Charles And David Koch Exposed For Insidious Role In Crafting The Modern Right

24 August 2010

"This morning, the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer published an explosive investigative piece detailing the role of the Koch family in orchestrating not only the Tea Party movement, but much of the modern right-wing infrastructure. The brothers David and Charles Koch, heirs to the oil and chemical conglomerate Koch Industries, have founded or funded dozens of conservative or libertarian publications, think tanks, and attack groups. Their father, Fred Koch, similarly fueled the paranoid right-wing movements of the fifties and sixties through his financing of the John Birch Society.

Mayer’s piece builds off the original reporting conducted by ThinkProgress since the very beginning of the Tea Party movement. Here’s a review of what we’ve reported:

– In April 2009, ThinkProgress revealed that Americans for Prosperity, a group founded by David Koch, was helping to plan dozens of the first national Tea Party rallies. Americans for Prosperity staffers organized events, from making reservations, to providing talking points and signs, to calling activists to encourage them to participate.

– In August 2009, ThinkProgress obtained an exclusive memo from a Tea Party group supported by Koch’s Americans for Prosperity. The memo outlined various ways for Tea Party activists to intimidate Democratic lawmakers and disrupt their town hall meetings on health reform. ThinkProgress published half a dozen articles exposing the role of Koch-funded groups like “Patients United” in encouraging opposition to health reform. For instance, in Virginia, a Koch-funded operative Ben Marchi assisted a birther who followed Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) around, yelling at him at town hall meetings.

– In May 2009, the Wonk Room published a detailed history of Tim Phillips, an astroturf lobbyist Koch appointed to run his Americans for Prosperity front. Phillips had served as a business partner to Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed.

– Writing in the Boston Globe, ThinkProgress commented on the similarities between David and Charles’ Tea Party movement to their father’s efforts to attack President John Kennedy through the John Birch Society.

– The Wonk Room reported on thirty years of Koch Industry environmental front groups. The timeline showed how Koch tried desperately to smear the cap and trade system set up to address acid rain with a “grassroots” group without a single grassroots member.

– At Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) “House Call” rally, ThinkProgress produced a video report exposing Koch for paying for dozens of buses for anti-health reform activists to reach DC. We also captured the picture of a large banner comparing health reform to the Holocaust.

– The Wonk Room investigated Koch Industries’ role in the effort to repeal AB 32, the landmark California climate change clean energy law. The Wonk Room’s video report revealed how Koch Industries’ reliance on high-carbon Canadian crude would become less profitable if similar laws like AB 32 are enacted around the country.

– ThinkProgress reported how a variety of right-wing fronts supported by the Koch family and its political deputies not only helped overturn nearly a hundred years in campaign finance law in the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, but also is lobbying aggressively against the DISCLOSE Act, which would provide transparency into the campaign spending for plutocrats like the Koch family.

– The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson reported extensively on the multiple climate-denying campaigns orchestrated by the Koch family. Johnson has lampooned some of the Koch family’s more ridiculous attempts at billionaire populism.

– ThinkProgress partnered with Climate Progress to investigate David Koch’s funding of the Smithsonian Institute. We spoke to the Smithsonian director, who continued to express gratitude to Koch, and whitewashed Koch’s role in distorting public knowledge of climate science. Similarly, we have long chronicled the “Swift Boat” style attack campaign conducted by Koch’s various anti-science fronts.

– The Wonk Room reported on how Koch-backed groups and media outlets spread the myth that the so-called “Climategate” e-mails showed that scientists had concealed climate data from the public.

Mayer’s article sheds light on many other ways in which the Koch family has intertwined its business interests with its investment in right-wing groups. She also exposes a serious conflict of interest with David Koch’s position as a board member to the National Cancer Institute, an honor granted to him by President Bush. Mayer notes that while David Koch has been “casting himself as a champion in the fight against cancer, Koch Industries has been lobbying to prevent the E.P.A. from classifying formaldehyde, which the company produces in great quantities, as a ‘known carcinogen’ in humans.”

http://www.thinkprogress.org/

If, the world quit using oil, terrorist oil money would dry up.

I do my part to fund the Saudis. Not much, I is po'.

But, it beats havin' my license revoked and forced to ride da' bus.

Always good to know the source of the money for the organizations that are trying to tear our country down.

Now how to stop them from tearing the country down?

Throw all the tea partiers in the Boston Bay? Using life jackets of course, I would never bring myself to their level of wishing death on anyone.

Hey, it worked against the British, right?

Paint Tea Partiers pictures of them in clown paint?

