A little class warfare, anyone? Here's a brief biography on the Koch Brothers to explain the problem of wealth and Conservative corruption in America:
"The Koch family (/ˈkoʊk/ koke) of industrialists and businesspeople is most notable for its control of Koch Industries, the second largest privately owned company in the United States (with 2013 revenues of $115 billion). The family business was started by Fred C. Koch, who developed a new cracking method for the refinement of heavy oil into gasoline. Fred's four sons litigated against each other over their interests in the business during the 1980s and 1990s.
"Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch — the two brothers still with Koch Industries — are affiliated with the Koch family foundations..."
This is what the Koch Brothers do for America...excuse us *to* America, where corporations are people and money equals speech...
"Koch-backed political network, built to shield donors, raised $400 million in 2012 elections."
"The political network spearheaded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch has expanded into a far-reaching operation of unrivaled complexity, built around a maze of groups that cloaks its donors, according to an analysis of new tax returns and other documents.
"The filings show that the network of politically active nonprofit groups backed by the Kochs and fellow donors in the 2012 elections financially outpaced other independent groups on the right and, on its own, matched the long-established national coalition of labor unions that serves as one of the biggest sources of support for Democrats.
"The resources and the breadth of the organization make it singular in American politics: an operation conducted outside the campaign finance system, employing an array of groups aimed at stopping what its financiers view as government overreach. Members of the coalition target different constituencies but together have mounted attacks on the new health-care law, federal spending and environmental regulations.
"Key players in the Koch-backed network have already begun engaging in the 2014 midterm elections, hiring new staff members to expand operations and strafing House and Senate Democrats with hard-hitting ads over their support for the Affordable Care Act.
"Its funders remain largely unknown; the coalition was carefully constructed with extensive legal barriers to shield its donors.
"But they have substantial firepower. Together, the 17 conservative groups that made up the network raised at least $407 million during the 2012 campaign, according to the analysis of tax returns by The Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics.
"A labyrinth of tax-exempt groups and limited-liability companies helps mask the sources of the money, much of which went to voter mobilization and television ads attacking President Obama and congressional Democrats, according to tax filings and campaign finance reports..."
But this is just a one-shot deal, isn't it?
"Secret New Tape Exposes Kochs’ Ludicrous Strategy to Win Over America."
"A series of leaked panel discussions from the Koch brothers’ June retreat shows that their right-wing donors network is focused on a GOP takeover of the U.S. Senate, and the 2014 midterms generally. But a parallel tier of programming during the lavish weekend advanced the brothers’ newest priority: Reversing Americans’ perceptions that they’re just greedy gazillionaires by repackaging their research and activism as promoting Americans’ 'well-being,' not merely free-market fanaticism.
"In new audio and transcripts of one retreat panel, obtained by the Undercurrent and provided exclusively to Salon, three Koch-funded activists shared the lessons of using new strategies to promote “well-being” to reach elusive GOP constituencies: young people, Latinos and women..."
And before we peek at today's happenings with the Boys From the John Birch Society, let's have a little historical perspective first...
"Report: The Kochs, A Nazi Past, Oil & The Foundation of The Right."
"Notorious Nazis Ilse Koch, her husband Karl Otto Koch and Erich Koch are the ghosts of Koch Industries, who seized the U.S. conservative political agenda years ago and seem capable of seizing the government in total through the Tea Party. Ilse Koch was the Nazi’s specialist in making objects from human skin; was the only woman charged with war crimes; and along with her husband was in charge of one of the most horrific horror camps in Nazi Germany.
"Koch Industries is the child of the violence of Buchenwald, widely regarded as one of wartime Germany’s most notorious 'death camps.'
"Information connecting Ilse and Koch Industries is hard to find but is a string of fragments, pieces of information that connects the American and German Kochs and this connection gives us a clear image of the sentiment behind the Tea Party and conservative American politics since the 1950s...
