Forum Post: Koch World reboots
Posted 11 years ago on March 5, 2013, 2:38 a.m. EST by GirlFriday
(17435)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The pressure isn’t coming just from the inside. California regulators are issuing subpoenas and demanding phone and business records in an investigation that could reveal the secret donors funding some Koch-linked groups or even result in those donors becoming targets themselves. And David Koch has told friends he is weary of being pilloried by liberals and Democrats up to and including President Barack Obama as the personification of the corrupting influence of money in politics. It’s not all gloom and doom in Koch World, but the brothers are at a potential turning point and their decisions could go a long way toward shaping the future of the Republican Party.
...The California investigation is trying to unmask the original source of a mysterious $11 million donation that was funneled through a key Koch conduit in the weeks before Election Day to a California political committee boosting a 2012 ballot measure to restrict union political activity and opposing a separate ballot proposition to raise taxes. “What they already admitted was definitely money laundering,” commission Chairwoman Ann Ravel told POLITICO. Ravel said the groups under investigation are “raising issues and not providing everything requested” and that the agency may file a civil complaint. But she predicted the investigation could reveal the donors by the middle of the year and potentially go after them if “the evidence shows that the donors knew or should have known that they were contributing to campaigns in California.” Ravel’s commission has already forced the disclosure that, before the $11 million made its way from an Arizona nonprofit called Americans for Responsible Leadership (the originally disclosed donor) to the California committee, it passed from a Virginia-based nonprofit called Americans for Job Security to an Arizona 501(c)4 called the Center to Protect Patients Rights.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/koch-world-reboots-87834.html#ixzz2MeHYpcIr
Cute little libe(R)tarian curmudgeons don't like unions either.
They don't like the air we breath.
They don't like the water we drink.
They don't like Democracy.
They helped create ALEC.
They created the John Birch Society.
They founded CATO.
They co-founded the libe(R)tarian party.
Ostensibly so they can go on destroying all the things they don't like.
Those things that serve the 99%.
[Removed]
This is fantastic news - someone may finally stomp on these kings of greed. Lets hope many sink in the swamp.
It looks like they are getting mighty close to nailing 'em.
BUMP!
S'funny how Koch threads seem to fall rather quickly, while name calling idiots get to the top.
Kochs fighting healthcare expansion.
http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2013/04/07/medicaid-expansion-the-kochs-call-in-their-chits
(And another bump)
It's much worse than you think.
http://www.occupy.com/article/how-koch-brothers-are-taking-over-food-supply-and-no-one-noticing
i know. Haven't seen that article but I am well versed in their crimes.
I'm sure you've seen the most recent Koch schemes.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/04/21/the-koch-brothers-are-bidding-to-become-newspaper-magnates/
(seems like they want to shape opinion/polls during election time.)
And then there's this asshole.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/23/rand-pauls-reversal-i-dont-care-if-a-drone-kills-a-liquor-store-robber-with-50-in-cash/
Didn't he give an anti-drone performance a while back?
LOL. I'm not surprised, More libe(R)tarian (Koch) extremism.
Rand is also trying to delay immigration because of Boston bombing too.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/sen-rand-paul-urges-immigration-reform-delay-due-boston-bombings-article-1.1324791
Peas from the same pod.
Any lie, in a crisis.
No mention of the event in Texas though.
That's free market States "rights" in notorious action.
Don't wanna remind people about fertilizer bombs (mcveigh/right wing extremist militia, gun nut, BACKGROUND CHECK!!)
Also don't wanna highlight any corp irresponsibilities.
I'm not sure I want to give the good old boy Texas libe(R)tarian the time to formulate their denials either, but you know they will.
Oh yeah. blatant liars, unashamed, & insidious.
They will protect the corps,& the profits over people, as per usual.
Yep. They sure do.
March 5th.
The "Donor Retreat" is on.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/koch-brothers-donor-retreat-agenda-hispanic-candidate-recruiting
Saddened by the fact that the last election didn't grant them total control, yet emboldened by that other fact, that they are still multi billionaires, the Koch's plan to continue their assault on Democracy, by seeking the ears and mega donations from like minded libe(R)tarians.
According to a previously unpublished preview of the April 28-29 gathering, the Kochs will unveil a new plan to recruit and train political candidates who will advance their free-market worldview. Another priority is improving the conservative movement's outreach to "growing demographics" such as Latinos, young people, and women.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Woot.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Second verse same as the first.
I'm going to be physically ill.
Women are a growing demographic???
Or did they just notice they could vote now, damn it.
Gotta get ALEC to do something about that.
It's their vapid attempt at inclusion.
