advocates "are already eyeing the 2016 ballot" and "reaching out to supporters in the business and education communities, as well as potential donors, to line up the backing necessary to mount a ballot campaign."

The report also heralded the arrival in Boston of a new pro-charter school player, called "Families for Excellent Schools," led by a Brooklyn resident (and native of Cambridge, MA) Jeremiah Kittredge. According to State House News, "The non-profit, backed by wealthy Wall Street financiers, ran nearly $5 million in television advertisements earlier this year against new New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio, who had threatened to block the opening of three new charter schools. The New York Legislature, with support from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, took back some control from the city over licensing and put in place new protections for charters."

It remains to be seen how the group will operate in Massachusetts, but in New York, they spent $6 million on media and consultants in 2014 alone. According to their non-profit filings, the group also paid parents for being "activists," more than $98,000 in 2011. That was the year they were just getting started. It's likely they have grown in the past three years and will continue to grow. It's a group worth keeping an eye on as they move into Massachusetts.

America's Top Corporate Education Welfare Queen, Joanne Weiss

Joanne Weiss is an active exemplar for corporate welfare exploitation in education.  Just a few years ago, she moved from a tech firm to become COO for the New Schools Venture Fund, which grew to be a massive slush fund for vulture philanthropists, following Bill Clinton's undercover operation that made it possible to earn really big bucks by backing charter schools and other ed industry bad ideas:

Thanks to a little discussed law passed in 2000, at the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency, banks and equity funds that invest in charter schools and other projects in underserved areas can take advantage of a very generous tax credit — as much as 39 percent — to help offset their expenditure in such projects. In essence, that credit amounts to doubling the amount of money they have invested within just seven years. Moreover, they are allowed to combine that tax credit with job creation credits and other types of credit, as well collect interest payments on the money they are lending out — all of which can add up to far more than double in returns. This is, no doubt, why many big banks and equity funds are so invested in the expansion of charter schools. There is big money being made here — because investment is nearly a sure thing.

Then in 2009 Weiss was named to oversee Team Obama/Gates Race to the Top, a REALLY big slush fund used to bribe states to adopt corporate education reform's agenda, which demanded state commitments to bigger data collection capacity and teacher evaluation schemes that be impossible to maintain without more tech toys to manage the the flood of surveillance data on kids and teachers.

And now with the path cleared away for a high tech assault on the weakened body of public education, Joanne has pivoted to take on a number of projects that will use her connections in and out of government to help corporate welfare investors find new prey, acting always as that great "vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money" (Taibbi, 2009).

One of Joanne's new projects will be with a new total surveillance educational data management startup, BloomBoard, where she will smooth the way for 1) Cloud based data collection and storage [all you need is PC and a Web connection], 2) professional development pieces and evaluation rubrics for charter CEOs who don't know what those words mean, and 3) lesson plans for corporate missionaries who have never taught.  And at BloomBoard they are hiring!:

If you want to invent what’s possible in the rapidly-growing EdTech sphere and be part of a transformative industry, we’d love to get to know you already. Scale systems and build a product that millions of educators the world over could benefit from. Work with a diverse team in a fast-paced environment, collaborating with colleagues who are professionals and thought leaders in the education, technology, and business spaces. We also have the support of premier education investors, including Learn Capital, Imagine K12, and Birchmere.