On Aug. 23, 2010, 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 (pronounced Koke), 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.”
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Comments: 131
Who not only doesn't support the TEA Party but has funded an organization that viciously attack American Citizens who are TEA Party.
"Billionaire George Soros Goes on Offense, Attacks Tea Party Movement"
And you might like these:
"Billionaire George Soros Gave $48 Million to ‘Alter Composition of America’s State Courts’"
"Billionaire Soros Donates $100 Million to Anti-Family, Anti-Faith Group"
But then it's O.K. as long as it's supporting your side, right Carla?
According to Neil Clark in the New Statesman, Soros's role was crucial in the collapse of communism in eastern Europe. Clark states that from 1979, Soros distributed $3m a year to dissidents including Poland's Solidarity movement, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union; in 1984, he founded his first Open Society Institute in Hungary and pumped millions of dollars into opposition movements and independent media.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Soros' funding has continued to play an important role in the former Soviet sphere. His funding and organization of Georgia's Rose Revolution was considered crucial to its success by Russian and Western observers, although Soros has said that his role has been "greatly exaggerated." Alexander Lomaia, Secretary of the Georgian Security Council and former Minister of Education and Science, is a former Executive Director of the Open Society Georgia Foundation (Soros Foundation), overseeing a staff of 50 and a budget of $2,500,000.
Former Georgian Foreign Minister Salomé Zourabichvili wrote that institutions like the Soros Foundation were the cradle of democratisation and that all the NGOs which gravitated around the Soros Foundation undeniably carried the revolution. She opines that after the revolution the Soros Foundation and the NGOs were integrated into power.
Soros' philanthropic funding includes efforts to promote non-violent democratization in the post-Soviet states. These efforts, mostly in Central and Eastern Europe, occur primarily through the Open Society Institute (OSI) and national Soros Foundations, which sometimes go under other names (such as the Stefan Batory Foundation in Poland). As of 2003, PBS estimated that he had given away a total of $4 billion.The OSI says it has spent about $400 million annually in recent years.
Time magazine in 2007 cited two specific projects - $100 million toward Internet infrastructure for regional Russian universities; and $50 million for the Millennium Promise to eradicate extreme poverty in Africa — while noting that Soros has given $742 million to projects in the U.S., and given away a total of more than $6 billion.
What I gave you had links to other sources including the Boston Globe. I don't see anything on Soros to compare with the stuff against the Koch brothers.
I'll give you a little of the article from the Boston Globe:
In glitzy shadows, a health reform foe lurks
By Lee Fang
December 6, 2009
IN EARLY November, thousands of protesters descended on Capitol Hill to hear Representative Michele Bachmann decry House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “takeover’’ of health care. As they disembarked from their buses, they were greeted with doughnuts and coffee, and handed protest signs and talking points about socialized medicine. Few of the protesters were aware that a right-wing billionaire had paid for the meals, buses, or salaries of the helpful guides. On the same day, this rich proprietor was toasted by Manhattan’s fashionable socialites during the City Opera’s opening night, where he was lauded for his support.
David Koch, an oil and gas billionaire who is the ninth-richest person (now 5th richest) in the United States, according to Forbes magazine, was simultaneously responsible for a $100 million refurbished opera house and a protest that featured signs comparing health reform to the Holocaust. The two sides to Koch’s activism aren’t unique - they harken to a long tradition of conservative tycoons who were great philanthropists with one hand and ruthless powerbrokers with the other. But Koch’s hidden presence in the health care debate illustrates the extent to which the Old Right is creating - and then hiding behind - the grassroots fervor of middle-class opponents of health reform.
Americans for Prosperity is leading the way in channeling recession-era distress into anger at President Obama. This “grassroots’’ group has orchestrated many of the tea party protests, as well as steering activists into disrupting town hall meetings of Democratic members of Congress. Americans for Prosperity’s tactics are not new. Just as Koch inherited his oil business from his father, Americans for Prosperity borrows from the ultra-right group also founded in part by his dad, the John Birch Society.