The fastest path to their success, is the willful dumbing down of our educational system.
The latest study confirms it once again.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/04/24/yet-another-study-shows-low-iq-and-right-wing-ideology-go-hand-in-hand/
Great Article
Sorry - I'm greedy - I'm looking for CRIMINAL charges.
The 1% steal millions & pay thousands
Its a cost of doing business
like al capone buying police
I posted this last month. Thought it was way better than three IDs posting cartoons.
It's official.
They now want to completely control the message.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/business/media/koch-brothers-making-play-for-tribunes-newspapers.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0
'Cept the Chicago Tribune started sucking a long time ago, they were done: http://www.timeoutchicago.com/arts-culture/chicago-media-blog/15513226/outsourcing-journalism-derails-tribune%E2%80%99s-credibility
As bad as it is, it will be worse under Koch ownership, and keep in mind this comes on the heels of a similar, yet failed bid from Murdock.
Although I don't have the link at the moment, I read that their stated interest lies in the large circulation and access and control of editorial content.
That's what they all want. I hope they don't get it.
Well, it looks like that might be their April surprise. I haven't heard anything about their postponed after, election meeting yet.
I think that the newspaper industry may be the biggest mistake they make.
Don't assume they, nor their "advisers" are stupid.
They're not.
"First the lie: As a business venture, newspapers do not look like a particularly promising venture unto themselves, to say the least. As Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism shows, the newspaper industry is hemorrhaging money in the Internet era. The Tribune Co. isn’t immune to the losses; on the contrary, it has lost so much cash that it has been driven into full-on bankruptcy. So the idea that the Kochs might buy the papers because the papers themselves are just any old companies that look like good bets to make money is hard to take seriously, especially coming from shrewd businesspeople like the Kochs.
However, that’s where the kernel of truth comes in. Koch Industries is a conglomerate that does business in a number of sectors and that relies on particular public policies for its profits. For such a sprawling corporate behemoth, newspapers are a decent investment, just not in the way corporate leaders may want to admit in polite company. They don’t necessarily want to admit that while the papers themselves may lose money, they can be incredibly valuable to the corporate parent because they can deviously skew the news in a way that serves the larger company. In other words, newspapers can become a crucial part of a corporation’s larger profit-generating political machinery by specifically manufacturing the Overton windows that determine the public policies on which the corporate parent relies.
This is the truth I uncovered in my Harper’s magazine investigation into what I call the New Citizen Kane Era. Simply put, even as newspapers are losing money and firing staff, they are in many ways more influential than ever before in determining the scope of what’s considered “news” — and what is not. That’s because compared to radio, television and Internet outlets, they still employ, by far, the most journalists. Consequently, while radio, television and Internet outlets may be proliferating, the Congressional Research Service notes that those outlets often simply “piggyback on reporting done by much larger newspaper staffs.” Put another way, most radio, TV and Internet outlets simply serve as an amplifier of both what newspapers report and how those newspapers report it, meaning that, as Pew puts it, “most of what the public learns is still overwhelmingly driven by traditional media — particularly newspapers.”
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/koch_brothers_real_plan_for_taking_over_media/
I don't think they are stupid. I'm telling you this though, journalists in general haven't been respected in quite awhile. A very long time.
It's why Center for Integrity and Propublica are so highly valued. We have two dailies. One is owned by the Tribune. They have outsourced it to the point that they can't even nail local news correctly. The other paper's editorial staff is known to have a bunch of right wing rhetoric and are inaccurate as hell. Shit, they aren't even good for locating a house or jobs or anything that people used to buy them for.
The point is not that people can't still be influenced by the paper. They can. They are going to have their people that will still follow it and those people will do nothing more than reaffirm their own beliefs. It's that the group they are trying to maintain that conversation with is getting smaller. The people are already pissed off what passes for journalism.
I suppose it could backfire on them, and in that way I hope you are correct.
Then again they could just be preaching to the choir, that's leaving FLAKESnews and Limbaugh..
Shooz, I'm not so sure that many people in the media are even willing to concede that they have a major problem. The problem is the internet or the problem is the economy. No, the problem is that surveys have been taken for some 30 years about what people want to see in the news and, yet, they fail to deliver. They are still stuck on headlines and selling to the extent that it's more a cheap plastic shell of what it once was.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46bBWBG9r2o
Well of course they're cheap shit.
But.
As pew points out.
“most of what the public learns is still overwhelmingly driven by traditional media — particularly newspapers.”
Most just plain don't realize, they've already fired most of the REAL journalists.
I'm well aware of what you've pointed out, and it's why I put more faith in people like Matt Taibbi and Greg Palast.