Not Coke -- Koch

I’m pretty sure I’ve told you about the Koch brothers before. Yep. I have. They supply the “wing” in the “vast, right-wing conspiracy”. It’s really no different than it ever has been throughout history. Rich people use their money to influence government.

The brothers made it onto The Rachel Maddow Show. For those that believe Ms. Maddow is too biased to be believable, you can read Jane Mayer’s piece in The New Yorker.

Covert Operations
The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.

”The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.”

Be forewarned: This is The New Yorker. It’s a 10-page article. You’d might rather just watch Rachel.

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Don Brown
August 26, 2010