Conceived by Robert Welch and a small group of conservative industrialists, including Fred Koch - David’s father and the namesake of the family firm of Koch Industries - the John Birch Society cloaked its pro-business, anti-civil rights agenda in the rhetoric of the Cold War.
The Birch Society battled communism by labeling President Kennedy a traitor who had to be impeached, denounced taxes as a creeping red menace, and attacked the forces of racial integration as being directed by the Kremlin.
Like Americans for Prosperity, the John Birch Society rarely acknowledged its funding from the very rich. Instead, it depicted itself as a citizens group merely interested in American ideals of freedom. Rather than argue the policy nuances of entitlement programs or new regulations, the Birch Society marshaled opposition by depicting progressive reform as capitulation to the Soviet Union. In that polarized environment, the interests of millionaires suddenly became aligned with patriotic families who wanted to do their part against the communist threat.
Shortly after the Birch Society faded, David Koch founded Americans for Prosperity in 1984 (then known as Citizens for a Sound Economy). Americans for Prosperity still portrays itself as a defender of freedom and the average Joe. On the Americans for Prosperity website, financial regulations, health reform, net neutrality, and the estate tax are all assailed as forms of socialism.
You don't seem to have any problem using propaganda Carla.
What's the point of that comment? Useless verbal sparing?
You know as well as anyone that most of your links are to "Think progress" a George Soros funded organization.
"MOST" of your links are. Why are you trying to deny it? Anyone who comes here can read the post for them selves and count how many are and are not.
16 out of your 20 links are to that one George Soros funded organization.
It says that it's not that hard to show that you think that your side doing the same thing is a good thing as you criticize the other side for doing the exact same thing.
As far as me assuming that you were a Republican, sorry about that. Your comments seemed to imply that you were. But is thinking you're a Republican an insult? LOL. I guess to some people it might seem so.
As far as the comment about your character, I didn't say that you had a "lack of character" as you just said about me. I said that insulting comments such as you made to me showed more about your character. Big difference, jj.
These ideas of reason, free-thinking, and free-association are foreign to the Orwellian left, who consistently relies on big organizations (and donors like Soros) to fund feigned outages, to bus in union workers and other members (under job threats for misbehavior), to outfit them with signs and common dress, to provide their lunch, and to tell then what to think about everything in order to "stage" supposedly voluntary rallies. A recent perfect example of this was the sham 10-2-2010 rally.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66Q65I20100727
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68R40I20100928
Let's see you defend your party of "NO" now. Your party of Corporate America.
"(Reuters) - Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill on Tuesday to end tax deductions enjoyed by companies that close their U.S. plants and move overseas."
"Republicans and business groups dismissed the bill as a political stunt that would increase taxes on companies and undermine job growth."
"Five members of the Senate Democratic caucus broke party ranks and opposed the bill, including Max Baucus, chairman of the tax-writing Finance Committee."
Well Carla,
It's not hard to defend the Republicans voting NO on bad legislation and you should have done a bit more research before accusing them.
The Disclose Act had fallen to the practices of the Dems in their attempts to buy votes that both Health care reform and cap and trade had, only in this case we are talking the freedom of speech.
And as you can see with your second new article Bacus is no minor Dem to jump ship and join the opposition, but of course he was joined by 4 other Dems who thought is was a bad idea.
Defense rests! LOL!
And Carla, you addressed neither of my points. That anyone who is passing attention could and likely would independently conclude that the current progressive governance is ill-advised and that the left is much more an astro-turf enterprise than is the tea party?
No democrat is running on their legislative record. Why? The history of progressivism is replete with horrible acts (eugenics, internment camps for American citizens just to name two). You deny that? How is it that people come to a rally with the same t-shirts and the same signs UNLESS somebody organized them? What say you?
And Ken, have you noticed that all the Tea Partiers carried prepared signs that looked alike? Did you notice that thousands were all bused there to the rally? The buses were paid for by the Kochs.
