Posts Tagged “Charles_Koch”
These are my links for February 22nd through February 23rd:
- The Koch Brothers and Wisconsin – But, What About Common Cause? – The New York Times has an article that runs under the headline "Billionaire Brothers' Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute." It includes this:
To Bob Edgar, a former House Democrat who is now president of Common Cause, a liberal group that has been critical of what it sees as the rising influence of corporate interests in American politics, the Koch brothers are using their money to create a façade of grass-roots support for their favorite causes.
"This is a dangerous moment in America history," Mr. Edgar said. "It is not that these folks don't have a right to participate in politics. But they are moving democracy into the control of more wealthy corporate hands."
This is really something. Who does the New York Times think funds Common Cause? Non-wealthy, non-corporate interests? Talk about a facade of grass-roots support. Common Cause's 2008 annual report — the most recent one posted on the Common Cause Web site, which is pretty pathetic for a group supposedly in favor of transparency — lists the Ford Foundation, the GE Foundation,and the Carnegie Corporation of New York as among its backers.
The 2008 Common Cause annual report lists five donors in the top giving bracket of between $100,000 and $999,000. They include:
Donna A. Curling, whose husband's company, ChoicePoint, was acquired in 2008 for $4.1 billion.
Mr. and Mrs. John C. Haas, whose family controls charitable and income-producing trusts (the Philadelphia chemical company Rohm & Haas was acquired by Dow Chemical) reportedly worth worth a total of more than $4 billion.
Markos Kounalakis, whose wife, a real estate developer, has enough money to endow a professorship at Stanford.
Chang K. Park, whose company supplies 80% of the remote controls for Time Warner Cable.
What Common Cause is is a bunch of millionaires and billionaires trying to prevent other millionaires and billionaires from participating in the political process the same way they do. In other words, they are hypocrites. The Times could write a story headlined Billionaires' Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute and have the article be about not the Koch brothers but about the funders of Common Cause. But the left-wing interest groups rarely get that kind of treatment in the Times, where these left-wing interest groups are more commonly quoted approvingly as expert sources rather than scrutinized skeptically or suspiciously as targets.
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And, then there is George Soros and his front organizations supporting Obama
- The Mitch Daniels Defense: It’s for the Children – Gov. Mitch Daniels is already under fire for his decision to refuse to push for the passage of the right-to-work laws in Indiana. But supporters are pointing to two factors that they feel make Daniels’s action understandable: his 2005 executive order that banned collective bargaining for state workers and his determination to make education reform a priority in 2011.
In other words, comparisons to Wisconsin are unfair: right-to-work laws aren’t the same as collective bargaining powers. In addition, Daniels has publicly declared his support for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s efforts.
“His reluctance on the right-to-work [law] right now is rooted in his desire to see this education [reform] work,” says Ryan Streeter, editor of ConservativeHome.com and a former colleague of Daniels in the White House. Streeter argues that Daniels has been planning for a long time to make this year about education reform – and that a huge battle over right-to-work laws could jeopardize that.
“He’s gearing up for a fight. This is not going to be an easy thing. He’s received a lot of criticism just in the local media for his plans,” says Streeter, talking about how Daniels wants to introduce vouchers and expand charter schools.
Daniels also wants more teacher accountability. “Teachers should have tenure, but they should earn it by proving their ability to help kids learn. Our best teachers should be paid more, much more, and ineffective teachers should be helped to improve or asked to move,” Daniels argued in his State of the State speech last month.
“In general, he wants to be able to rewrite the contracts so that people can be fired and moved along on merit,” Streeter remarks. “And that in itself is just a huge deal. He’s already part of the way down a path with the teachers and the unions in these discussions and so I think this whole right-to-work event right now just makes that whole other process all the more difficult.”
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If Mitch Daniels wants to run for President, he really needs a quick response social media team that will respond to minor misinterpretations and/or gaffes.
This response changes some impressions of mine but color me still skeptical.
- Elton Gallegly’s new clout helps him battle illegal immigration – Rep. Elton Gallegly slides into a black leather chair, picks up the chairman's gavel and raps it lightly to call the meeting to order.
Flat-screen TVs mounted to the walls of the wood-paneled chamber flicker to life with the Republican congressman's image as he gives his opening remarks at a hearing on illegal immigration and its effect on the American work force.
"Good morning," Gallegly begins. "I have long said that the way to solve the problem of illegal immigration is fairly simple.
"First, we must enforce our laws and secure the border. Second, we must remove the magnets that encourage illegal immigration. And finally, we must remove the benefits that make it easier for them to stay."
