Search Results for: koch

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 19, 2022 ~ The Federal Election Commission (FEC), a federal agency, states that its mission is to “protect the integrity of the federal campaign finance process by providing transparency and fairly enforcing and administering federal campaign finance laws.” So last week Wall Street On Parade sent an email inquiry to the FEC, asking the following: “The fossil fuels conglomerate, Koch Industries, which is privately-owned by billionaire Charles Koch and the heirs of his late brother, David, owns a massive voter database, data mining, get-out-the-vote operation, etc. called i360. “As you will see from the FEC link below, i360 is selling its services to a multitude of Republican candidates for seats in the House and Senate, as well as to PACs that in turn support those candidates. “My question is, how is it legal for a privately-owned fossil fuels conglomerate to operate i360, effectively a more … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 15, 2022 ~ The nonpartisan watchdog group, Accountable.US, has released the results of an investigation into how committed to democracy the 100 largest corporations in America are. The corporations were graded on support for voting rights, the electoral process, and American democracy. The results were provided in an interactive resource called the American Democracy Scorecard. Researchers looked at 14 key criteria. Seven elements of the criteria involved making pro-democracy statements, being affiliated with pro-democracy organizations, and taking other pro-democracy actions. Seven other criteria involved corporate contributions to elected officials who are undermining democracy and voting rights. Three of the largest mega banks on Wall Street, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo, flunked the democracy test, each receiving a score of “F.” Goldman Sachs received a “D.” Bank of America and Citigroup received a “B” grade, but, clearly, that was based on very recent … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: September 7, 2022 On Thursday evening, September 1, President Joe Biden addressed the nation from Philadelphia, the second location of the U.S. Capitol in its early years. During his remarks, Biden spoke these words: “Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. “Now, I want to be very clear — very clear up front: Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology. I know because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans. “But there is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.” The two most important words in this excerpt from Biden’s remarks are the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 30, 2022 ~ According to NBC News and confirmed by Reuters, Donald Trump has located a new lawyer that is willing to step into the Palm Beach, Florida court case involving the U.S. Justice Department’s raid at Trump’s beach resort/hotel/event-venue and private residence known simply as Mar-a-Lago. (For background, see our previous report: Mar-a-Lago: Thousands of People of Questionable Character Have Visited this Resort/Hotel in the 18 Months That Trump Stashed Top Secret Documents There.) According to NBC News, the new lawyer, Chris Kise, worked for the law firm Foley & Lardner right up until NBC News reported that Kise had taken the job representing Trump. NBC News reports that the bio for Kise then suddenly disappeared from Foley & Lardner’s website. (We can go a step further than that: the law firm also scrubbed past articles it had published on its website … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 26, 2022 ~ The New York Times dropped a political bombshell on Monday. The public interest website, ProPublica, built further on the story that afternoon. And, as luck would have it, Wall Street On Parade finds itself in the unique position of filling in missing pieces of the story thanks to an investigative report we published in 2010. The gist of the story is this: a sketchy billionaire named Barre Seid decided last year to donate his electronics manufacturing company, Tripp Lite, to a nonprofit tied to the radical right called Marble Freedom Trust. After the transfer of ownership to the nonprofit, Tripp Lite was then sold to the Dublin, Ireland based power management company, Eaton, thus avoiding capital gains taxes on the sale. This handed the nonprofit a cool $1.65 billion in tax free money from the sale of the business. In other … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 4, 2022 ~ Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) spoke on a right-wing radio show this past Tuesday and suggested that Social Security and Medicare be eliminated as federal entitlement programs and become subject to approval by Congress each year as part of its discretionary spending authority. (You can listen to Johnson’s words at this link.) What Johnson is proposing is the decades-long dream of fossil fuels billionaire Charles Koch and his late brother, David. And that makes perfect sense because, to a large degree, Johnson owes his Senate seat to two Koch-funded front groups, Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and Freedom Partners. In Johnson’s close 2016 race against Democrat Russ Feingold, Americans for Prosperity and the Freedom Partners Action Fund ran ad campaigns for Johnson. The Center for Media and Democracy reported last year that “In the 2016 cycle, Freedom Partners Action Fund, the main Koch-backed … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 2, 2022 ~ Ken Klukowski is making a lot of people in the Charles Koch network of political operatives very nervous. According to a CNN report last Thursday, Klukowski “is cooperating in the DOJ’s January 6 criminal investigation, after investigators searched and copied his electronic records several weeks ago.” Those electronic records could open a lot of secrets that the Charles Koch network has kept behind a dark curtain for far too long. Klukowski arrived at the U.S. Department of Justice just 35 days before Trump’s term ended. According to the January 6 House Select Committee, Klukowski was “parachuted” into the Justice Department to help an environmental attorney there, Jeffrey Clark, prepare a letter to state officials which falsely claimed that the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns” about the vote totals in those states and the states should consider sending “a separate slate … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 25, 2022 ~ His name is Rick Fleming and there is a very good chance that you’ve never heard of him. Now, there’s a very good chance that you’ll never see the reports that he meticulously compiled twice a year over the past eight years that he served in the role of Investor Advocate on behalf of retail investors at the Securities and Exchange Commission. If you click on this SEC link where his reports are supposed to be housed, you’ll find that the majority of his reports since 2019 result in an “Oops! Page Not Found” message. The role of Investor Advocate at the SEC was created under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010 following the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression, which resulted from unparalleled corruption on Wall Street and inept federal oversight. The Dodd-Frank legislation clearly intended for the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 7, 2022 ~ The Office of Financial Research (OFR), a unit of the U.S. Treasury Department, was created under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010. Its job is to prevent, through early warnings, the kind of catastrophic financial crisis that occurred in 2008 when irresponsible and corrupt practices on Wall Street toppled the U.S. economy; brought on the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression; and left the taxpayer and Fed bailing out the Wall Street megabanks that would have otherwise collapsed from their own hubris. Unfortunately, the OFR was savagely gutted under the Trump administration. Today, OFR is like the cop on the beat that has been stripped of his whistle, his walkie-talkie and is wearing dark sun glasses on a cloudy day. One of the tools that the OFR is supposed to use to warn federal regulators that Wall Street is … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 10, 2022 ~ As we watched the two-hour public hearing on the critical facts uncovered by the House Select Committee on the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, we kept waiting to hear a discussion of the money trail that facilitated this attack. That discussion never came. And yet, big expenses were involved: dozens of buses were rented; signs advertising “Stop the Steal” were on the sides of some of those buses; food and lodging had to be paid for, in or around expensive Washington, D.C.; and, now, lawyers have to be paid to represent those indicted for brutalizing police on January 6 or destroying and/or stealing government property. The House Select Committee did an excellent job last evening of providing the big picture on the plot to shred U.S. democracy in service to Donald Trump’s megalomaniac desires. But the question … Continue reading →