Typical Monday, I guess - a Trib Twofer

This'll have to be short - I was up late watching the unfortunate events play themselves out on my TV.  Pallid as a bust of Pallas right now (look it up if you don't get it) and it's not even bleak December yet.

But onto this morning's less than transparent contribution from the Tribune-Review to our civic discourse.

It references a study by the Heritage Foundation complaining about how public school teachers are overpaid.

At this point, I'd usually just point out the millions (almost $24 million, according to mediamatters) of dollars Richard Mellon Scaife's funneled to the Heritage Foundation over the years.  I might even point out that the publisher of this editorial is actually the vice chairman of the board of trustees (there's a nice picture of him there, of you're still curious as to what he looks like).  I'd then usually point out that none of this information is ever communicated to the Trib's readership while it touts the scholarship its publisher has so consistently and generously supported.

But I said this is a twofer.

Take a look at the authors of the study.  From the bottom of the page:

Jason Richwine, Ph.D. is Senior Policy Analyst in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation, and Andrew G. Biggs, Ph.D. is a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Another thinktank! With some more Scaife connections!

According to mediamatters, Scaife's foundations have given about $8.4 million to the AEI between 1988 and 2009.  So this doesn't include the:

• $500,000 from Sarah Scaife in 2010

That's the twofer.  I'm thinking there's nearly 33 million reasons why Scaife's braintrust should include Scaife's support of those two think tanks when Scaife's paper cites their research.

Actually, come to think of it, that's probably have 33 million reasons not to.

The circle jerk continues.