Category Archives: Koch Industries

March 14, 2013 · 5:21 AM

Koch Brothers eye L.A. Times, other Tribune newspapers: sources

David Koch, executive vice president of Koch Industries, applauds during an Economic Club of New York event in New York, December 10, 2012. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Good luck with that, fellas…

Reuters

Charles and David Koch, two of the world’s richest men, are interested in Tribune’s newspaper assets, which include the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, according to sources familiar with situation.

Earlier on Tuesday, L.A. Weekly reported that the Koch brothers were rumored to be interested in either all of the Tribune company, which includes 23 TV stations and national cable network WGN American, or the Tribune newspapers. The report also cited “another rumor” from a Los Angeles Times editorial board member that the Koch brothers are helping U-T San Diego newspaper owner Doug Manchester finance a bid.

According to one of the Reuters sources, the Koch brothers are not interested in Tribune’s other assets – which include the broadcast TV stations. Tribune, based in Chicago, owns eight major dailies, including The Baltimore Sun and Hartford Courant.

Manchester said in statement: “We are looking forward to opportunities to employ our cross-media strategy in other markets. We have no partnership with Koch Industries or with the Koch brothers, and we don’t anticipate any such arrangement. If we were to become involved in the sale of the Tribune Company or any other media assets, we would be glad to comment at the appropriate time.”

Melissa Cohlmia, a spokeswoman for Koch Companies Public Sector, said in a statement: “As an entrepreneurial company with 60,000 employees around the world, we are constantly exploring profitable opportunities in many industries and sectors.

“So, it is natural that our name would come up in connection with this rumor. We respect the independence of the journalistic institutions referenced in today’s news stories, but it is our long-standing policy not to comment on deals or rumors of deals we may or may not be exploring.”

Tribune spokesman Gary Weitman said the company does not comment on speculation.

The Koch Brothers – worth $34 billion, making them the world’s sixth-richest men, according to Forbes magazine – would have more than enough room to make a bid for all of Tribune’s newspapers.

Tribune’s newspapers are profitable and estimated to be worth $623 million, according to a report by Lazard, its financial adviser.

The brothers are the owners of Koch Industries, a sprawling conglomerate whose holdings include crude oil and natural gas pipelines, paper products like Dixie Cups and Angel Soft toilet tissue, and cattle ranches.

They are known for their conservative views and on the Koch Industries website explain that economic freedom means that “government is kept small and limited to those activities that contribute to societal well-being, rather than undermine it.”

Other notable names such as Warren Buffett and News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch have surfaced as possible buyers for some of Tribune’s dailies. Aaron Kushner, the owner of the Orange County Register near Los Angeles, said he was “prepared to take a serious look” at Tribune’s newspapers in December.

The newspaper industry is once again becoming a hive of activity as several big city papers hit the auction block while other smaller newspapers have been snapped up by the likes of Buffett.

Tribune is the latest example of a company exploring a sale of its newspapers. The New York Times announced in February it was putting The Boston Globe and other properties in New England up for sale.

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October 15, 2012 · 12:13 PM

Koch Industries Warns 45,000 Employees Of ‘Consequences’ If They Don’t Vote For Republicans

So much for Democracy.

The question I have is…will someone be looking over the shoulder of each employee as they vote?   This entire exercise is yet another bully tactic by the powers that be.   They are trying their best, it seems, to guarantee some sort of dystopian future for the American electorate.

Think Progress

The Koch brothers’ $60 million pledge to defeat President Obama — along with their political network’s $400 million spending — make them two of the most influential conservatives this election.

Not content with their unprecedented influence in politics, the Kochs have also taken to influencing the votes of their employees. According to In These Times, Koch Industries sent 45,000 mailers to employees at Koch subsidiary Georgia Pacific, urging votes for Romney and other conservative candidates. The letter warns ominously of “consequences” for the workers if Republicans lose.

The Koch mailer is one of several recent examples of executives warning that employees may lose their jobs if Republicans do not win in November. Here is an excerpt of the letter:

While we are typically told before each Presidential election that it is important and historic, I believe the upcoming election will determine what kind of America future generations will inherit.

If we elect candidates who want to spend hundreds of billions in borrowed money on costly new subsidies for a few favored cronies, put unprecedented regulatory burdens on businesses, prevent or delay important new construction projects, and excessively hinder free trade, then many of our more than 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences, including higher gasoline prices, runaway inflation, and other ills.

In These Times also reports that employees are restricted in their political free speech on social media outlets.

Continue reading here…

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October 3, 2011 · 8:00 AM

Shady: Koch Brothers Made Sales to Iran

The Daily Beast

A mammoth investigative report in Bloomberg Markets Magazinehas some devastating charges against one of the world’s largest private companies: The billionaire Koch Brothers allegedly made a ton of money off sales of petrochemical equipment to Iran.

