[onlooker]

Thought I would create a whole new thread on these brothers as they have so much clout as referenced in this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/us/po ... .html?_r=0
And they like using it has attested by their plan to spend 900 million dollars on 2016 campaign and how much they have contributed in the past few elections. Now here is a little contribution they make to our environment in the US
Toxic contribution that is. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... e-20140924
Oh by the way as alluded to in both links they are a major supporter of the Republican party by the way.

[Subjectivist]

Just regurgitated blame game, the Kochs are thrown up every few months as the devil brother incarnate.

[Lore]

These guys, after Citizens United, are the reason the GOP is imploding. They have no responsibility but to their own greed. All this outside money to influence our politics over the voter is going to be our downfall. The Plutocracy that was once the United States a Democratic Republic.

[Plantagenet]

I really don't understand this obsession with the Koch brothers, except it lets the Ds pretend that the D party isn't run by billionaires just like the R party. Harry Reid started demonizing the Kochs in his Senate speeches before the 2012 election--- and it seems to have become a meme among partisan Ds.

Here is a more non-partisan article in the NY Times discussing the 150 wealthiest families in America. These families have given roughly HALF of all the donations to the presidential candidates in BOTH parties for 2016. While more wealthy folks give to Rs, I believe the candidate who has raked in the most SUPERPAC money from the wealthy so far is Hillary----right? And, of course, Hillary has set the obscene goal of 2 billion dollars for her 2016 campaign fundraising.

us/politics/2016-presidential-election-super-pac-donors.

The NYT article includes some supplementary material documenting just how much money each of these families has given to Hillary, Bush, and the other 2016 candidates. I quickly scanned the list, but I couldn't even find the Koch brothers on it. Perhaps they don't even rank among the 150 wealthiest families now? I know I checked last year, and they ranked something like 90th in the amount of money they give to politicians when compared to other wealthy US families. Curious the 89 families even wealthier then the Kochs that give money to politicians than the Kochs never even get mentioned by Harry Reid and the Ds.


princess-hillary-clinton-fundraising-goal-2-billion

[Lore]

Here's some of the Koch investments in our future. It must be driving them crazy that Trump is in the lead and their earlier cash is being flushed. Specially their favorite son, Walker. No worries though because the Cruz is drafting Donald and ready to pick up the pieces when he folds.

[ROCKMAN]

I have no problem with pointing out factual on the Koch brothers. Just as I have no problem pointing out the facts behind the billionaires that are providing financial support for the D's:

"David and Charles Koch are brothers who run Koch Industries, an oil refinery business that is the second largest private firm in the country. The brothers are tied at number 6 on Forbes top billionaires list with personal net worth of about $41 billion each. They’ve expanded and maintained their fortunes by successfully providing the refined product that keeps America moving – oil.

George Soros is chairman of Soros Fund Management, a hedge fund company. Soros is number 27 on Forbes list with a net worth of $23 billion. He’s made his fortune in large part by selling short against international currencies and collapsing financial institutions. In 1997, he was dubbed “the man who broke the Bank of England”; and he was blamed by the Malaysian Prime Minister for collapsing their currency during the Asian financial crisis. He was also convicted of illegal financial dealings in France. His big bet now is collapsing the U.S. dollar and the free enterprise system. Economist Paul Krugman has been critical of Soros and others like him, “who not only move money in anticipation of a currency crisis, but actually do their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit."

[Lore]

The Kochs got their misguided start from their John Bircher daddy.

The following article by Rolling Stone is too long here, but worth reading in its entirety if you really want the lowdown on their influence.

These guys can burn in hell.

Inside the Koch Brothers' Toxic Empire

Together, Charles and David Koch control one of the world's largest fortunes, which they are using to buy up our political system. But what they don't want you to know is how they made all that money

The enormity of the Koch fortune is no mystery. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40 billion. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly well-chronicled. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; they've cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the Tea Party and powers today's GOP. Koch-affiliated organizations raised some $400 million during the 2012 election, and aim to spend another $290 million to elect Republicans in this year's midterms. So far in this cycle, Koch-backed entities have bought 44,000 political ads to boost Republican efforts to take back the Senate.

