This morning, The Times-Picayune tells us, finally, that the billionaire mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, has put over $100,000 of his own money into the election to fill BESE seats here in Louisiana. Of this, $5,000 went directly to Kira Orange Jones, and $100,000 went to a PAC which backs her and other Charter School/privatization supporters . These sums are the legal limit on both scores, no telling what else is going on behind the scenes in plutocrat circles.
Mind you, it's quite late for even this tiny bit of information to be coming out, seeing as how the first primary vote was held last Saturday. So, I guess we shouldn't expect the Picayune will "uncover" much of any hidden or newsworthy shenanigans regarding the remaining 100 million dollars plus in FEMA funded school reconstruction yet to be expended in New Orleans in advance of the runoffs next month. Think maybe that kind of monkey business and patronage potential is what has drawn Mayor Mitch Landrieu away from his willingness to personally take on murderers in the street long enough to campaign vociferously for Kira Orange Jones, who apparently needs a ventriloquist to speak her mind?
Regardless, this battle is fundamentally over the question of whether the well-off and warped among us will succeed in remaking public education in the image of the rich and privileged. It's scary enough that these guys won't need any weird costumes for Halloween. And we can talk about the stealing from and abuse of the public purse later, when this monstrosity of an election ends.
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