A unit of their company, Koch Industries, dodged the U.S. trade ban using foreign subsidiaries. The company allegedly engaged in illicit payments in Africa, India, and the Middle East, and, from 1999 to 2003, had to pay more than $400 million in fines. The report quotes an employee saying that managers taught them how to steal and cheat. The technique was called the “Koch Method.”

Read it at Bloomberg News 

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September 6, 2011 · 8:41 PM

During Secret Retreat With Billionaires, Koch Lobbyist Admits Tea Party Group ‘Designed’ To Elect Republicans In 2010

Rachel Maddow dissected the Koch brothers’ relationship to the Tea Party over a year ago…so this is nothing new.  It’s simply inadvertently out in the open.

Think Progress

This morning, blogger Brad Friedman, writing in Mother Jones and BradBlog, revealed a set of audio tapes from the last major donor meeting convened by the billionaire Koch brothers. There are a number of startling revelations from the scoop — but the opening remarks from Kevin Gentry, a Koch Industries executive at the firm’s DC lobbying office, blow the cover off the many Tea Party efforts underwritten by the billionaires in the Koch network of donors.

Gentry, who doubles as the official responsible for doling out Koch charitable grants, admits privately what ThinkProgress and others have noted for years: Americans for Prosperity, the front group founded by David Koch, orchestrates Tea Party events simply to elect more Republicans. Gentry said he met with Fred Young, a Wisconsin owner of engine manufacturing plants, at an Americans for Prosperity (AFP) event “designed to help in the Congressional races” during one of their “get out the vote tours”:

KEVIN GENTRY: I’m going to turn it over to a dear friend, Fred Young, for the purposes of an introduction. Fred is a long-time fighter, freedom fighter, in this movement, from Racine, Wisconsin. Former owner of Young Radiator. As part of our efforts last year, in 2010, I was on the road for [TN?] in Wisconsin, here at one of Americans for Prosperity’s last minute kind of get out the vote tours. And I went to an event in Racine, Wisconsin, and met up with Fred. It was sort of a Tea Party AFP event designed to help in the Congressional races. And Fred was kind enough to lend me a sweatshirt because I wasn’t actually prepared for Racine, Wisconsin in November. So Fred, let’s take it away, please.

Too many in the media ignored the Koch network’s transparently partisan agenda last year. A few outlets, like the Washington Post, took the group to task for spending $45 million in attack ads against Democrats using an unaccountable, secret money wing of Americans for Prosperity. However, most failed to report on the millions more spent on four different bus tours designed to promote Republicans. These rallies, which required great resources in terms of staff and logistics, were never reported to the Federal Elections Committee as campaign spending, thus evading the few watchdog groups and reporters interested in serious election coverage.

As ThinkProgress revealed last year, in documents outlining the June, 2010 donor meeting, billionaires like Paul Singer, Ken Griffin, Rich DeVos, and John Childs are regular attendees of these events, which solicit multi-million donations for an elaborate array of right-wing front groups, from Tea Party organizers like Americans for Prosperity to stealth advertising campaigns like “Public Notice.” Unfortunately, many still report on Tea Party groups like Americans for Prosperity as bonafide grassroots organizations.

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June 28, 2011 · 8:58 PM

Rick Scott attends secret Koch brothers meeting in Colorado

Kiss the ring of your masters…

Palm Beach Post

Florida Gov. Rick Scott attended a secret, invitation-only meeting outside Vail, Colo., hosted by conservative billionaire GOP donors David and Charles Koch, the governor’s staff confirmed today.

The meeting wasn’t on Scott’s official schedule and his spokesman Lane Wright initially refused to confirm or deny whether the first-term governor would make an appearance, saying he would not “speculate as to what he has done, or will do on his personal time.”

But, after The St. Petersburg Times reported Tuesday Scott did attend the meeting, Wright confirmed that the governor was there but would not say whether Scott was in Colorado on Sunday or Monday.

“I told anybody who asked me,” Scott, in Washington, D.C., told the Times, without revealing too much about what took place.

“It was very interesting,” he told the Times. “They wanted to know basically… what am I doing in Florida.”

Scott, the self-proclaimed “jobs governor,” joined at least three other conservative Republican heads-of-state at the semi-annual meeting.

Continue reading here…

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May 23, 2011 · 10:19 AM

George Carlin – “Who Really Controls America?”

H/T: Crooks & Liars

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May 11, 2011 · 2:32 AM

FSU Accepts Funds From Charles Koch In Return For Control Over Its Academic Freedom

WTF?

Think Progress

Charles Koch, the billionaire libertarian who has funded front-groups and lobbying efforts to expand his anti-tax, anti-regulatory agenda under the guise of “free enterprise,” has now widened his reach into another key public policy area: academics. The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation entered into an agreement with Florida State University in 2008 in which the foundation would provide millions of dollarsin funds for the school’s economics department.

