The Koch Fortune Came From WHERE?

March 20th, 2012

Much the way the Bush family fortune was built, in part, by doing business with some of the worst human beings of the last century, the Koch brothers are also the beneficiaries of blood money.

John MacMurray explains:

"As the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953, Stalin hired Fred Koch, father of David and Charles, to construct oil refineries, pipelines, and train workers. Fred Koch delivered good value for Stalin’s money, and worked for the USSR for many years.

In later years, Fred apparently had second thoughts about the relationship, and helped found the virulently anti-communist John Birch Society."

Sleep tight.

The 2012 Award For Obtuseness

Feb 3rd, 2012

It's clearly time to start the planning phase and begin nominations for the "Most Obtuse Political Crank Of The Year" Award. Do we have our first nominee? Oh... You Betcha.

I present you with Rep. Mike Pompeo's (R-KS)  Politico Op-Ed from yesterday.

"Even if Koch Industries had a financial interest in the Keystone XL pipeline (as if they might not have one), what possibly could be wrong with that?

Perhaps more important, under what circumstances would such an interest be worthy of a congressional inquisition?" EMPHASES OURS

Seriously? Really? We are speechless. We expect you folks to 'inquire' because it's your job to do so even if they are giving you money.

That said... we have our first nominee.

There Aren't Different Versions Of The Truth, cont...

Nov 14th, 2011

As it turns out, the Koch Brothers are being forced to face the fact that some things just aren't for sale. Not even at any price. One of those things is empirical truth.

Via Raw Story:

"A prominent climate change skeptic told Congress on Monday he no longer doubts that global warming is real and caused by humans, and joined other scientists in urging action to stop it.

Physicist Richard Muller, director of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project, whose two-year research was funded in part by a foundation formed by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers, said he could find no bias in other studies.

"We confirm that over the last 50 years, temperature has risen 0.9 degrees Celsius, or 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the same number that the IPCC (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says."
Muller told the House Committee on Natural Resources that while he remains cautious about the extent to which humans have played a role, he now hopes other climate skeptics will come on board with his findings."

Muller, long thought of by climate change deniers as one of their own, simply couldn't deliver manufactured science. Funny how genuine science works that way, ain't it?

Chris Christie Sucking Koch

Sept 8th, 2011

Well, the timeline is becoming clearer. It is not pretty. Via AlterNet:

"In late May, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced he was pulling his state out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, explaining that it was "not working." Now a stunning tape of a secret meeting between Christie and Charles Koch sheds light on the governor's inexplicable decision to abandon a program that was not only cutting pollution, but was funding clean energy and, as it turns out, reducing New Jersey's budget gap." EMPHASIS OURS

Any policy, even smart policy, that runs contrary to the wishes of their Koch masters seems destined for the corporatist ash heap. Chrisite is not the independent minded leader they would have us believe. He's just another Koch Sucker.

Pick Your Pejorative

Sept. 8th, 2011

Go ahead. Choose. The only thing I won't refer to you as? American.

Recall Reminder

Aug 9th, 2011

To get all you good folks in Wisconsin in the mood and remind you what you have been fighting for...

The Looming Wisconsin Recalls

August 4th, 2011

Things are looking very good for the Democratic contenders in next week's Wisconsin recall Elections. That is, if the dishonest and potentially criminal activities of the Koch funded Americans For Progress don't effectively steal it.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Plutocracy Now

August 4th, 2011

The short documentary below is a sobering depiction of just how far we have descended. via

How Did We Get Here? Ctd...

August 1st, 2011

Just a reminder...

Welcome to Kochistan part 2 - The Women of Kochistan.

August 1st, 2011
by Stephanie Baselice
part 1 is available HERE

The other day my daughter came in from the back porch to tell me there were two ladies outside and she had no idea what they wanted. Having some idea, I wiped my hands on my apron and came out onto the porch. Two sixty-ish women in flowered dresses approached my back steps. One greeted me, and said they were on a "Christian Mission" in my area. I reserved judgment and let her go through her intro spiel. 

 When she got to the part about how she understood that most people had their own church, but since I had children, wasn't I worried about what was going to happen in the world, and with Obama and everything, what did I think was going to happen, I gently told her I'd prefer not to discuss religion with her and wished her a blessed day. The flowered Christians made a civil retreat. But I am indeed worried about what is going to happen to my world. Especially since I have children though not necessarily because of "Obama and everything." 

The Billionaires' Tea Party - Trailer

April 11th, 2011

Scott Walker Violates The Law

March 28th, 2011
Please support the efforts to recall Wisconsin's anti worker corporatists HERE, HERE and HERE

Remember when the Republicans were the "Law & Order" party? When the law was sacrosanct? When it was typical for liberals and progressives to be tarred as "having no respect for the law?"

My how things have changed. From TPM:
 
"The administration of Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) has begun implementing its controversial new law curtailing public employee unions, following a move on Friday declaring it be in effect, and despite a judge's ruling that enjoined said implementation.
 
"It is now my legal responsibility to begin enactment of the law," Secretary of Administration Mike Huebsch, a former Republican state Assembly Speaker, told reporters, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel."

Read more...

Welcome to Kochistan Part 1 -

March 28th, 2011

by Stephanie Baselice

We encourage you to visit the author's blog, May Day Resistance

 Like many people, I have been increasingly alarmed by the political shifts in my native USA during my adult lifetime. My first vote was against Ronald Reagan in 1984, and by my standards things have been getting steadily scarier ever since. 

The advent of the Tea Party, and their recent entry into the realms of public office has been especially horrifying. Their clear intent of rolling back decades of progress on women's rights, gay rights, the environment, and other areas while simultaneously enhancing the power of already rapacious corporations to influence lawmakers and fleece the public is beyond appalling. Even more appalling is the clear willingness of many of us—especially those who call themselves conservatives--to tolerate human rights abuses and infringements of basic liberties in the name of national security. In that regard I hold with Benjamin Franklin, who once said “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety “. So imagine my reaction when I first saw Laurence Britt's 14 points of convergence of fascist societies. Reading down the list I felt a deep and growing dread. We were already hitting all 14 points! According to the article, Laurence Britt is a Political Scientist who analyzed the regimes of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia and discovered these 14 points of convergence. Here are the basic 14 points:

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment. 

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.

Sully's New Rules

March 1st, 2011

Andrew Sullivan writes:
"If your name is Koch, it's pronounced cock. And if your name is Boehner, it's pronounced boner. They can always change their names if they want. Until then ... I'm calling it like it is."

The Big Lie Evolves

Feb 24th, 2011

by Stephanie Baselice

Once upon a time, people sought to educate themselves with news. For founding father Thomas Jefferson, an educated public was seen as key to a functional democratic society. Yet education can be a slippery concept in today's media. Corporate interests and billionaires invest heavily in selling us their vision for our future, and we buy this vision at the expense of that very future. They utilize Orwell's “newspeak”--simplifying the language and message so severely that no argument is possible, and defining the very arguments against them in their own terms, such as the Orwellian juxtaposition of “Freedom=Slavery”. This is very simple; once you understand it you will begin to see it used everywhere. They vigorously and repeatedly associate any person or idea working against their interests with persons or ideas the audience hates and fears. The idea is that you repeat a VERY big lie loudly and often enough that listeners will believe it must be true. This strategy is attributed to Adolf Hitler - it is popularly known as The Big Lie. Once you have done this you just insert your preferred truth, and voila! Propaganda success.