But Koch Industries is not entirely opaque. The company's troubled legal history – including a trail of congressional investigations, Department of Justice consent decrees, civil lawsuits and felony convictions – augmented by internal company documents, leaked State Department cables, Freedom of Information disclosures and company whistle­-blowers, combine to cast an unwelcome spotlight on the toxic empire whose profits finance the modern GOP.

The volume of Koch Industries' toxic output is staggering. According to the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Political Economy Research Institute, only three companies rank among the top 30 polluters of America's air, water and climate: ExxonMobil, American Electric Power and Koch Industries. Thanks in part to its 2005 purchase of paper-mill giant Georgia-Pacific, Koch Industries dumps more pollutants into the nation's waterways than General Electric and International Paper combined. The company ranks 13th in the nation for toxic air pollution. Koch's climate pollution, meanwhile, outpaces oil giants including Valero, Chevron and Shell. Across its businesses, Koch generates 24 million metric tons of greenhouse gases a year.

For Koch, this license to pollute amounts to a perverse, hidden subsidy. The cost is borne by communities in cities like Port Arthur, Texas, where a Koch-owned facility produces as much as 2 billion pounds of petrochemicals every year. In March, Koch signed a consent decree with the Department of Justice requiring it to spend more than $40 million to bring this plant into compliance with the Clean Air Act.

The toxic history of Koch Industries is not limited to physical pollution. It also extends to the company's business practices, which have been the target of numerous federal investigations, resulting in several indictments and convictions, as well as a whole host of fines and penalties.

Koch is also long on the richest – but also the dirtiest and most carbon-polluting – oil deposits in North America: the tar sands of Alberta. The company's Pine Bend refinery, near St. Paul, Minnesota, processes nearly a quarter of the Canadian bitumen exported to the United States – which, in turn, has created for Koch Industries a lucrative sideline in petcoke exports. Denser, dirtier and cheaper than coal, petcoke is the dregs of tar-sands refining. U.S. coal plants are largely forbidden from burning petcoke, but it can be profitably shipped to countries with lax pollution laws like Mexico and China. One of the firm's subsidiaries, Koch Carbon, is expanding its Chicago terminal operations to receive up to 11 million tons of petcoke for global export. In June, the EPA noted the facility had violated the Clean Air Act with petcoke particulates that endanger the health of South Side residents.

But in the real world, Koch Industries has used its political might to beat back the very market-based mechanisms – including a cap-and-trade market for carbon pollution – needed to create the ownership rights for pollution that Charles says would improve the functioning of capitalism.

In fact, it appears the very essence of the Koch business model is to exploit breakdowns in the free market. Koch has profited precisely by dumping billions of pounds of pollutants into our waters and skies – essentially for free. It racks up enormous profits from speculative trades lacking economic value that drive up costs for consumers and create risks for our economy.

The Koch brothers get richer as the costs of what Koch destroys are foisted on the rest of us – in the form of ill health, foul water and a climate crisis that threatens life as we know it on this planet. Now nearing 80 – owning a large chunk of the Alberta tar sands and using his billions to transform the modern Republican Party into a protection racket for Koch Industries' profits – Charles Koch is not about to see the light. Nor does the CEO of one of America's most toxic firms have any notion of slowing down. He has made it clear that he has no retirement plans: "I'm going to ride my bicycle till I fall off."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... z3oTSqQc4T

[ROCKMAN]

Lore - Just curious: do you also have an article on the unfair influence of another $billionair...George Soros?

[Lore]

Lore - Just curious: do you also have an article on the unfair influence of another $billionair...George Soros?

Yes, right here.

NO, GEORGE SOROS DIDN’T GIVE $33 MILLION TO #BLACKLIVES MATTER
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... atter.html

Kidding aside, the OP here is about the Koch Brothers, not Soros. I agree though that max money in the capitalist system often breeds corrupt uses, but you can't get get away from pointing a finger at the most aggregious offenders among them. Right now in the US the Kochs are #1.