The funds were marked to add multiple faculty positions in the economics department. But the money came with multiple strings attached, including a demand that Koch have the ability to directly approve who ultimately filled the positions. As the St. Petersburg Times reports, the agreement is now raising questions across the board about academic freedom and integrity at public colleges and universities:

Under the agreement with the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, however, faculty only retain the illusion of control. The contract specifies that an advisory committee appointed by Koch decides which candidates should be considered. The foundation can also withdraw its funding if it’s not happy with the faculty’s choice or if the hires don’t meet “objectives” set by Koch during annual evaluations.

Koch wasted little time in asserting his influence. In 2009, he denied 60 percent of the faculty’s suggestions to fill the positions in the new programs, called the Study of Political Economy and Free Enterprise (SPEFE) and Excellence in Economics Education (EEE). The hires that were made were agreed upon by Koch and the department’s faculty.

Continue reading…

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April 24, 2011 · 2:03 AM

Plutocracy/ Koch Brothers’ Conservative Propaganda Machine – Front Groups

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April 21, 2011 · 7:12 AM

Big Brothers: Thought Control at Koch

Is this legal?  Did Citizens United actually pave the way for this to be legal? 

What has happened to American Democracy ?

 Finally, just how corrupt are our Supreme Court Justices?

The Nation

On the eve of the November midterm elections, Koch Industries sent an urgent letter to most of its 50,000 employees advising them on whom to vote for and warning them about the dire consequences to their families, their jobs and their country should they choose to vote otherwise.

The Nation obtained the Koch Industries election packet for Washington State—which included a cover letter from its president and COO, David Robertson; a list of Koch-endorsed state and federal candidates; and an issue of the company newsletter, Discovery, full of alarmist right-wing propaganda.

Legal experts interviewed for this story called the blatant corporate politicking highly unusual, although no longer skirting the edge of legality, thanks to last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which granted free speech rights to corporations.

“Before Citizens United, federal election law allowed a company like Koch Industries to talk to officers and shareholders about whom to vote for, but not to talk with employees about whom to vote for,” explains Paul M. Secunda, associate professor of law at Marquette University. But according to Secunda, who recently wrote in The Yale Law Journal Online about the effects of Citizens United on political coercion in the workplace, the decision knocked down those regulations. “Now, companies like Koch Industries are free to send out newsletters persuading their employees how to vote. They can even intimidate their employees into voting for their candidates.” Secunda adds, “It’s a very troubling situation.”

The Kochs were major supporters of the Citizens United case; they were also chief sponsors of the Tea Party and major backers of the anti-“Obamacare” campaign. Through their network of libertarian think tanks and policy institutes, they have been major drivers of unionbusting campaigns in Wisconsin, Michigan and elsewhere.

“This sort of election propaganda seems like a new development,” says UCLA law professor Katherine Stone, who specializes in labor law and who reviewed the Koch Industries election packet for The Nation. “Until Citizens United, this sort of political propaganda was probably not permitted. But after the Citizens United decision, I can imagine it’ll be a lot more common, with restrictions on corporations now lifted.”

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April 15, 2011 · 12:10 AM

Palin Headed To Madison, Wisconsin This Weekend

There will be interesting goings on in Madison Wisconsin this week-end…

TPMDC

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will be headlining a Tea Party rally this weekend, at a venue that has served as the stage for some very high-profile protests of late: The Wisconsin state Capitol building in Madison.

The state Capitol, of course, was the site of massive protests both outside and inside the building, as tens of thousands of people gathered to show (and shout) their opposition to Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-public employee union agenda. But now, as the Wisconsin State Journal reports, Palin will be coming to town to rally the other side.

And check out this nugget from the paper’s report:

Americans for Prosperity is organizing busses to the event. Last year’s gathering featured former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson and others.

Americans for Prosperity is, of course, a Koch financed group. The Koch name has popped up quite a bit in the Wisconsin protests — most notably after Walker’s 20-minute phone call in late February with blogger Ian Murphy, who was posing as David Koch. During that call, Walker discussed his ideas for tricking the Democrats into coming back by pretending to negotiate, his ambition to bust the public employee unions in the mold of President Reagan firing the air traffic controllers — an event that Walker said had led to the downfall of the Soviet Union — and that he had considered (but ruled out) planting troublemakers in the crowds of protesters.

Palin’s presence could provide useful measure of activist motivation on each side at this point in the saga. Back in February, a pro-Walker Tea Party rally at the Capitol featured an all-star cast that included Andrew Breitbart and Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher.

However, out of the tens of thousands who showed up that day, only a few thousand were on the pro-Walker side — with several times more demonstrators on the other.

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