Bonum Certa Men Certa

Valerie Strauss Explains Why Gates Foundation's Lobbying for 'Common Core' (Privatisation) is a Swindle That Makes Microsoft Richer

Valerie Strauss



Summary: Continued criticism of the Gates Foundation's lobbying and masquerading, with more journalists brave enough to highlight the corruption

THE Gates Foundation is pretty clever scam which is not used for much other than tax evasion and lobbying, as well as tax-exempted investment in companies which it lobbies for, under the guise of 'charity'. Gates is not unique in that regard; other plutocrats, including the Koch Brothers, use similar loopholes that are accommodated by a government they habitually bribe (the Republic is plutocrats-led). There is a new article titled "The Koch Brothers vs. Bill Gates" and it says: "The Gates Foundation is the world’s largest, at $37 billion in assets, according to its tax filings. That number alone makes it far, far larger than any single or cumulative Koch gift. Some may argue Gates spends money on philanthropy, not politics; but Gates has actually perfected the practice of using nonprofits to influence politics. Leftists claim to hate this tactic—witness the manufactured rage and proposed Internal Revenue Service regulations aiming to curb politics-minded conservative nonprofits—but it seems they actually just hate when it’s used against them."



What has been quite evident is that Gates bribed lots of nonprofits in order for them to help him lobby for a profitable (to him) agenda, not only in education but in many other areas. Dealing with education for the time being, Salon has published the article "Bill Gates needs to drop his Common Core obsession". It says: "The billionaire's latest little fixation is catching hell on all sides. Here's why he's better off simply moving on"

Well, it's all about profit, using (exploiting) "the children". We have written about this for years and now it has become acceptable to speak about it in corporate media. Valerie Strauss from the Washington Post (where Gates' close friend and wife used to be on the broad of directors) explains "How Microsoft will make money from Common Core (despite what Bill Gates said)" and other sites cover that also. To quote: "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has used up over $200 million in an effort to push the Common Core Standards Initiative in the last couple years.

"On the Microsoft Web site, a webpage dated April 22, 2014 entitled “Tech Essentials for Testing Success” describes in considerable detail how schools using computer-based, Common Core-aligned tests will now need to spend a bunch of money — on Microsoft products."

Here is an article which names American Federation of Teachers (AFT), one among very many groups that Bill Gates bribed in exchange for lobbying. To quote: "Though the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) received millions of dollars in funding from the private Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support the development of the Common Core standards, the union will begin its annual convention in Los Angeles Friday with the announcement that it will award grants to assess the standards and write others to replace them."

This is what the Gates Foundation is for. It's for lobbying, with profit at the bottom line.

The plutocrats' rag, Forbes, almost properly explains that 'charity' by plutocrats is tax evasion with PR (aside from 'charity' for PAC). Read this between the lines:

The Berkshire Hathaway CEO’s latest gift of more than 21.7 million shares of Berkshire Hathaway class B stock — valued at $128.98 per share at Monday’s close — decreases his personal fortune from $65.9 billion down to $63.1 billion. He slips one spot on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people, moving into 4th behind clothing and real estate magnate Amancio Ortega.


So it's the virtual giveaway, it is a game of stocks/shares. To people like these, it it important to be perceived as generous whilst actually hoarding ad infinitum. With publications like Forbes (glorifying the super-rich) they actually succeed at fooling a lot of people. Let's hope this will change in the coming year. Their perception management Jihad sure faces obstacles in the age of the Internet. ⬆

Recent Techrights' Posts

Intercontinental Brigading - Part XVII - The Relevance of Silent Layoffs at Microsoft
"Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act: strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs)"
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XVI - The Faustian Pact That Irritates Hired Guns is Still a Distraction From the Serious Harm Done by Their Clients to GNU/Linux Users (Notably Plagiarism and Back Doors)
We'd rather talk about the harms caused
Microsoft 'Buyouts' Sound Just Like 60,000 Layoffs of 'Expensive' or More Experienced Staff ('Soft' Layoffs or Even Worse, Negligible Severance)
This is not a "gift" to staff, it's just a pink slip with a hundred dollar bill attached to it
 