As for the rally on 10/2. You right-wingers are just jealous because more people showed up for that.
And internments? What the hell are you talking about, Ken? Are you going back to WWII? You crack me up....
So Dan, you don't believe that special interest groups running campaign ads should have to identify their donors?
And did you approve of the Supreme Court decision in January overturning the law that barred corporations, unions and other organizations from spending on advertising, mass mailings and other forms of political activity?
Are you okay with the deluge of ads from shadowy special interest groups financed by corporate millions?
Don't worry, Carla has this evidence and so much more safely ensconced in her mind. Progressives call this proof, the rest of us recognize it for what it is - self-imposed delusion.
And you still don't address the issues I and many, many other raise. You want to reduce everything to personalities (either those you worship or those you hate) without evaluating the impact of policies being pursued by this administration.
And it is irrelevant. We're not talking about some semantics, we're talking about actual facts. Actual facts that you seem willing to simply deny because it refutes your entire narrative.
Let's recap:
1) Koch is headlining a meeting of Koch-funded organizations
2) Koch admits on tape, several times, that he funded AFP and their activities
3) He, in fact, admits that he started AFP for exactly the purpose it is being used for
4) A line-up of "Tea Party" folks step up to the microphone, with him on stage participating, to give him reports on the tea party activities that he had just admitted he funded.
5) Financial records of AFP clearly demonstrate that they, along with another lobbyist group (FreedomWorks, which also is the primary funder and organizer of Tea Party Patriots, another front group) and a for-profit lobbyist group (Tea Party Express, headlined by none other than uber-racist and spokesman Mark Williams), have been the major force behind funding tea party activities, including all the outside funding for small population states to influence the elections.
So the mental gymnastics needed for tea party people to convince themselves that they are a grass roots uprising is amazing given the fact that the tea party would be just a bunch of screaming people in the streets without the powerful corporate lobbying money of the Koch family billions, the corporate lobbying money of former Republican leader Dick Armey's Freedom Works, and the corporate lobbying money behind the racist Tea Party Express.
Seriously.
Please get out of the way as the thinking adults have some real issues to address. You can now return to the cartoon channel. Seriously.
First off, how do you define legitimate? The tea party is hypocritical. Massively so. It claims it is for power of the people but is trying to eliminate the ability of the people to vote for their own Senators. It claims to be for smaller government, yet are the first to scream that the government hasn't done enough to solve the economic problems that existed long before the current administration took office. It claims to want to take lobbying out of the day to day business of Washington (because "all politicians are corrupt") and yet is totally the product of the lobbying industry which now is able to spend unlimited funds to influence elections without even having to reveal who they are. And the tea party backed Republican party bent over backwards to protect the ability for corporations to do so secretly and right up until the day of the election, thus turning back the campaign finance protections that had been pushed in the past by their own party?
Why? Expediency. They want to "take back our country." From what? From the representatives that the American people overwhelmingly just voted into office to fix the problem that the previous party had created.
Sorry, but you can't ignore all the facts you don't like and just choose the incomplete one.
Mark Williams wasn't fired by the Tea Party Express for being a blatant racist. In fact, the Tea Party Express defended him for quite some time, despite his repeated racist statements and writings. He was only "removed" after the most recent "letter" made his racism so obvious that he became a liability. But is he really gone? Of course not. He now runs the Conservative Party USA and another political action committee. He still does what he did before, which is rally the base for conservative causes. And he is no less racist now that he isn't officially part of the Express, even though he gets much of his funding from exactly the same people. In short, nothing has changed.
And as usual you take my comment about Williams and disingenuously turn it into a straw man that I was calling all tea party people racists. I suppose that is easier than addressing the actual point, isn't it?
And that seems to be a problem. Rather than address the issues you get into a tit-for-tat showering manhood challenge that is adolescent and meaningless. You create straw men that aren't real except in your own mind, and ignore everything that is real that doesn't fit your narrative.
