Koch debate
- From: bullshipwalks@xxxxxxx (Money Talks)
- Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:37:45 -0700
Have you seen these guys enviromental record?
Do conservatives ever think of using the Scientific Method. Whatever
you believe (theory), try to prove the opposite. After you are done -
try to then support your original theory. Finally see which one you end
up believing. We call this ELITE THINKING LOL.
I see where Joel (X Marine, now a student) wants to debate one of the
Koch brothers (see youtube). There is no way. Although they THINK they
are brilliant I know their secret.
Dad made his money by accidentally putting the condensate plates in a
distillation column upside and 'inventing' that it worked better.
The brothers made most of their money during the 70s' oil crisis when
they were on of the few internal (USA) suppliers of oil.
IF they were so brilliant why did they buy Georgia Pacific (housing) at
the TOP of the housing market only to close many of those planst these
last 3 years ROTFL.
www.counterpunch.org.martens10192010.html
October 19, 2010
A CounterPunch Investigation
More Tentacles Surface at Rightwing Front Group
The Koch Empire and Americans for Prosperity
By PAM MARTENS
<snip>
...One of the key organizations funded by a Koch-controlled foundation
is Americans for Prosperity (AFP). While it has been widely documented
and publicized that the group is orchestrating the Tea Party, AFP is
also a veritable smorgasbord of other â??grassrootsâ??
personalities. The AFP or the AFP Foundation have spawned the
following identities:
DefendingtheDream.org (August 27-28 D.C. summit for right wing
strategizing and rally);
SayNoCapandTrade.org (kill tax on production of greenhouse gases);
NoInternetTakeover.com (attacks on the Federal Communications
Commission);
SickofSpending.com (â??â?¦how to recruit, educate, organize,
and mobilize fed up Americans to stop the radical left-wing
agendaâ?¦â??);
RegulationReality.com (â??â?¦educate citizens about the
EPAâ??s attempt to implement radical global warming
regulationsâ?¦â??);
NovemberIsComing.com (phone bank; go door to door to beat back those
liberals);
TaxCutsForAll.com (donâ??t raise taxes on the rich);
SpendingCrisis.org (shrink the Federal government);
CaliforniaSoS.com (cut spending in California);
United4NoOn4.com (kill Amendment 4 in Florida that would give voters
more say in local legislative decisions; an ironic position for people
who say they want to promote more liberty).
Americans for Prosperity also created PatientsUnitedNow.com and
orchestrated hundreds of rallies to help kill the public option in
health care reform.
Americans for Prosperity now has chapters in 30 states, including those
with the largest number of voters. As part of the focus on state level
efforts, key right wing foundations are funding another nonprofit, the
State Policy Network, which says it has free market think tanks in every
state. The work of most of the groups is to push for privatization of
public services and public schools. The State Policy Network is fueling
a new, rapidly growing movement: right wing funded groups posing as
independent investigative media outlets. So far, there is West Virginia
Watchdog, Old Dominion Watchdog in Virginia, Texas Watchdog, Illinois
Statehouse News, Missouri News Horizon, Capital Report New Mexico, Idaho
Reporter, the Commonwealth Foundationâ??s Pennsylvania
Independent, TNReport of Tennessee, the Pelican Instituteâ??s
Capital Reporter in Louisiana, Pacific Research Instituteâ??s Cal
Watch Dog in California, Idaho Freedom Foundationâ??s Idaho
Reporter, the Cowboy State Free Press in Wyoming, and others in various
stages of getting up and running.
Doing the recruiting for investigative reporters for a number of these
right wing news sites is Claire Kittle, the former Program Officer for
Leadership and Talent Development at the Charles G. Koch Charitable
Foundation. The State Policy Network publishes strategic planning
articles on how these newly anointed investigative reporters can network
with each other and get stories they pen to dominate the internet and be
picked up by mainstream media.
