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Dick and Betsy DeVos, you might remember, are the school privatization activists who donated $250,000 to Walker during his recall campaign. And the American Federation for Children, founded by Betsy DeVos, spent $1.1 million.
And the Koch brothers? Keeping their fingerprints off political contributions is standard operating procedure.
This is from a Forbes story from last year that addresses the claim by the Kochs — founders of Americans for Prosperity — that they didn't spend a single dollar on Walker's recall campaign:
"AFP spent $3 million on ads ahead of the recall as well as providing 75 staffers for door-knocking purposes, encouraging voters to choose Walker. The Wisconsin chapter of AFP also launched a four-day, 10-city bus tour directly preceding Tuesday’s vote and set up a web petition to Stand With Scott Walker."
The backlash against Common Core has moved quickly. The day before Walker made his pronouncement that Common Core standards aren't rigorous enough, Florida Gov. Scott announced that he was backing out of a consortium developing the new standards.
Both Scott and Walker had previously been on board with the new standards. In January of 2012, the state's Read to Lead task force, of which Walker is the chairman, had this to say about Wisconsin's adoption of Common Core in its report:
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Many of the laws that affect us most directly — from taxes to marriage equality to voter ID — are made at the state level. The idea that change begins with the states is one of the founding principles of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. In state houses around the country, hundreds of ALEC “model laws” are proposed or enacted that would, among other things, dilute collective bargaining rights, make it harder for some Americans to vote and limit corporate liability for harm caused to consumers.Is your representative a member of ALEC? ALEC claims that nearly 2,000 state legislators are members, but doesn’t disclose their names. The Center for Media and Democracy, on their ALEC Exposed site, has a wiki listing nearly 1,000 legislators they believe to be ALEC members. Click on the map or enter your city or street address below (and hit ENTER) to see if your representatives are on the list. If no results are found for your district, help us complete the map by calling your representatives and asking if they belong to ALEC. Then let us know what they say using the pop-up form below, or simply email: editor@ALECexposed.org.(UPDATE: This map was updated on June 20, 2013 to reflect new information collected from our users and through the ALEC Exposed wiki after the 2012 election. We’ve also incorporated new districting information from Open States. But we still need your help fact checking and keeping it up to date! Email us if you find any errors or gather any new information.)
Arrests of protesters continued for the third straight day Friday at the state Capitol, suggesting a renewed effort by Gov. Scott Walker’s administration to silence the ad-hoc “Solidarity Sing Along” group is doing little to stop the daily event. A Friday arrest count was not immediately available but the number of people handcuffed and taken away by Capitol Police officers over the lunch hour appeared to be less than the roughly 25 people arrested on both Wednesday and Thursday. Among those arrested was the Rev. Carter Dary, a retired Lutheran minister. Dary and Philip Gerboc, a friar with the Great Lakes Region of the Old Catholic Church, kicked off the singalong Friday by getting down on their knees and saying a prayer. The two took turns denouncing the actions of the administration.Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/writers/jessica_vanegeren/solidarity-sing-along-crowd-grows-as-arrests-continue-at-wisconsin/article_cbd3dc63-c23f-5cc3-8901-2166614f10b5.html#ixzz2aGu7Ecdc