Gallegly has given this speech, or some variation of it, hundreds, quite possibly thousands, of times. He has been a consistent and outspoken voice against illegal immigration since he gave up his job as mayor of Simi Valley and headed east for a career in the U.S. House nearly a quarter-century ago.
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Read it all
- Wisconsin Licensing Dept. Looking Into Doctors’ Notes – Wisconsin officials are investigating complaints about doctors who handed out medical excuses for pro-labor protesters at the Capitol.
Dave Ross, of the state Department of Regulation and Licensing, said the agency is looking into accusations that a number of local doctors provided the notes for protesters who missed work during the week. Ross said the department will review complaints with the independent Medical Examining Board as soon as possible.
Tuesday's statement came a day after University of Wisconsin Health, which employed some of the physicians involved, said it was also looking into the matter.
Physician Lou Sanner was one of the doctors who provided notes. He told The Associated Press on Saturday that doctors wrote the notes for what they saw as legitimate health issues arising from stress.
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Let the wrist slapping commence
Tags: Charles_Koch, David_Koch, Elton_Gallegly, Scott Walker, Wisconsin
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Well, I am being a little disingenuous in the headline of the post. I live in Thousand Oaks, California and what the Koch Brothers did through their company Koch Membrane Systems is in Santa Paula, California which is about a 30 minutes drive from here.
What did the Kochs (You know those dirty capitalists who support all of those right-wing (pro-business) think tanks/conferences and rail against the LEFT in this country) do?
In Santa Paula the Kochs helped build a state of the art water recycling plant to help the environment – as well as the folks that live there.
The Santa Paula water recycling facility (WRF) is a membrane bioreactor (MBR)-based, 3.4MGD (expandable to 4.2MGD) water recycling facility located in the City of Santa Paula, California. The new facility is the first of its kind built under California’s Government Code Section 5956, which promotes public-private partnerships in public infrastructure projects.
Construction was completed in December 2009 and the facility became fully operational in May 2010, seven months ahead of the Regional Board compliance deadline.
And, why the replacement facility?
Before commissioning the new facility, the City of Santa Paula was served by a wastewater treatment plant built in 1939. It had reached the end of its service life and required replacement.
The original plant was also unable to comply with the waste discharge requirements of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.
The non-compliance discharges were being transferred into the Santa Clara River, as a result of which the city faced fines of over $8m from the State Regional Water Quality Control Board.
In May 2007, a consent judgement given to the state allowed that it could apply the fines toward construction of a new wastewater treatment facility, if completed by December 2010. Following the judgement, the city decided to replace its old plant with a new wastewater recycling facility.
Frankly, I don’t know what to say – either the Koch Brothers have gone “GREEN” or maybe, just maybe, the media portrayals of these BUSINESSMEN have been a little skewed.
I know what the residents of Santa Paula think…..
Tags: Charles_Koch, David_Koch, Koch_Membrane_systems
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“Uncloaking the Kochs” rally sponsored by Common Cause, AFFCE, The Ruckus Society, 350, Greenpeace, Code Pink, the Progessive Democrats of America, and others. Staged outside venue of Koch Brothers conference in Palm Springs.
Well, Common Cause who along with other Far Left organizations got caught with their UNHINGED conduct and now they have apologized.
Common Cause’s 40 year history of holding power accountable has been marked by a commitment to decency and civility – in public and private. So we are of course outraged to find that a few of those attending the events around a gathering Common Cause helped to organize Sunday near Palm Springs voiced hateful, narrow-minded sentiments to an interviewer in the crowd.
We condemn bigotry and hate speech in every form, even when it comes from those who fancy themselves as our friends.
Anyone who has attended a public event has encountered people whose ideas or acts misrepresented, even embarrassed, the gathering. Every sporting event has its share of “fans” whose boorish behavior on the sidelines makes a mockery of good sportsmanship; every political gathering has a crude sign-painter or epithet-spewing heckler.
We organized the “Uncloak the Kochs” panel discussion and took part in the rally afterwards to call public attention to the political power of Koch Industries and other corporations, their focus on expanding that power, and the dangers it presents to our democracy.
We’re committed to staging other forums and public events in the coming months to continue that effort. We urge all Americans of good will to join us.
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Common Cause is a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1970 by John Gardner as a vehicle for citizens to make their voices heard in the political process and to hold their elected leaders accountable to the public interest.
Uh Huh!