So, do you deny that the Koch brothers have massively funded right wing, anti-science, tea party activities? Largely while hiding behind the secrecy of the campaign finance laws they helped to overturn? While denying they are doing exactly what the video shows they are doing?
Of course not. But to just admit that would mean you would have to rewrite your narrative and apparently your script writers are on holiday.
We'll be keeping count of the socialists and communists signs.
And being it's a John Stewart sponsored rally we'll have a tally for the anarchists too.
Well you guys are in charge of it all Carla, You've got the White house and majorities in both houses.
Forced health care, government intrusion into private corporations, bank bailouts, auto company bail outs, inform on your neighbor campaigns...yup it does have a tinge of fascism to it.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66Q65I20100727
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68R40I20100928
If my postings are unclear I am willing to post them again.
Do you don't believe that special interest groups running campaign ads should have to identify their donors?
Did you approve of the Supreme Court decision in January overturning the law that barred corporations, unions and other organizations from spending on advertising, mass mailings and other forms of political activity?
Are you okay with the deluge of ads from shadowy special interest groups financed by corporate millions?
If you'd have read your own referenced article you would have known what was wrong with the bill;
"Republicans and business groups dismissed the bill as a political stunt that would increase taxes on companies and undermine job growth."
"The companies this bill targets, by and large, aren't opening overseas subsidiaries to make products for Americans,"
The Dems couldn't rally enough of their own party to pass the bill Carla.
This was the point of this comment string, right?
So, discussing this original point, wouldn't it be interesting to see enough people on the Mall such that it would outdo Glenn Beck's rally. And think of the irony of the rally being staged by two comedians known for their fake news programs. Just like Beck is a clown who does a fake news program in which he parodies himself every night.
"Do you don't believe that special interest groups running campaign ads should have to identify their donors?"
Not sure I want to hear the argument for keeping them confidential.
"Did you approve of the Supreme Court decision in January overturning the law that barred corporations, unions and other organizations from spending on advertising, mass mailings and other forms of political activity?"
I didn't, but after hearing the commentary from the Mark Levin show that I linked above I'm not so sure that my initial reaction was a correct reaction and it may be acceptable.
And you missed one of the questions:
Are you okay with the deluge of ads from shadowy special interest groups financed by corporate millions?
Yup those are the answers Carla,
See Obama when he was running for the Presidency his campaign accepted contributions from nearly non traceable (as to the purchaser) prepaid credit card gift cards, many of those donations came from outside the United states.
I didn't think that it was right then just like I don't like it now but is it allowed under our constitution?
I am not willing to take a position based solely upon whether it is beneficial to my side or that it hurts the side I oppose, like many of you liberals are.
I agree, Chris. Too bad not everyone respects truth and reasonable argument.
Carla, what do you think the Stewart/Colbert rallies say about the veracity of those claiming to be for truth, justice, and the American way? Doesn't it seem ironic that those claiming such are so often guilty of dishonesty, theft, justice for only a particular "chosen" subset of Americans, and shipping American jobs all the way overseas. Makes me wonder if they are teaching their children and grandchildren how to speak Chinese.
And just as those who protest the loudest about gays are the ones who are often closet gays themselves, the same goes for the politicians who talk about dishonesty. They care more about their re-election than they do about the people they represent. They pander to the large corporations and reject laws that would add transparency.
That has been true for about 200 years now. Having fun yet? Ready to think about making a basic change away from big money rule? I have a proposal to solve the problem if you are interested.
Please address the issue she raised of the Koch brothers activities in U.S. politics. The sins of others do not make my sins all right. The sins of others do not make the Koch brothers innocent. Please address what they are doing. You can always submit a post of your own about Democrats or liberals or fabian socialists or whatever and provide your evidence of their sins.
How do you evaluate the big money influence of the Koch brothers? Is it good for a democracy? Does it promote government of the people by the people and for the people? Or does it look like an attempt to exploit the people?
Bravo! I strongly support your call to the American People to stop voting along party lines, use common sense, and avoid those bought by big money.