Tactically using its state chapters and YouTube, Americans for
Prosperity was able to blanket the internet with a McCarthyesque video
depicting the progressive One Nation Working Together rally in
Washington D.C. on October 2 as a communist-inspired, Socialist Party
march. Despite a coalition of 400 organizations involved in the March,
including the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers, UAW, NAACP,
Rainbow Push Coalition, the video exclusively highlights the contingent
of Socialists, making it appear that they dominated the march. The clip
runs with the headline: â??Proud Socialists March at Left-Wing
Protest in DC.â?? The video clip plays the Russian Anthem in the
background (while calling it the Soviet Anthem) and, at one point on the
video, shows a young woman portrayed as if she is singing the lyrics.
People commenting on-line clearly believe this music was playing at the
progressive march. ...
The Free State Project
.....
We have a right wing â??grassrootsâ?? group of our own here
in New Hampshire with ties to Koch money. Called the Free State
Project, it was the creation of Jason Sorens. (While the group
advocates for the elimination of tax-funded public education, Dr. Sorens
teaches political science at the taxpayer funded State University of New
York at Buffalo.)
Dr. Sorens is an example of a core strategy of the right wing funding
network. Taking a cue from corporate research that teaches if you want
to create brand loyalty for life, you must reach your target market at
an early age, many of the right wing nonprofits offer internships and
associate programs for promising undergraduates and grad students. They
look for two things in particular: writing skills and computer/internet
savvy. These individuals are called the â??talentâ?? and
are viewed in the same light as Merck views its â??thought
leadersâ?? in the launch of a new drug. In many cases, they are
funded and nurtured for life. The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation
has at least six staff members with the word â??Talentâ?? in
their title, for example, Manager of Talent, Director of Talent,
Coordinator of Talent. It explains on its web site that over 700
individuals have gone through its paid Summer Fellow program and have
gone on to work at places like Cato, the Wall Street Journal, Department
of Justice, World Bank, and Council of Economic Advisors.
Dr. Sorens was funded by two Koch funded organizations: the Mercatus
Center and the Institute for Humane Studies. When he was ready to
launch his audacious plan to convert New Hampshire into a free markets
stronghold, he was assisted on the morning of February 27, 2004 with a
big-wig press conference at the Washington D.C. headquarters of the
wealthy and well connected American Enterprise Institute, also funded
with Koch money as well as the rest of the A-list of conservative
foundations. According to its most recent 990 tax filing, available to
the public at www.guidestar.org, the American Enterprise Institute had
assets of $104 million in 2008 and received grants and contributions of
$59 million that year.
The concept was a bit far fetched even for the conservative reporters at
the event. Dr. Sorens proposal was, via coaxing on the internet, to
get 20,000 Libertarians to move to New Hampshire and take over state and
local politics by being hyper activists. To potential recruits, Dr.
Sorens pitched the gambit as creating a migration and sanctuary for
freedom-loving people. To the American Enterprise Institute, he pitched
it as a means of leveraging an anti-regulatory agenda to benefit
business, not just in New Hampshire but in other states as well.
â??Once New Hampshire moves dramatically in a free market
direction, we are going to continue to attract individuals and
businesses from other states. And other states are going to have to
reform their own laws in order to avoid losing their tax base to our
state,â?? Dr. Sorens told the audience.
Dr. Sorens and Mercatus had a plan to move that theory along. Dr.
Sorens and William P. Ruger, an Assistant Professor at the Texas State
University, San Marcos co-authored a study with the Koch-funded Mercatus
Center on Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic
Freedom. The study ranks the 50 states in terms of personal and
economic freedoms. Exactly 13 days after the study on Freedom in the 50
States was released, the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law at the
Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions in Ohio, another free
markets nonprofit, used the document in testimony on a House Bill in
Ohio threatening to â??initiate legal actionâ?? if the bill
was signed into law. The testimony noted, from the report, that
â??Ohio recently ranked 38th in an index of economic freedom
amongst the 50 states.â?? The bill the Center was against would
have eased mortgage loan modifications to prevent foreclosures. Koch
foundation money provides support to the Buckeye Institute for Public
Policy Solutions.
