Search Results for: koch

By Pam Martens: May 22, 2013  On February 25, 2013, James Hepburn, writing at Daily Kos, made the emphatic assertion in a headline that “Big Tobacco Had Nothing to Do With Tea Party Formation.” That is likely to be the one headline that will haunt Mr. Hepburn to his grave.  I decided to follow in the treacherous footsteps of the IRS and engaged in that unforgiveable sin: I targeted the “tea party” as a key word search at the legacy tobacco document archive.  Resting quietly in the archive is full blown proof that Big Tobacco directly created multiple Tea Parties in 1994 as push back against a planned increase in the Federal Excise Tax (FET) on cigarettes.   In fact, Big Tobacco not only created the Tea Party, it has promoted it over decades, pumped millions into marketing it, and pulled it out of its magic hat every time it needed … Continue reading →

 By Pam Martens: May 20, 2013 The Justice Department is investigating the investigators of the Tea Party at the IRS while leaving a 29-year criminal conspiracy against the American people by the Tea Party cabal untouched. That’s not surprising, given that the U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, and the former head of his criminal division, Lanny Breuer, came from the law firm Covington and Burling which played a seminal role in the conspiracy. On February 8 of this year, the peer-reviewed health professionals’ journal, Tobacco Control, published an exhaustive study of the roots of the Tea Party dating back to the 1980s.  Researched and written by Amanda Fallin, Rachel Grana and Stanton A. Glantz, the study was funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) and titled ‘To Quarterback Behind the Scenes, Third Party Efforts’: The Tobacco Industry and the Tea Party. The authors explain how Citizens for a Sound … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 17, 2013 To rational folks, the real scandal at the IRS is that corporate front groups – who want to bust unions, pollute the water and air with impunity, and kill Social Security in order to eliminate the corporate match of the Social Security tax – are allowed to register with the IRS as social welfare organizations, receive tax-exempt status, and then funnel tens of millions of dollars into political attack ads in order to elect candidates sympathetic to their corporate deregulatory agenda. These so-called social welfare organizations are allowed to do all this while drawing a black curtain around the names of their corporate donors. On April 9, 2013, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a petition with the IRS that mapped out the real scandal taking place at the IRS – the scandal that right wing media don’t … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 14, 2013  For years now, journalists have been doing the heavy lifting in investigations of Charles and David Koch using their billionaire status to fund faux grassroots groups to push their far right agenda on the country —  an agenda that effectively boils down to deregulation of corporations to the detriment of the working class, the environment and wealth equality in America. It’s about time the IRS investigated.  According to the 2013 Forbes List, Charles and David Koch are each worth $34 billion. Their wealth derives from Koch Industries, a private global conglomerate with a presence in over 60 countries. The company’s business interests include oil, refining, pipelines, paper products, chemicals, fertilizer and trading. Because the company is not publicly traded, despite the Koch brothers’ stated devotion to free markets, we have no idea what goes on in the sprawling Koch enterprises because they are not … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: October 30, 2012 At 6 a.m., New York Governor Andrew Cuomo reported that there are 1,943,572 New Yorkers without power.  Con Ed is reporting that power is out in lower Manhattan below 39th Street with an estimated 250,000 people in Manhattan without power.  The MTA is reporting massive flooding in New York City subways and tunnels.  New York City is urging all residents to remain indoors, avoid use of elevators and stay away from windows as a precaution against flying debris. The following updates have been posted by New York City:  Alternate Side Parking regulations (street cleaning) will be suspended citywide on Tuesday, 10/30. Payment at parking meters is also suspended throughout the city on Tuesday, 10/30. The MTA has shut down all subway, bus, and commuter railroad service and likely will remain closed throughout Tuesday.  The Staten Island Ferry service is suspended until further notice. East River … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: October 18, 2012 The landmark 2010 Citizens United decision at the U.S. Supreme Court, effectively ending democracy as we know it, made it legal for advocacy groups to accept unlimited funds from secret donors while openly campaigning for a candidate.  Super PACs can now also accept unlimited sums from a single donor and spend every dime on attack ads against an opponent, providing they keep their activities separate from the candidate’s campaign. What has evolved from the Citizens United decision is an incestuous world where campaign rules matter little to the masters of the universe. The pro-Romney super Pac, Restore Our Future, has raked in $96,667,002 in this campaign cycle according to a recent filing at the Federal Election Commission. Almost half of that has sluiced out the back door to the ad buying firm of Mentzer Media.  Mentzer Media is the firm that placed over $18 million in ads attacking … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: October 16, 2012  (1) Mr. President, both Ron Ruskind and Sheila Bair have written books that suggest that your Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, is a tool of Wall Street and, specifically, Citigroup. Mr. Suskind indicated that you had instructed Mr. Geithner to unwind Citigroup and he ignored your order.  Will you tell Americans once and for all if that is true, and if it is, why the President of the United States would tolerate insubordination from his Treasury Secretary.  (2) Governor Romney, you and your running mate, Paul Ryan, believe we have too much government: too many governmental controls in business, too many government entitlement programs.  But when it comes to women’s bodies and abortion, you advocate letting the government control. Can you explain the seeming dichotomy of your logic and, also, why it would be humane to bring unwanted children into a country where one in every five … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: October 15, 2012 A little over a month ago, I went to the web site of the Koch Industries roster of their version of “facts,” and stumbled upon, completely by accident, the billionaire brothers’ wholesale attack on Robert Greenwald, the filmmaker who released the documentary Koch Brothers Exposed earlier this year.  For the balance of the day, wherever I went on the internet, various versions of Koch ads popped up, berating Greenwald and his film.  I felt like I was being stalked. According to a techie friend, I had picked up a cookie at the Koch Industries web site and it was using that cookie to follow me around and attempt to brainwash me against Robert Greenwald and his film.  I had to erase all my cookies to stop this stalking. If you think this is over-the-top creepy, you obviously have not yet read the article in the New … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: October 9, 2012  Obviously, back in 2008, when Wall Street was dumping millions into the campaign of Barack Obama, it didn’t ask for a prenup.  The honeymoon went smoothly for a while, with Wall Street quite content to have slap-on-the-wrist Mary Schapiro sitting atop the SEC and Tim Geithner, the former sugar-daddy of bailouts from the New York Fed, holding down the fort at the U.S. Treasury.   But then came Dodd-Frank, the Volcker Rule, regulation of derivatives, quips about fat-cats from the President and a big-money divorce.  Today, reports the Wall Street Journal, Wall Street and financial services firms have given a tepid $12 million to President Obama’s campaign versus the $43 million they gave in 2008.  Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has received over $24 million from the slimmed down fat-cats in this election cycle.  During the first presidential debate, Romney had this to say about the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: September 26, 2012  Forty-one days before a Presidential election that billionaire Charles Koch promised would be the “mother of all wars,” the battle is focusing on the ideas spun out of the decades old Koch corporate front groups.  Namely – Ayn Rand’s brand of capitalism.  The uproar has yet to fade on Mitt Romney’s video tell-all, marking 47 percent of Americans as government moochers — “my job is not to worry about those people” — a view that would have warmed the heart of author Ayn Rand, an icon of the far right who was regularly repulsed by government parasites, unless she was doing the mooching.  (In later life, Rand received both Social Security and Medicare benefits.)  Now, multiple media outlets are calling attention to an audio tape of a speech Republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan delivered to the Atlas Society in 2005, praising the influence of Ayn … Continue reading →