Koch brothers now at heart of GOP power

[n2doc]

By Tom Hamburger, Kathleen Hennessey and Neela Banerjee, Los Angeles Times
February 5, 2011, 4:48 p.m.


Reporting from Washington — The billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch no longer sit outside Washington's political establishment, isolated by their uncompromising conservatism. Instead, they are now at the center of Republican power, a change most evident in the new makeup of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Wichita-based Koch Industries and its employees formed the largest single oil and gas donor to members of the panel, ahead of giants like Exxon Mobil, contributing $279,500 to 22 of the committee's 31 Republicans, and $32,000 to 5 Democrats.

Nine of the 12 new Republicans on the panel signed a pledge distributed by a Koch-founded advocacy group — Americans for Prosperity — to oppose the Obama administration's proposal to regulate greenhouse gases. Of the six GOP freshman lawmakers on the panel, five benefited from the group's separate advertising and grass-roots activity during the 2010 campaign.

Claiming an electoral mandate, Republicans on the committee have launched an agenda of the sort long backed by the Koch brothers. A top early goal: restricting the reach of the Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the Kochs' core energy businesses.

more
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-koch-brothers-20110206,0,1681069.story

[lunasun]

1. Boycott Bounty paper towels and Dixie paper plates and cups! Kochs are the owner.”

dont give them a cent of your wages! it wont bring them down but it at least keeps you free from contributing....

[annabanana]

3. damn . .bounty?

I knew dixie was them...

oh well

[NC_Nurse]

4. I think it's brawny, not bounty paper towels...

[lunasun]

11. Sorry my BAD !!!!! it is BRawny NOT Bounty(P&G) here is the Koch list...

Angel Soft · Brawny · Colhogar · Delica · Demak'Up · DensArmor Plus · Dixie · KittenSoft · Lotus · Mardi Gras · Moltonel · Okay · Plytanium · Quilted Northern · Soft 'n Gentle · Sparkle · Tenderly · ToughRock · Tutto · Vanity Fair · Zee

[rhett o rick]

2. k&r

[Omaha Steve]

5. K&R!

[DainBramaged]

6. The Koch's won't live forever......

they are old

[handmade34]

8. they have families

[DainBramaged]

9. I have a feeling the families aren't evil like the Matriarchs

[handmade34]

10. the brothers learned it from their father

...co-founder of the John Birch Society

[WhiteTara]

12. that's Patriarch

for Father/Man lineage.

[DainBramaged]

13. They are mother-folkers, they are nanny scum

of course they are, but someone had to notice.......

[WhiteTara]

14. DB, that did not make sense

you called the matriarch "evil". I pointed out that this is father/son therefore patriarch. What are you talking about now? They are motherless sons of dogs, in my opinion.

[handmade34]

7. good article...

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer


"The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama..."


"The Kochs’ subsidization of a pro-corporate movement fulfills, in many ways, the vision laid out in a secret 1971 memo that Lewis Powell, then a Virginia attorney, wrote two months before he was nominated to the Supreme Court. The antiwar movement had turned its anger on defense contractors, such as Dow Chemical, and Ralph Nader was leading a public-interest crusade against corporations. Powell, writing a report for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, urged American companies to fight back. The greatest threat to free enterprise, he warned, was not Communism or the New Left but, rather, “respectable elements of society”—intellectuals, journalists, and scientists. To defeat them, he wrote, business leaders needed to wage a long-term, unified campaign to change public opinion."


"...In 1989, the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs investigated their business and released a scathing report accusing Koch Oil of “a widespread and sophisticated scheme to steal crude oil from Indians and others through fraudulent mismeasuring.” The Kochs admitted that they had improperly taken thirty-one million dollars’ worth of crude oil, but said that it had been accidental. Charles Koch told committee investigators that oil measurement is “a very uncertain art.”


"The Kochs have long depended on the public’s not knowing all the details about them. They have been content to operate what David Koch has called “the largest company that you’ve never heard of.” But with the growing prominence of the Tea Party, and with increased awareness of the Kochs’ ties to the movement, the brothers may find it harder to deflect scrutiny. Recently, President Obama took aim at the Kochs’ political network. Speaking at a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser, in Austin, he warned supporters that the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Citizens United case—which struck down laws prohibiting direct corporate spending on campaigns—had made it even easier for big companies to hide behind “groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity.” Obama said, “They don’t have to say who, exactly, Americans for Prosperity are. You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation”—or even, he added, “a big oil company.”

they own all this and control massive oil lines...

Bath Tissue
Angel Soft® Quilted Northern Ultra Plush® Quilted Northern Soft & Strong® Soft n' Gentle®

Building / Remodeling
Blue Ribbon®
Clutter Cutter®
DensArmor Plus®
DensDeck®
DensGlass®
DensShield®
DryPly®
FireGuard®
GP Lam®
Hushboard®
Nautilus®
Ply-Bead®
Plytanium®
Southern Gold®
Sta-Strait™ Thermostat®
ToughRock®
Wood I Beam™
XJ 85™


Cups & Tableware
Dixie®
Insulair® PerfecTouch® Ultra™ Vanity Fair®

Home and Office Papers
Advantage® Image Plus® Spectrum®

Napkins
Mardi Gras® Vanity Fair® Zee®

Paper Towels
Brawny® Mardi Gras® Sparkle® Zee®

[DeadEyeDyck]

15. k&R