Tag: Koch Industries

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Citizens United Politics United States Wisconsin Wisconsin Union Bashing

Koch Brothers And American For Prosperity Attacked By Anonymous

The Koch Brothers and Americans For Prosperity have been put on notice… from Anonymous, the internet hacking group that came out in support for Wiki-leaks and other “internet injustices.” The group began their protest by joining the pro-union fight in Wisconsin, and by taking down the website for Americans For Prosperity.

Anonymous then put out a press-release stating their cause;

Dear Citizens of the United States of America,

It has come to our attention that the brothers, David and Charles Koch–the billionaire owners of Koch Industries–have long attempted to usurp American Democracy. Their actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin are the final straw. Starting today we fight back.

Koch Industries, and oligarchs like them, have most recently started to manipulate the political agenda in Wisconsin. Governor Walker’s union-busting budget plan contains a clause that went nearly un-noticed. This clause would allow the sale of publicly owned utility plants in Wisconsin to private parties (specifically, Koch Industries) at any price, no matter how low, without a public bidding process. The Koch’s have helped to fuel the unrest in Wisconsin and the drive behind the bill to eliminate the collective bargaining power of unions in a bid to gain a monopoly over the state’s power supplies.

The Koch brothers have made a science of fabricating ‘grassroots’ organizations and advertising campaigns to support them in an attempt to sway voters based on their falsehoods. Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth and Citizens United are just a few of these organizations. In a world where corporate money has become the lifeblood of political influence, the labor unions are one of the few ways citizens have to fight against corporate greed. Anonymous cannot ignore the plight of the citizen-workers of Wisconsin, or the opportunity to fight for the people in America’s broken political system. For these reasons, we feel that the Koch brothers threaten the United States democratic system and, by extension, all freedom-loving individuals everywhere. As such, we have no choice but to spread the word of the Koch brothers’ political manipulation, their single-minded intent and the insidious truth of their actions in Wisconsin, for all to witness.

Anonymous hears the voice of the downtrodden American people, whose rights and liberties are being systematically removed one by one, even when their own government refuses to listen or worse – is complicit in these attacks. We are actively seeking vulnerabilities, but in the mean time we are calling for all supporters of true Democracy, and Freedom of The People, to boycott all Koch Industries’ paper products. We welcome unions across the globe to join us in this boycott to show that you will not allow big business to dictate your freedom.

Things are starting to get interesting…! 🙂

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Politics United States Wisconsin Wisconsin Union Bashing

Koch Brothers To Liberals – We Will Not Step Back

Earlier this week, when a blogger called Wisconsin’s governor Scott Walker, pretending to be David Koch and talking to the governor for about 20 minutes, the joke apparently did not go down too well in the Koch compound. In an interview with National Review Online, Mark Holden, the general council for Koch Industries said the call was “fraudulent” ;

“There are serious fiscal issues at play in Wisconsin. Yet our opponents are interjecting us falsely into this story. But our Wisconsin story is about bringing and keeping good manufacturing jobs in the state. It is disturbing that when a blogger calls using the Koch name, it is used as an opportunity to attack the company.”

Mr. Holden wasn’t the only one upset. Richard Fink, the executive vice president of Koch Industries also voiced his displeasure, saying, “We will not step back at all.” He then accused the left of trying to “intimidate” the billionaire brothers empire, saying;

“With the Left trying to intimidate the Koch brothers to back off of their support for freedom and signaling to others that this is what happens if you oppose the administration and its allies, we have no choice but to continue to fight.. We will not step back at all. We firmly believe that economic freedom has benefited the overwhelming majority of society, including workers, who earn higher wages when you have open and free markets. When government grows as it has with the Bush and Obama administrations, that is what destroys prosperity.”

The brothers, whose millions have been used to finance the Teaparty movement –where average Americans are used to protest policies that are in their best interest — feel like their backs are up against the wall and they’re coming out swinging. Mr. Fink states that the attacks on the Koch brothers is not just coming from “left-winged bloggers,” but part of a much bigger scheme constructed by the Obama administration. He continued;

It involves the Obama administration, the Center for American Progress, aligned left-wing groups, and their friends in the media. This is just the latest salvo in their attacks on the Koch brothers and Koch Industries. But it is an escalation — they’re now bringing in some labor groups, which they have not done before. We expect this to be part of an ongoing effort against [Koch Industries] as the 2012 presidential campaign approaches.”

But don’t feel sorry for the multi-billionaire brothers just yet. They are fighters, and if the past is any indication, we can expect to see  hundreds of little old grandmas and grandpas, pushing their walkers and carrying signs along the streets of Wisconsin, demonstrating again for the poor Koch compound.

Read the rest of the interview here.

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Climate change Featured United States United States Environmental Protection Agency

Chairman of Energy Disagrees with Climate Change

How crazy is it that the House of Representatives Republican Chairman of Energy, Fred Upton thinks that climate change is not man-made. You know, all the pollutants we pump into the atmosphere day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, have nothing to do with why our climate gets warmer and warmer, right?

Brad Johnson gives this report.

At a public forum today, Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), the new head of the House energy committee, denied that climate change is manmade. Upton, who received $20,000 from Koch Industries in his most recent campaign, had called for a reduction in greenhouse emissions as recently as June 2009.

Upton has now introduced legislation with Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to overturn the scientific finding by the Environmental Protection Agency that greenhouse pollution threatens public health. This morning, Upton was pressed by National Journal‘s Ron Brownstein as to why the Upton-Inhofe bill describes climate change as “possible.” After repeated attempts to avoid the question, Upton finally explained his wide-straddling stance: he accepts that the planet is warming, but not that the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity are a cause:

“I have said many times, and there was a report a couple of weeks ago that in fact you look at this last year, it was the warmest year in the last decade, I think was the numbers that came out. I don’t — I accept that. I do not say that it is man-made.”

Upton then repeated the falsehood that “even if cap-and-trade had been enacted, it would not have changed the temperature by a tenth of a degree anywhere in the world.”

In reality, the Environmental Protection Agency has found that U.S. cap-and-trade would avoid several degrees of catastrophic warming. And 2010 was not just the hottest year this decade, but the hottest year in recorded history. This is why the National Academies of Science found last year that “climate change is occurring and is caused in large part by human activities” and that the United States should “act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Instead, tomorrow Upton will hold a hearing with several witnesses funded by Exxon Mobil and Koch Industries to praise the Upton-Inhofe pollution act.

– Brad Johnson

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