New Republic - Charles Koch's Bipartisan Delusion
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The Republican Party’s widespread denial of climate change, and thus refusal to take action on the problem, did not appear out of nowhere. It was “moved along by a campaign carefully crafted by fossil fuel industry players, most notably Charles D. and David H. Koch,” according to The New York Times. The Kochs have given at least $100 million to groups promoting climate denial since 1997, according to Greenpeace. Koch Industries is the twentieth-largest greenhouse gas polluter in the country, and thus stands to be hurt by climate change regulation.
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Another Koch value: the right to spend on politics in secrecy. As the Associated Press noted on Saturday, “there’s no way to verify how or where the [network’s] money is spent because most of its organizations are registered as nonprofit groups, which aren’t required to detail their donors like traditional political action committees.” The Kochs have been “reliable, stalwart opponents of regulation of money in politics,” the Center for Public Integrity reported last year, explaining how the Koch family underwrote and supported the legal landscape that permits dark money in politics today.
The network also accomplished numerous policy changes at the state level last year. Due to advocacy campaigns backed by Koch-affiliated groups, several states “have reduced union power, scaled back regulations, cut taxes, blocked Medicaid expansion, promoted alternatives to public education, loosened criminal sentencing laws and eased requirements to get occupational licenses,” according to The Washington Post.
The network has also launched a nationwide crusade against public transportation projects, and has built a data service called i360 to help “identify and rally voters” to support that cause, according to the Times. Like most of the Kochs’ political efforts, the anti-public transportation campaign “stems from their longstanding free-market, libertarian philosophy [but] also dovetails with their financial interests, which benefit from automobiles and highways,” the Times reported. The Kochs’ values, in other words, are anathema to most Democrats. So who on the left would the Koch network be willing to support?
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https://newrepublic.com/article/150277/charles-kochs-bipartisan-delusion
https://newrepublic.com/article/150277/charles-kochs-bipartisan-delusion
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Wiki, Fred Koch Sr.: "Unable to succeed at home, Koch found work in the Soviet Union."
Between 1929 and 1932 Winkler-Koch "trained Bolshevik engineers and helped Stalin's regime set up fifteen modern oil refineries" in the Soviet Union. "Over time, however, Stalin brutally purged several of Koch's Soviet colleagues. Koch was deeply affected by the experience, and regretted his collaboration." The company also built installations in countries throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Koch partnered with William Rhodes Davis to build the third-largest oil refinery serving the Third Reich, a project which was personally approved by Adolf Hitler. Koch President and COO David L. Robertson acknowledged that Winkler-Koch provided the cracking unit for the 1934 Hamburg refinery, but said that it was but one of many "iconic" American companies doing business in Germany at the time.
In 1958, Koch became a founding member of the John Birch Society, an American political advocacy group that opposes communist infiltration and supports limited government. Koch held John Birch Society chapter meetings in the basement of his family's home in Wichita, Kansas. Also in 1958, Koch helped amend the constitution of the state of Kansas to make Kansas a right-to-work state (non union). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_C._Koch
https://www.jbs.org/about-jbs/fred-koch | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/father-of-koch-brothers-helped-build-nazi-oil-refinery-book-claims-a6808081.html
- KOCH BROTHERS INFLUENCE: -