Dr. Sorensâ?? belief in the individualâ??s pursuit of
freedom and democracy has been called into question with this post he
made at the Cato Institute: â??The â??collective action
problemâ?? helps to explain why only narrow interests will
successfully organize and achieve policy victories, and why these will
come at the expense of the citizenry. Interest groups can achieve these
victories only because voters are deeply, irremediably ignorant of
philosophy, politics, economics, and public policy. Trying to educate
voters is hopeless because they lack the proper incentives to learn and
employ political knowledge.â??
...The first offshoot of the Free State Project effort was in Grafton,
New Hampshire and was as subtle as a Wall Street hostile takeover.
Locals say about $1 million was spent buying up properties and recording
the names in limited liability corporations so the real money behind the
purchase could not be discovered.
....
The brazenness of the takeover talk rankled the local residents; a
heated town meeting ensued, with unfavorable national press for the Free
State Project. The Boston Globe called it â??Graftonâ??s
Messy Liberation.â??
Things have since quieted down in Grafton while heating up in the
tolerant town of Keene. A handful of Free Staters, most of whom
advocate a totally voluntary society and no government regulation on any
business, have engaged in the following stunts: standing topless in the
quaint town square; holding a bag of marijuana in front of the police
with the intent of getting arrested, to challenge drug laws; pretending
to drink alcohol in city council meetings to press for drinking in
public places; holding â??School Sucksâ?? signs at the
public middle school to challenge taxation for
â??governmentâ?? education; chanting outside of the private
homes of a police officer and sitting judge who are not popular with the
Free Staters. Public opinion in Keene has now turned decidedly against
the Free Staters.
Another individual who has spent time in Keene, New Hampshire and helped
the Free State Project movement along is Peter Eyre. Eyre interned at
the right wing Cato Institute (which received funding from Koch); then
became a Fellow at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Next
Eyre spent two and one half years at the Institute for Humane Studies
(also supported by Koch money and the same Institute that supported the
work of Dr. Sorens). In early 2009, Eyre moved on to Bureaucrash, a
project affiliated with another right wing think tank, the Competitive
Enterprise Institute (CEI). (CEI ran TV ads in a dozen cities on
â??global warming alarmismâ?? one week before Al
Goreâ??s documentary, â??An Inconvenient Truthâ??
premiered.) The Institute for Humane Studies links Bureaucrash as a
previous internship partner with the Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow
Program. Exxon and Koch charitable funds have supported the Competitive
Enterprise Institute. Eyreâ??s more recent pursuit was to
travel around the country promoting libertarian ideas in a motor home
named Marv with colleagues Jason Talley and Adam Mueller.
What could possibly explain all this right wing and deregulatory
attention on a state of 1.3 million people? For one, New Hampshire
hosts the first Presidential primary. For another, Koch Industries,
Inc. purchased Georgia-Pacific Corp. for $21 billion in 2005, paying a
39 percent premium over its share price on the New York Stock Exchange
at the time. Georgia-Pacific is one of the worldâ??s largest
paper companies. Its household consumer brands include Angel Soft,
Brawny, Quilted Northern, Sparkle, Vanity Fair, and Dixie. Georgia-
Pacific owns no timberland. Its Wood and Fiber Supply division must
seek out sources of wood from industrial, institutional or individual
landowners. New Hampshire is 84 per cent forest land according to the
New Hampshire Department of Resources and Economic Development. But
there is a growing environmental and land conservation movement in New
Hampshire. That could pose a problem for lumber interests.
Are the Koch brothers alone in outsized funding of right wing groups?
No; but they are among the most proactive and sophisticated in exerting
rightward political pressure on universities, media, state
legislatures, Congress, and the town halls of America.
....A week from today weâ??ll take an in-depth look at the new kid
on the block: a mysterious right-wing nonprofit that wonâ??t
reveal where its mega bucks are coming from.
Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years; she has no security
position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article. She
writes on public interest issues from New Hampshire. She can be reached
at
.
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