Biting the hand...

Seattle Times columnist Lynn Varner warns the teacher unions, "don't bite the hand [Bill Gates] you feed from." She sure doesn't.

School reformers & BP

Even though the  Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation lost some $140 million recently as BP stock collapsed, the foundation has raked in billions from its 43 million shares of BP Oil, much of it from high-risk drilling in the Gulf. BP has made more than $20 billion each year in profits. Warren Buffet, who is a $30 billion partner in the Foundation, also owns millions of shares of NALCO, the company that makes the toxic dispersant COREXIT that BP is currently spilling all over the Gulf. COREXIT is said to be 4x as toxic as the oil itself. It is already reportedly eating through boats in the Gulf. 

Why then isn't the Gates Foundation and Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway Fund, being made to pay for some of the damage BP caused with a portion of their mega-profits?

Other owners of NALCO include Goldman Sachs, the Blackstone Group and Apollo Management. Goldman Sachs had good timing. They dumped $250 million in BP stock just before the spill. The shares were gobbled up by the Gates Fund.

Then there's hedge-funder and phony school reformer Whitney Tilson, who is buying up BP stock as fast as he can. He says the company's stock is currently undervalued. Tilson also bankrolls Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), a group that is a major force behind privatization, mass teacher firings and union busting.

Tilson and DFER have the ear of Arne Duncan when it comes to setting ed policy at the DOE. Birds of a feather... (no pun intended).