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XVIII - Microsoft is Not the Victim (It Was Never the Victim), It's Just DARVO
"DARVO is now in the dictionary. That’s a win for abuse survivors"
The British Economy Too Dependent on an American Slop Scheme
United States Government debt will soon eclipse 40.5 trillion dollars
We've Already Begun Work on the 20th Year of Techrights
We'll do a yearlong endeavour of improvement instead of a one-day hurrah
Volunteers or Unpaid Developers Won't Bother Interacting With Mindless LLMs That Pass Labour From Lazy Companies to Human Beings
The people who run Debian are killing the will to do Free software
Slop is Killing the Open Web
The Web is a jungle and "open sites" (without restrictions or walls) are exposed to the 'feeding frenzy' of reckless plagiarists who call their "theft" something like "super intelligence" or "training"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 26, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, October 26, 2026
As Microsoft Tells Close to 30% of Its Staff to Leave IBM Takes Notes
IBM does the same with PIPs
It's Perfectly Possible That Microsoft Has Just Told Most of Its American Workers to Leave
A better news headline might focus on the US and give a figure like 50%, not "quarter"
Richard Stallman Was Right About "Hey Hi"
Now the chicken come home to roost
Gemini Links 27/10/2026: "To Change or Not To Change?" and "Initial Planner Plans"
Links for the day
Links 26/10/2026: Microsoft Chaffbot "Building Detailed Psychological Profiles of Its Users", Man Executed for Childhood Offenses
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2026: Writing Down Dreams and "Sabbath as Resistance"
Links for the day
The Register MS Gets Rid of Disclosures About Paid-for Spam Regarding "AI", It Also Composes Fake News for the Sponsors
Selling away its credibility is known as "Sellout"
This is How Microsoft Ends (Over a Quarter of the Company Now on the Chopping Block)
Microsoft has quit pretending
Search Without Encryption for Legacy Systems (Permacomputing) and Full Backward Compatibility
At your own risk
Shift to the Lula (Left)
Lula is a friend of Free software and ODF
More Stories and Material Than We Can Publish
We're gaining or have amassed material faster than we manage to publish
European Patent Office Takes From the Poor to Give More to the Rich
The "pension schemes are overfunded at 120.5%"
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XV - Annualised Consequences for Opposing Microsoft Back Doors in Linux Since 2012
a roundup of what we got from GGG
Links 26/10/2026: China’s Communist Party Plenum and Aleksandar Vucic Concedes Defeat
Links for the day
In Reporting, Timing is Everything
If you keep calling people "paedophiles" when you yourself are connected to paedophiles (or are a paedophile), you're attracting a lot of unwanted attention to yourself
Links 25/10/2026: Microsoft Layoffs and Cuts, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Wins Election
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2026: Brazilian Politics and Leaving Bear Blog
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 25, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, October 25, 2026
Another Form of Microsoft Silent Layoffs: Workers That 'Expire'
When the media becomes a lapdog, not a watchdog, false narratives gain traction
Carte Blanche for GPL Violations 4 Days Ago (by Torvalds)
Slop disclosure is no longer required for the Linux Kernel
There Are No Women That Are Kernel Developers Sent by Corporations Which Claim to Champion Diversity
As noted the other day
Sites with "Linux" in Their Name Cannot Slop and Retain Readers
if they write about "linux "(or "Linux") using LLMs they will be caught, then shunned
At Microsoft, the Silent Layoffs Impact Executives Also
Microsoft hid the real story of Helen Chiang
Linus Torvalds Defected to Enshittification
Linus Torvalds is betraying a generation of high(er) standards
Links 25/10/2026: TMZ Revisits Epstein's Connections to Bill Epsteingate, "Italy Hit by New Cost of Living Protests"
Links for the day
Microsoft’s Spin About Mass Layoffs and Shutdowns: They "Never Should Have Existed"
Microsoft-sponsored spin
It's Slop
Maybe we'll exclude It's Slop from our curation. It's a Linux Foundation outpost of sorts, an apologist of sloppy code and plagiarism.
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XIV - Six Years of Learning Irish, But the Real Issue Was Microsoft-controlled 'Secure' (Restricted) Boot
Had I not opposed back doors in Linux, not of this would come about
Gemini Links 25/10/2026: Moana (2026) and OpenBSD Updates
Links for the day
The Netherlands Fast to Adopt GNU/Linux, "Market Share" Rises to Two-Digit Value (on Desktops/Laptops)
It peaked at around 20% yesterday
DST Still Needs to Get Abolished
Get rid of DST, efficiency will improve and systems will become more reliable
PHP2Shell as Paid-for FUD Campaign (Intended to Help Sell Slop and Fake "Market Value" of Slop Pushers)
PHP2Shell considered overhyped [...] Remember all the paid-for hype regarding Mythos? What happened to all that?
Microsoft Sort of Tried to Sell XBox Piecewise (Offloading Microsoft)
XBox is in a morbid state
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 24, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, October 24, 2026