[Plantagenet]

[ I agree though that max money in the capitalist system often breeds corrupt uses, but you can't get get away from pointing a finger at the most aggregious offenders among them. Right now in the US the Kochs are #1.

Actually, the Koch Brothers rank at #59.

evil-koch-brothers-rank-59-in-political-donations


The Metropolitan Museum's new entrance funded by the Koch Foundation

[Lore]

Their evil Plant is #1.



Koch, petcoke cloud Detroit

Let me add that what you quoted was Koch direct contributions.

Koch-backed network aims to spend nearly $1 billion in run-up to 2016

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — A network of conservative advocacy groups backed by Charles and David Koch aims to spend a staggering $889 million in advance of the next White House election, part of an expansive strategy to build on its 2014 victories that may involve jumping into the Republican primaries.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

[Newfie]

We saw an add on CNN (I think?) that was not overtly pro Clinton but by placement and tone seemed to be very pro Clinton. It was sponsored by Koch.com. But the server is always down.

Anyone know if this site is a Koch Brothers funded site?

http://koch.com

[ennui2]

There is no site there.

[dolanbaker]

It's probably been bought and "parked" to avoid someone else (ab)using the name.

[Outcast_Searcher]

It's probably been bought and "parked" to avoid someone else (ab)using the name.

So wouldn't it make more sense to have a one page site that clearly states that's what it is? (And they should protect the hell out of it to prevent hacker games, I'd think).

As it is, it seems to invite speculation from all the Koch haters.

Because, I suppose, we should be concerned about an empty website instead of, say, Clinton's health.

[Newfie]

It caused us to speculate that it was the Koch Bros. supporting Hillary.

[dolanbaker]

https://who.is/whois/koch.com

This is the publicly available for the domain koch.com
If the dns servers point to null then there is nothing to hack.

Code: Select all

Registrar Info
Name
NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
Whois Server
whois.networksolutions.com
Referral URL
http://networksolutions.com
Status
clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Important Dates
Expires On
2017-04-30
Registered On
1994-04-29
Updated On
2016-01-11
Name Servers
NS1.NET56.NET
207.177.213.11
NS2.NET56.NET
207.177.213.12
Similar Domains
koch.ag | koch.alsace | koch.am | koch.asia | koch.at | koch.bar | koch.be | koch.bg | koch.biz | koch.ca | koch.cc | koch.ch | koch.city | koch.cloud | koch.cn | koch.co | koch.co.il | koch.co.in | koch.co.th | koch.com |
Registrar Data
Registrant Contact Information:
Name
Net56, Inc.
Organization
Net56, Inc.
Address
21805 W FIELD PKWY STE 125
City
DEER PARK
State / Province
IL
Postal Code
60010-3267
Country
US
Phone
+1.8479348100
Fax
8479341925
Email

Administrative Contact Information:
Name
Net56, Inc.
Organization
Net56, Inc.
Address
21805 W FIELD PKWY STE 125
City
DEER PARK
State / Province
IL
Postal Code
60010-3267
Country
US
Phone
+1.8479348100
Fax
8479341925
Email

Technical Contact Information:
Name
Net56, Inc.
Organization
Net56, Inc.
Address
21805 W FIELD PKWY STE 125
City
DEER PARK
State / Province
IL
Postal Code
60010-3267
Country
US
Phone
+1.8479348100
Fax
8479341925
Email

Information Updated: 2016-09-11 21:27:34


[Newfie]

OK.

So the question remains, who would spend money for an ad attributed to a non existent web site organization?

Something doesn't pass the smell test.

I wish I could recall more about the add. It was very vague, some old guy standing in a blue waterside landscape. Hard even to say what the message was, but in context it seemed (to me) to be a backhanded support of Hillary.

Maybe I'm just paranoid but I don't like vague adds from the ether.