Sorry Common Cause, you knew what you were getting when you had the Far Left and Big Labor bus those folks in for your ASTROTURF – Moonbats who are far outside mainstream America.
Let’s just call a Moonbat a Moonbat shouldn’t we?
And, how about a personal apology to U.S Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas?
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Video: The Uncloaking the Kochs Street Protest Crowd Call for the Lynching of Justice Clarence Thomas
The Uncloaking the Koch Street Protest: The Kochs Vs. Soros
Updated: The Uncloaking the Kochs Street Protest is On in Rancho Mirage; Arrests Made; 25 Arrested
Updated: The Uncloaking the Kochs Street Protest is On in Rancho Mirage; Arrests Made
Far-Left Hot Air Flying Above the Koch Conference
Audio: Common Cause Holds Teleconference to Bash Weekend Koch Sponsored Conference – Uncloaking the Kochs?
Who is Sponsoring the “Uncloaking the Kochs” Protest?
The LEFT ala Saul Alinsky Protest Koch Brothers Conference
Tags: Charles_Koch, Clarence_Thomas, Common_Cause, David_Koch
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Photo from yesterday’s The Uncloacking the Kochs street protest
As Tim Carney aptly points out in his piece the Koch Conference street protest yesterday is really a fight between free markets and state coercion. A fight between the Koch brothers and George Soros sponsored LEFTIST organizations.
At the front gates of the Rancho Las Palmas resort, a few hundred liberals rallied Sunday against “corporate greed” and polluters. They chanted for the arrest of billionaires Charles and David Koch, and their ire was also directed at the other free market-oriented businessmen invited here by the Koch brothers to discuss free markets and electoral strategies.
Billionaires poisoning our politics was the central theme of the protests. But nothing is quite as it seems in modern politics: The protest’s organizer, the nonprofit Common Cause, is funded by billionaire George Soros.
Common Cause has received $2 million from Soros’s Open Society Institute in the past eight years, according to grant data provided by Capital Research Center. Two panelists at Common Cause’s rival conference nearby — President Obama’s former green jobs czar, Van Jones, and blogger Lee Fang — work at the Center for American Progress, which was started and funded by Soros but, as a 501(c)4 nonprofit “think tank,” legally conceals the names of its donors.
In other words, money from billionaire George Soros and anonymous, well-heeled liberals was funding a protest against rich people’s influence on politics.
When Politico reporter Ken Vogel pointed out that Soros hosts similar “secret” confabs, CAP’s Fang responded on Twitter: “don’t you think there’s a very serious difference between donors who help the poor vs. donors who fund people to kill government, taxes on rich?”
In less than 140 characters, Fang had epitomized the myopic liberal view of money in politics: Conservative money is bad, and linked to greed, while liberal money is self-evidently philanthropic.
Tags: Charles_Koch, David_Koch
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Common Cause Teleconference regarding the “Uncloak the Kochs” Protest, January 27, 2011
The teleconference wasn’t much because the “Uncloaking Kochs” protest isn’t very much.
You remember the information on the Saul Alinsky type street protest which will protest the Koch brothers right to free speech and assembly this weekend in the Palm Springs area of California.
So, you ask, what is the big deal?
Guess who’s holding a super secret, ill-intentioned meeting this weekend in Palm Springs, California? The nefarious Koch brothers – nefarious because they donate to conservative causes, of course.
Already, leftist groups are beginning to fulminate (against what, it’s not quite clear), insisting that there’s something inherently corrupt in the free assembly of the Koch brothers and their cohorts.
Take today’s conference call on the subject, conducted by Common Cause, featuring such liberal luminaries as former Clinton Labor secretary Robert Reich, disgraced former Obama official and Center for American Progress scholar Van Jones and his colleague Lee Fang, and DeAnn McKewan, co-president of California Nurses Association (yeah, I hadn’t heard of her either).
Reich sounded the Koch alarm: “their ongoing biannual meetings epitomize the problems that our democracy are facing right now,” he told the participants on the conference call. These meetings, he said, are a “perfect storm for democracy,” because the Koch brothers are rich and can participate in politics, “and we have secrecy – it’s all in secret.”
So, the Koch brothers hold private assemblies, participate in politics, and are, therefore, a threat to our democracy. Got it?
OK, I get it. The Koch brothers have a lot of money, donate to conservative causes, think tanks and candidates (all within the law) and the FAR LEFT and BIG LABOR don’t like it.
Listen to the entire audio above and smile as to how stupid and ridiculous the LEFT can be. They REALLY are.