Put Hitler mustaches on pictures of Tea Partiers?

Make a false Muslim connection to the Tea party?

Call Tea Partiers communist socialists?

Accuses the Tea Partiers of trying to destroy our country, oh wait, they are doing that!

What should be the plan?

If our government hired the brightest scientist in 73 to find an alternative to oil, we wouldn't be paying $3-$8 a gallon and we wouldn't be funding Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group either. We need to start now and be done with oil as a fuel source and hell, we can even create lubricants too!

That's really sad

any plan is better than the one currently put forth by this incompetent administration.

spend spend spend regulate regulate regulate debt debt debt..

their plans are really working out well if your goal is to turn this country into greece..

the socialist utopia..

I think those ideas are being used now...hummm...LOL. I think I love you, you know.


Ever notice that anyone who says "any plan" usually has no plan at all?

Ok, if you think one party is destroying the country, then you really have s*it for brains. There is no other way to say that. Fact is, Democrats and Republican's are doing there fair share of messing things up. And, to be completely honest, the lone reason that none of these parties is working together is due to the fact that none of them are willing to compromise on any issue at all. Conclusion. Our Government is phucking things up. It's not just one party.

Thanks.

I can agree that they all can do damage just as all humans can be good and evil at the same time.]

My issue is with the Tea Partiers, who haven't done anything constructive but tear the country down every chance they get.

I am not for the Dems or Repubs

like obama and his plans? hope and change....

Interesting how Obama has been changing all of Bush's former policies concerning the economy and how Obamas policies have been a complete diaster.Seems like he should call Bush up for some advice on the economy before this whole country goes bankrupt.

Not

I'm curious as to how they are "tearing the country down"? What exactly has the Tea Party done that has been so bad? Let's look at the basics.

Tea Party members voice their opinions. Ok, so does any type of special interest group. Does the Tea Party have an agenda? Sure they do....just like all interest groups. Does the Tea Party go about all of their methods in the best manner? Hell no....but you can say the same about any special interest group.

You can say that the Tea Party is destroying America. I don't buy into that, but it is your own opinion. I just feel that to blame the Tea Party for this is silly. People on the far-left are just as radical as people on the far-right. In my eyes, this battle within our political system (which is between Republican's, Dem's, Independents) is making US citizens more apathetic towards our own Government. Right now, Obama is being ridiculed for not fixing the economy. That ridicule comes from the majority of US citizens. Not just those of conservative values. They want Obama and his administation to fix the economy NOW! Is it fair to blame Obama? Yes and No. I blame him and Congress. Republicans, Dem's and Independents.

All I am saying is that, like the Tea Party or don't like them, they are not destroying our country. Simply put, the members of the Tea Party do not like the direction of the country, and so they are speaking out. And they are not the only one's. Some Dem's are not happy. Some Republicans aren't happy.

Uh, the subject of this thread is how the T-baggers were funded and manipulated with disinformation to represent corporate interest over our way of life and our representative government...T-bagging is no grass roots American desire..it's just BSers BSing the BSables.

They are a major part of the problem...as stated and proven in the OP.

Uh, the subject of this thread is how the T-baggers were funded and manipulated with disinformation to represent corporate interest over our way of life and our representative government...T-bagging is no grass roots American desire..it's just BSers BSing the BSables.

They are a major part of the problem...as stated and proven in the OP.

I was responding to Dragoness comment...not YOUR whole post. You can say they are a major part of the problem. But then again, the same can be said for Dem's and Republicans. Which was my point to her comment.

I will also add that I don't know enough about the Tea Party to make an informed decision about it. So, I am not gonna read your OP and then go, "Oh yeah. Tea Party is bad. Real bad". That article is from the New Yorker, which as far as I know, is more liberal based. Of course they will want to discredit the Tea Party. Just like a conservative newspaper or organization will want to discredit anything to do with liberals and Dem's.

Point here to be made is this: The tea party is tearing down this country as much as THEY say Obama and the government is. They are not a part of any solution so they must be part of the problem.

Well sorry to tell you, but talking with an ex-government guy, a man who had three doctorates and is the smartest man I've ever known, told me otherwise. Anyway, he worked in a DC think tank and said that there were complex injection fuel systems that could produce 150-200 mpg. Problem is, the big oil companies won't allow them to be released to the public....the dollar can buy you all kinds of things if you have enough of it. And yes they have been available since the 70's
ADDNOTE- he is dead now, sucicide, uh huh go figure. I think smart as he was, he talked too much.