Koch Industries PAC was among Virgil Goode's top contributors in 1998. Georgia Pacific was a top contributor in 2000 and 2002. GP was also a top contributor to Goode in 2006 under the ownership of the Koch brothers.
Koch Industries PAC was among Virgil Goode's top contributors in 1998. Georgia Pacific was a top contributor in 2000 and 2002. GP was also a top contributor to Goode in 2006 under the ownership of the Koch brothers.
Koch Industries-the family-owned energy conglomerate whose assets are estimated at $20 billion-$25 billion-is behind three foundations that back a range of institutes churning out policy papers, including the Cato Institute, which caused ripples in the libertarian movement when its director, Ted Galen Carpenter, backed Bush's war plans on Iraq. The David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch Foundations, along with the Claude R. Lambe Foundation, dole out grants to Heritage and the Hudson Institute, carrying on the tradition of their benefactor, Fred Koch, who has stellar right-wing credentials: in 1958 he co-founded the John Birch Society, which is currently running a "Get US out!" (of the UN) campaign. [1]
In 2000 a Texas federal grand jury returned a 97-count indictment against Koch Industries Inc., Koch Petroleum Group, L.P., and four corporate employees charging them with environmental crimes at a Texas oil refinery. Go here for the full news release.
Lowell looked at Koch Industries' contributions to George Allen. Please read that diary for some critical background information. From the 60 Minutes story he cited this
..the Koch family of Wichita, Kansas is among the richest in the United States, worth billions of dollars. Their oil company, Koch Industries, is bigger than Intel, Dupont or Prudential Insurance, and they own it lock stock and barrel. The trouble is a former employee says the brother who controls the company grew rich through fraud and theft, stealing from the taxpayers of the United States. Bill Koch, a brother of David and Charles, even claims that Koch was "engaged in "(o)rganized crime" and that "that's what appalled me so much... I did not want my family, my legacy, my father's legacy to be based upon organized crime."
Here's Russell Mokhiber's exchange with Ari Fleisher about Koch Industries' PAC. [3]
Mokhiber: Ari, yesterday, I asked you about Koch Industries, which last month pled guilty to a felony environmental crime. The question was -- the campaign took money from the company and from the employees, and you said -- it couldn't have taken money from the company, because it's illegal to take money from the company. Which is true, but I went and checked, and in fact, Koch Industries Political Action Committee (PAC) gave $5,000 to the campaign. And the political action committee is controlled by the company. Back to the original question --
Ari Fleischer: That's not accurate.
Mokhiber: It is accurate.
Ari Fleischer: The political action committee is comprised of voluntary contributions from employees.
Mokhiber: But the company decides how to spend it.
Ari Fleischer: The political action committee decides how to spend it.
Mokhiber: But the company controls the political action committee.
Ari Fleischer: It's not corporate -- the political action committee is a voluntary committee - Is there a question?
Mokhiber: Yes, there is a question -- which I think you dodged yesterday -- given that this money came from what is now a convicted corporate felon, does the President have a policy on accepting money from convicted felons, and should he give it back at least to the PAC, which is controlled by the company?
Ari Fleischer: Again, you are making a tie between individuals and corporations. That's not the case. Corporations cannot give campaign contributions and the campaign did not receive corporate contributions.
Mokhiber:: Excuse me, could I follow up, Ari?
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Guess not. But isn't that exchange so pre-9/11?
Here is a partial network of the Koch network. Sorry it's so ugly and loads slowly, but after reading all of the articles linked there, I wonder how we can call this country a democracy. Here's the static view of network without live links; click on it to get the page with live links.
In 2005 the Koch brothers added Georgia Pacific to their portfolio.
Bill Berkowitz opens his article with "Oil barons Charles and David Koch, two of the nation's worst environmental criminals, now control the country's largest privately held company."
In a move that does not bode well for the nation's forests, last month the Koch brothers of Kansas engineered a $13.2 billion buyout of forest products producer Georgia Pacific Corporation, making Koch Industries the nation's largest privately held company. The purchase includes Koch's assumption of $7.8 billion in Georgia Pacific debt, making the total purchase price $21 billion.The Kochs are smart, focused, and incredibly wealthy. For years they've been pushing both a libertarian and free-market agenda through tens of millions of dollars in contributions to conservative causes, candidates and organizations.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Congress investigated their company over allegations that they had stolen over $30 million worth of oil from Indian tribes in Oklahoma. In January 2000, the Environmental Protection Agency leveled "the largest civil fine ever imposed on a company under any federal environmental law to resolve claims related to more than 300 oil spills from its pipelines and oil facilities in six states," according to Justice Department press release; the fine was severely reduced after John Ashcroft became Attorney General.[2]
Yesterday nyceve posted a DK diary Inez may die about encountering a woman making a choice between keeping her family out of debt and life-saving medical treatment. But on Rabbi Mark Ankcorn's blog we see that David Koch's has problems, too.
4.18.2006
His Apartment is Too SmallPity poor David Koch, executive vp of Koch Industries who has a personal fortune estimated at $12 billion. He currently resides in Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis' former apartment on Fifth Avenue and 85th Street. Nice view of the Park, the JKO Reservoir, and the Met; he bought it in 1994 for $9.5 million and then spent another "$5 million to $10 million" to completely renovate it.
Here's why we should pity him: his wife is having a baby, their third (mazal tov), and he finds their current digs just too small. Hey, we've all been there, right? Living in cramped, incredibly expensive apartments that just don't have enough room to really live, especially when you have kids. According to today's NY Times, "There's just no way we could fit another child in that apartment," he said.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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[1] Jill Junnola, Campus Watch in the Media: 'Perspective: Who funds whom?' Oct, 2002. http://www.campus-wa...
[2] Bill Berkowitz, Media Transparency, 'Patron saints of right wing think tanks acquire Georgia Pacific Corp', Dec 2005. http://www.mediatran...
[3] Russell Mokhiber, CommonDreams.org NewsCenter, 'Ari & I, White House Press Briefing with Ari Fleischer,' May 2001. http://www.commondre...
Tom Davis and Eric Cantor passed over some funds to Virgil, too.
The Koch brothers operate outside of the law more than any people I've seen. If you read through all those links, those think tanks encourage invading Iraq, call global warming a myth - all in all laissez fair (sp?) extremists.
I wonder how the rest of the meat processing industry is treating Goode. His stand on immigration may not sit well with some of them...
"[This town has] think tanks the way other towns have firehouses," Washington Post columnist Joel Achenbach says. "This is a thoughtful town. A friend of mine worked at a think tank temporarily and the director told him when he entered, 'We are white men between the ages of 50 and 55, and we have no place else to go.'"
Some think tanks actually disclose their source of funding. Otherwise for public corporations that must file witht he SEC, the money can be traced.
Here are two good articles explaining the value of these tanks as lobbying tools and ways to hide corporate donations and conflicts of interests in their "policy papers."
Exxon actually hires people for think tanks. A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists shows how Exxon Mobil has funneled nearly $16 million to a network of 43 organizations that have clouded public understanding of global warming and delayed action on the issue.
That reminds me - there were some complaints a few weeks ago about shredding at EPA. Wonder what the resolution was there..
Because I do, so there. :)
We love you, too. And everyone else. Almost.