I think you have accurately diagnosed the motives behind the influence of big money.
I only wish there were some easy way to spot the scum who are lying so that they could be readily identified by the voters.
Replacing the current set of rascals will cause a turnover in rascals but we will still have big money owned rascals in office. That's always been the way, in every nation whether democratic in government or not.
I hope that on day you will consider my solution. I have hopes for it because it has a lot to offer to big money, too. Even the very wealthy have problems though theirs are not the same as ours.
Replacing the present rascals isn't the hard part. It's finding people who won't succum to big money once in office. That's really hard. In fact, I predict that any TEA Party folks who get elected this year will vote just as they are told to vote by big money. On social issues big money doesn't care so they may be diverse on that but when it comes to favoring the rich and powerful industries, they will vote just like the rest. My prediction. You can rub my fact in it next year if I'm wrong.
And the Dems wanted to buy the cooperation of some who opposed the law by giving them an exemption to the law.
SO you agree that big money interests control our government? That therefore, the middle class and the poor suffer as a result?
I've made that clear many times in the past. Have you not been reading what I post?
We need to get the corporate influence out of Washington DC, and even though you seem to doubt that anyone can be found that won't succumb to the influence of money, hiring citizens representatives as opposed to professional politicians is a better idea.
My apologies. I should do a better job of remembering what others post. After all I do have those icons to help me remember. Perhaps it's my age. That's an excuse I find myself resorting to more and more these days. Of course, I was just as forgetful when younger but I'll forget that, too. :-)
I'm NOT convinced of the honesty of the George Soros funded organization moveon.org and suspect that it is nothing more propaganda aimed at people likely to believe what they are told about the evil Republicans....People like you and Carla ROM.
Are you thinking that the Dem's aren't doing it Too?
Which Party has a reputation as being pro-big business? If you want to get the corporate influence out of Washington, would it be appropriate to send more members of the pro-big business party there?
Except that George Soros doesn't support government policies that benefit corporations at the expense of regular people. The Kochs do. And they're getting those policies passed into law, which should terrify everyone.
Carla, don't even try to reason with these people. Like many among the lower orders over the centuries, they'll back those at the top no matter what they do. You can't make them see the facts.
I usually find it effective to respond to in kind when liberals post as Saul Alinsky suggested that their opponents are on the side of the devils thereby insinuating that the people on their side are on the side of the angles.
See It's usually both sides that are at fault but you liberals deny or are so deluded that you can't accept that your side is no better.
It's pathetic. It's also irresponsible.
Denial that their (your) side is a problem... the millions of dollars that a liberal spends on propaganda is NOT a problem even if it is spent to directly attack citizens (teapartytracker) it's O.K. as long as it advances the liberal agenda.
Right Carla?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
"Defining propaganda has always been a problem. The main difficulties have involved differentiating propaganda from other types of persuasion, and avoiding an "if they do it then that's propaganda, while if we do it then that's information and education" biased approach. "
http://www.econdataus.com/employ08.html
This also may assist anyone interested in the TRUTH.
http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/dpt.htm
Can you really call yourself unbiased, jj?
If the Tea Party were a spontaneous citizens driven organization, why then don't I hear any Tea Party members crying foul in having the votes of the people overturned and nullified by a few lawyers @ http://www.hubbardlaw.com/medical-marijuana/medical-marihuanas-commercial-uses-backing-into-federalism
Here is a two hour video, the second speaker found at minute 39 is from the Law Firm at the web address above.
http://www.upnorthmedia.org/watchupnorthtv.asp?SDBFid=2358
Imagine seeking to overturn and nullify the million upon millions of votes in fourteen states and not one Tea Party in opposition.
A 2 hr video! sheesh.
Haven't some of the states nullified the federal laws on marijuana ROM? Isn't that what California is doing right now? I know that Hawaii has literally thumbed their noses at the federal law.
And in my state Washington you can get legal medical marijuana. I think the movement is towards legalization, decriminalization at least.