This weekend conference is NO different than countless others that are held every weekend and with folks who meet to represent their industry or political ideology within the American political process. I have been to plenty through my career for organized dentistry, for example.
If you even listen hard enough to the audio above, you will hear two of the speakers try to answer the question as to why this conference is any different than any other?
The answer: The Kochs have more money.
Wow!
It is not any different, yet organized Labor will send its minions into the streets with idiotic signs to make asses out of themselves, protesting people in suits, listening to speakers talking about limited government. Real dangerous stuff here.
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Who is Sponsoring the “Uncloaking the Kochs” Protest?
The LEFT ala Saul Alinsky Protest Koch Brothers Conference
Tags: Charles_Koch, David_Koch, Saul_Alinsky, Tea_Party
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Previous Koch Conference attendees conservatives include former Attorney General Edwin Meese, Rush Limbaugh, Senator Jim DeMint and Senator John Cornyn et. al.
Remember the flap and the Saul Alinsky style street protest which I mentioned yesterday?
This morning it has been picked up by Politico.
This weekend, for the eighth straight year, the billionaire Koch brothers will convene a meeting of roughly 200 wealthy businessmen, Republican politicians and conservative activists for a semi-annual conference to raise millions of dollars for the institutions that form the intellectual foundation – and, increasingly, the leading political edge – of the conservative movement.
In the past, the meetings have drawn an A-list of participants – politicians like Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, leading free-market thinkers including American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks, talkers Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and even Supreme Court justices – to mingle with the wealthy donors who comprise the bulk of the invitees. The meetings adjourned after soliciting pledges of support from the donors – sometimes totaling as much as $50 million – to non-profit groups favored by the Kochs.
For the most part, the meetings, which are closed to the public and reporters, have attracted little attention outside conservative circles. But very different circumstances surround the Koch conference set to begin Saturday at an exclusive resort outside Palm Springs, Calif.
The Koch brothers – Charles and David – have come under intense scrutiny recently for their role in helping start and fund some of the deepest-pocketed groups involved in organizing the tea party movement such as Americans for Prosperity, and for steering cash towards efforts to target President Barack Obama, his healthcare overhaul, and congressional Democrats in the run-up to the 2010 election.
Liberal critics have launched a campaign to highlight what they say is the systematic way in which the Kochs use their political giving to advance a conservative economic and regulatory agenda designed to further the interests of their oil, chemical and manufacturing empire.
So, who is behind the protest of this conference? The usual LEFT organizations but let’s take a close look.
1. Common Cause - sponsoring organization of the Uncloak the Kochs – The Billionaires Causcus and its Threat to Our Democracy.
2. California Labor Federation
3. Courage Campaign
4. California Nurses Association
5. Code Pink
6. ACLU
7. Sierra Club
8. Greenpeace
9. AFSCME
10. MoveOn
There are others, but you get the point – The FAR LEFT and BIG LABOR.
What a shock.
And, Big Labor is helping organize the turnout and bus rides down to the Palm Springs area to protest on the streets. This is how they roll.
But, what is there to protest? Politics? Fundraising? Political Activism? Hobnobbing with the rich and famous?
While the Koch conferences have taken on an undeniably political edge – a June summit featured sessions on voter mobilization efforts for the 2010 midterms as well as solicitations for an ad campaign attacking Democratic lawmakers – those who have attended say the meetings say the critics have it all wrong.
“The main goal of the seminars appeared to me to be education on the challenges that face the American system of free enterprise and democracy, and what people can do about them,” said Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a conservative Republican who has attended at least seven of the meetings.
McDonnell, who is not attending this weekend’s conference, said he was introduced to the gatherings by “free market friends up in Northern Virginia, some in the Koch enterprises institution,” and he cast the conferences as playing an important role in the political process.
“Groups on the right, left and in the middle get together all over this great country to exercise their first amendment rights to talk about these issues – some of them are public. Some of them are closed meetings,” he said. “So, to the degree that some on the left may be trying to attack these Koch seminars is really ridiculous.”
Really ridiculous is correct. This is good government in action and the LEFT hypocritically runs the same type conferences and accepts money from large donors like George Soros – hello!
This entire protest is a Saul Alinsky type of exercise to ridicule/humiliate/demonize the RIGHT for the benefit of the LEFT – that is all.
I don’t think it will work.
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The LEFT ala Saul Alinsky Protest Koch Brothers Conference
Tags: Charles_Koch, David_Koch, Tea_Party, Uncloaking_the_Kochs
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