"American Fred Koch, and through association the Kochs from Germany, establish the John Birch Society in the 1950s in NY, which becomes the policy center for American conservatives. The society was built on Fred Koch’s oil money in the 1950s and can be thought of as the center of neo-conservative politics as well as the Tea Party movement. The ideologies of each are not the same – but the Tea Party fits into the neo-conservative put for colonial corporate police state as a sort of consumer citizen of the neo-conservative strategy mad as hell at the government and the legacy of liberalism, postmodernism, multiculturalism, taxes…"
(For the whole sordid story, click here --> http://unknownjournal.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/%E2%96%BC-report-the-kochs-their-nazi-past-american-oil-the-foundation-of-republican-ideology/)
But let's go on with our story, where a picture is worth a thousand words and two pictures are worth twice the amount...
Have you ever heard of "dark money?" It's the byword of the Koch clan...
"It's Time To Name The 2014 Midterms The Dark Money Election."
"WASHINGTON -- If 2012 was the super PAC election, the 2014 midterms look to be the dark money election. Spending on ads that named federal candidates by nonprofit organizations, which are not required to disclose their donors, has soared in the months leading up to November.
"Dark money groups have spent at least $142 million on advertising campaigns naming specific senators, representatives and congressional candidates over the past 20 months, according to a Huffington Post analysis of news reports, press releases and political advertising reports collected by the Sunlight Foundation. This total now surpasses the $122 million spent by independent groups that do disclose their donors and only stands to grow.
"The major source of this undisclosed money is no surprise -- the political network run by billionaire oligarchs Charles and David Koch. Their network raised and distributed $400 million in the 2012 elections. This time around, the six groups at the center of the Koch operation have already combined to spend at least $53.5 million just on candidate-specific ads.
"Nearly all of the spending by Koch groups has come in the form of so-called issue advocacy. Buying issue ads, which level attacks on candidates while stopping short of calling for their electoral victory or defeat, is a useful loophole for nonprofit groups that must abide by tax laws restricting the time and money they can spend on elections. Further, none of this spending is required to be disclosed publicly to the Federal Election Commission..."
Anyway, the Koch Brothers are experts on the horrors of fascism as we saw in the story above (Report: The Kochs, A Nazi Past, Oil & The Foundation of The Right.)
"Top Koch Strategist Argues The Minimum Wage Leads Directly To Fascism."
"At a political strategy summit hosted on June 16 by the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, Richard Fink, their top political strategist, told the private audience that when he sees someone 'on the street' he says, 'Get off your ass, and work hard like we did.' Fink's anecdote came during his presentation titled 'The Long-Term Strategy: Engaging the Middle Third,' which capped off a session of four speeches detailing the intellectual foundation of Charles Koch’s political ideology. Audio of the event was obtained by The Undercurrent and shared exclusively with The Huffington Post..."
But sooner or later all great men come under fire...
"Charles Koch Complains He And His Brother Are 'In Front Of The Firing Squad'"
"It isn't easy being a politically connected billionaire. At a private political strategy summit earlier this year, Charles Koch lamented that he and his brother David were being unfairly persecuted for their fight against liberalism and socialism.
"According to audio of the June 16 event that was obtained by The Undercurrent and shared exclusively with The Huffington Post on Wednesday, the billionaire oil industrialist claimed he and his brother were "put squarely in front of the firing squad."
"The Koch brothers have funneled millions of dollars to Republican and tea party groups, and GOP politicians frequently pay homage to the Kochs' electoral network. In an April op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Charles Koch insisted that all of this political money was actually serving as a crusade against corruption..."
Aren't those crazy Koch boys just the wackiest billionaires you've ever seen?
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Let's get serious for a moment -- The problem is simply this: Conservatism is being funded by the Conservatives' shills in Congress to preserve and protect the wealthy upper class, and it's about time for some asset forfeiture as well as stripping the income and assets from these fascists.
Take a look at the differences between Conservative values and real American values...
Conservatism is anti-American, it's criminal, it preys on the weakest and most vulnerable of us, and we are paying dearly for allowing the greediest among us like the Koch boys to pursue their relentless quest to substitute their brand of fascism on the U.S.
There oughta be a law. -- Joyce, Jnr.
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"Conservatives define themselves in terms of what they oppose."
George Will.
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