It is nearly impossible to discuss the vast climate change denial echo chamber and not mention the Koch Brothers, Koch Industries, and what some have called the Koch Empire READ FULL POST 5 COMMENTS

Billionaire campaign donor David Koch, heir to a fortune and a political legacy created by one of the driving forces behind the John Birch Society, makes no secret of his enthusiasm for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

“What Scott Walker is doing with the public unions in Wisconsin is critically important. He’s an impressive guy and he’s very courageous,” Koch explained in a recent conversation reported by the Palm Beach Post. “If the unions win the recall, there will be no stopping union power.”

That’s no surprise. What is surprising is that Koch is now appears to be bragging about how he and his brother Charles are using their vast fortune to fund an independent campaign aimed at “helping” Walker. Even in an era when billionaires such as the Kochs are emerging as key financiers of Super PACS and other campaigning vehicles Koch’s admission will raise ...

This is a recycled piece that is still pertinent.  IN light of the situation described below there is no time to write a new piece. 

In a provocative demonstration against the tar sands, clean energy advocates poured “oil” onto a female model draped with the Canadian flag on Parliament Hill. Those pouring the oil were dressed as executives of TransCanada, the company proposing to build the Keystone XL Pipeline, which will run from the Alberta tar sands to the US Gulf Coast.

TransCanada, the Keystone XL Pipeline and Koch Industries

As the race to develop domestically produced fuels hits a fevered pitch, especially as a reaction to the tensions in the Middle East, politicians from the president on down are seeking a “magic pill” that will solve our energy problems. President Obama promised a “green revolution,” with hints at promising wind and solar energy sources during the campaign, but has now done one of his famous backtracks as he pushes the idea of “clean coal.” One of the alleged “clean coal” sources his administration has placed under serious consideration is “bituminous coal” (aka “unconventional petroleum deposit’), or simply put … “tar sands.” Tar sands are plentiful in the US and Canada, but environmentally treacherous to mine and transport – yet, this is the “green energy” the Obama administration has leaned toward – with heavy prodding from its most threatening political enemy, Koch Industries – disputed founders of the Tea Party movement.

TransCanada and Koch Industries 

Project developer TransCanada seeks approval from US government agencies to ...

Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch finally got their way in 2011. After their decades of funding the American Legislative Exchange Council, the collaboration between multinational corporations and conservative state legislators, the project began finally to yield the intended result.
 
For the first time in decades, the United States saw a steady dismantling of the laws, regulations, programs and practices put in place to make real the promise of American democracy.

That is why, on Saturday, civil rights groups and their allies will rally outside the New York headquarters of the Koch brothers to begin a march for the renewal of voting rights in America.

For the Koch brothers and their kind, less democracy is better. They fund campaigns with millions of dollars in checks that have helped elect the likes of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Ohio Governor John Kasich. And ALEC has made it clear, through its ambitious “ READ FULL POST 24 COMMENTS

In the Nov. 8 elections, the national media gave extensive coverage to a proposed "personhood amendment" to Mississippi's state constitution. This was an extremist anti-abortion ballot initiative to declare that a person's life begins not at birth, but at the very instant that a sperm meets the egg. However, extending full personhood to two-cell zygotes was too far out even for many of Mississippi's zealous antagonists against woman's right to control her own fertility, so the proposition was voted down.

Meanwhile, the national media paid practically zero attention to another "personhood" vote that took place on that same day over a thousand miles from Mississippi. This was a referendum in Missoula, Mont., on a concept even more bizarre than declaring zygotes to be persons with full citizenship rights.

It was a vote on overturning last year's democracy-killing decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the now-infamous Citizens United case. A narrow five-man majority had decreed that — abracadabra! — lifeless, soulless corporations are henceforth persons with human political rights. Moreover, said the five, these tongueless artificial entities must be allowed to "speak" by dumping unlimited sums of their corporate cash into our election campaigns, thus giving them a far bigger voice than us real-life persons.

Missoulians, of ...

On her website, Rep. Diane Black asks constituents to join advisory panels in her Tennessee district. “I believe the best ideas to solve our nation’s problems will come from people like you,” Black writes, “not Washington bureaucrats and special interest groups.”

Black is one of the new Republicans who rode a wave of anti-Washington sentiment into town in 2011, a self-identified member of the tea party wing that has been cast as a new kind of conservative— fiery, unwilling to compromise and determined to downsize the government. But while many say Black and her companions have created a split in the Republican Party, it is not visible among the companies and interest groups that are donating to members of Congress.

A joint analysis by iWatch News and the Center for Responsive Politics has found that the 15 freshmen members of the Tea Party Caucus have embraced many of the same special interests that have supported Republicans for years. The fifteen combined have received over $3,450,000 during the first three quarters of this year from almost 700 different PACs.

It’s an impressive haul for a group of newly elected House members. But it shouldn’t be surprising that these fresh faces found new friends in ...

The very name of a Washington conservative conference this weekend is the height of subterfuge. It's called the "Defending the American Dream" conference, which is not about defending the actual American dreams of most Americans (the focus of our own "Take Back the American Dream" conference), sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, which is not an organization that promotes what is needed for broad American prosperity.

This actually is the latest effort by the billionaire Koch brothers, founders and key funders of Americans for Prosperity, and their corporate and political allies to hijack our democracy and pillage our economy. It's their attempt to perpetuate an American nightmare of continued income inequality and a government held hostage to the whims of elites. It is thus a perfect target for the latest Occupy-style protest.

The Other 98% and Health Care for America Now are sponsoring a "Koch Brothers Guerrilla Drive-In" Friday evening at the Washington Convention Center, where the conference is being held. ...

Undisputed: Koch's subsidiaries in Europe got contracts through bribes in at least six countries.

In 2008, in the wake of a $1.6 billion settlement by the German engineering giant Siemens for bribing officials around the world, Koch conducted an internal investigation of its own payment practices. The company found that its France-based affiliate, Koch-Glitsch, had paid illegal bribes to secure contracts in India, Africa and the Middle East, including bribes to government officials, a practice banned by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In response, Koch fired several employees and sales agents, including the business director of Koch-Glitsch France.

Disputed: Was Koch's response sufficient?

According to Bloomberg's analysis of French court ...

Koch Industries is lobbying to prevent tougher counter-terrorism standards for its facilities that use hazardous toxic chemicals. A terrorist attack or accident at Koch’s oil, chemical, paper and fertilizer plants, an iWatch News investigation revealed, could put tens of thousands of people and their homes, schools, hospitals, day care centers, factories and offices at risk.

Koch maintains that existing federal and state regulations are adequate to protect nearby residents.

Here is a list of the 10 Koch facilities, and the toxic chemicals they use, that put the most Americans in potential danger in the event of an accident or attack:

1. The INVISTA plant in La Porte, Texas , is one of several facilities in Texas where Koch manufactures some 4 billion pounds of nylon intermediate chemicals a year, for use in the production of INVISTA products like Stainmaster carpet, Antron carpet fiber, Cordura fabric and Lycra spandex. Formaldehyde is stored at the site, in the Houston suburbs, and a spill and vaporization could threaten almost 1.9 million people who live nearby.
2. Koch’s Georgia-Pacific paper plant in Camas, Wash. , stands across the Columbia River from the Portland, Ore., airport. Because of its proximity to Portland, the plant puts 840,648 people in potential danger from a spill of chlorine dioxide, which is used at the facility to bleach pulp for paper towels and office paper.
3. The aging Flint Hills Resources oil ...