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Texas Sharon's Bluedaze

Fracking News

Tea Party funded by Koch Oil, leading environmental criminal.

August 27, 2010 By TXsharon

I might have mentioned the billionaire Koch brothers a time or two because I’ve been following these criminal polluters and serial propagandasts for over a decade.

Faulty Koch pipelines resulted in more than 300 oil spills in five states during the 1990s, which led to the corporation paying landmark penalties.

A pipeline explosion in Dallas in 1996 that killed two teenagers cost the company more than $300 million.

During the Clinton administration, Koch Oil was charged with 315 acts of pollution. Koch Industries denied the allegations, but the cases were settled in January 2000 for $35 million in fines

In another instance, Koch was charged with 97 counts of covering up evidence in the case of a benzene spill in Corpus Christi, Texas
LINK

Yesterday, NPR’s Fresh Air interviewed Jane Mayer who did an investigative feature on the Koch brothers. You can listen below but first, so you can be an informed shopper, I want to list some of the products I intend to boycott from now until forever.

  • Brawny paper towels
  • Dixie cups
  • Formaldehyde laden Georgia-Pacific lumber
  • Lycra fibers
  • Stainmaster carpet
  • More

Here are my notes in case you don’t have time to listen.

In a nutshell, the billionaire Koch Brothers fund what is called “corporate sponsored activism.” They channel the legitimate anger over economic problems in this country and push it to enable their own agenda, which is generally making themselves more wealthy at our expense.They train angry people in issues that the Koch Billionaire Brothers care about. They get these angry people to fight against:

  • Regulation of any kind
  • Energy reform
  • Environmental reform
  • Political candidates who promote regulation and reform
  • They even provide scripts.

Since 1980, they’ve been working on their agenda to fund infrastructure to manufacture public political opinion that mirrors their own. They are underground and closeted to avoid congressional scrutiny and to prevent boycott of the products listed above. A former employee said, “They use rednecks to do their dirty work for them.” They launder the economics so you can’t tell who supports these organizations that manufacture public opinion.

  • Koch Brothers are primary underwriters of hard line Libertarian politics in America.
  • Koch Ind.’s annual revenue is estimated to be $100 billion dollars.
  • They operate oil refineries in several states and pipelines.
  • They are the 2nd largest private company in the country.
  • They funded the Tea Party to help turn their private agenda–the eradication of the federal government in all of its forms other than the part that protects personal rights–into a mass movement.
  • They are trying to get rid of federal regulations particularly on energy companies like…wait for it…Koch Oil.
  • They are serious and criminal polluters! (the kind of pollution that gives the earlier mentioned angry “rednecks” and their children cancer)

They have funded as many as 34 different front groups that are coming after Obama and they fight against the following reforms

  • Health care
  • Environmental
  • Energy
  • Tax
  • Stimulus

IRONY ALERT:

In Texas on July 4th, Americans for Prosperity held a Tea Party Summit called “Texas defending the American Dream.” (That would be the American Dream where the Koch brothers get wealthier and angry “rednecks” get cancer.) It was advertised as a populist uprising against vested corporate power but it was really corporate manufactured activism. It was funded by Koch Oil Company.

Other Tea Party/political activities funded by Koch:

  • Websites
  • Rally organizing
  • Buses to rallies
  • Political infrastructure to enable movement
  • Think tanks
  • Publications
  • Academics who present manufactured research as legitimate research.
  • Scholarships to students who will hold same views
  • An array of orgs
  • Cato Institute was founded and funded by Koch fortune
  • Mercatus Center at George Mason University that looks like an impartial academic support but it’s funded by industry. They support gutting all fed regulation particularly environmental and they specialize in attacks EPA
  • Citizens for a sound economy
  • Americans for Prosperity

HYPOCRISY:

Koch Industries has received $100 million in government contacts since 2000. They also benefited from the 2005 Federal Energy Bill.

And Thank God global warming is a hoax! Lord knows the billionaire Koch Brothers have spent several large fortunes spreading junk science to disprove global warming to ensure the Continued Prosperity of Koch Industries and Other Big Oil Outfits.

Suckers!

About Sharon Wilson

Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.

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Filed Under: Koch

Comments

  1. David says

    August 27, 2010 at 12:51 pm

    Let's see if Koch can continue to operate in the shadows in the information age.

  2. TXsharon says

    August 27, 2010 at 1:27 pm

    They have been quite successful so far and they have derailed the Obama presidency. People have to be willing seek out and accept the information. These people aren't. They are the Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly watchers who just want someone to tell them what to think.

    I mean, how hard is it to click on About Us and then Do a little Google? I did that years ago when the paper printed this wacko piece by the Cato Institute under the guise of an independent think tank. It led me straight to Koch Oil.

  3. Anonymous says

    August 27, 2010 at 2:08 pm

    Ditto, Ms. Sharon–I was becoming aggravated at the constant meaningless soundbites of electoral candidates as both parties each have 'mad babble skills'. All it took was a few minutes of research each night after putting children to bed to ferret out what's what.

  4. TXsharon says

    August 27, 2010 at 2:21 pm

    The best way to figure out what all the soundbites are about is to

    1) follow the money
    2) look at voting history

    I want public funded elections with no opt out and each candidate gets the same amount of time on TV and the same number of words in newspapers. I'm up to my eyeballs with the bullshit from all sides.

  5. Anonymous says

    August 27, 2010 at 6:20 pm

    Makes your confidence in our "system" wein and dwindle to nearly nothing! Big money in control and at work!

  6. TXsharon says

    August 27, 2010 at 6:28 pm

    It's us! We ARE the system and the system enablers. We have been intellectually lazy and not curious. We allowed this broken system to thrive now we have to fix it.

  7. Anonymous says

    August 28, 2010 at 5:12 am

    Well, with a net worth of 16 Billion each, and with a father who helped found the John Birch Society, that's all I really need to know. It explains a lot. They need deprogramming now not later. They're destroying the world.

  8. Mike H. says

    August 28, 2010 at 9:37 am

    Koch bought the heavily polluted Exxon Kelsey Pump Station at Rancho Los Malulos:

    http://rancholoslosmalulos.blogspot.com/2010/08/pcbs-mercury-chronium-at-kelsey-pump.html

    Let's see if they sue Exxon for it, clean it up, or ignore it.

  9. Mike H. says

    August 28, 2010 at 10:21 am

    Here's The New Yorker's piece on the Koch's:

    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

  10. zoe says

    August 28, 2010 at 12:37 pm

    2009 Dick Armey received 550,000 dollars in compensation from Freedom Works.

    http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/washington/dmichaels/stories/102909dnbusarmey.3d93f1a.html

    http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks

    http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dick_Armey

  11. Mike H. says

    August 28, 2010 at 2:49 pm

    Koch had 300 pipeline spills pre-2000, mostly caused by corrosion, something a pipeline *should* be in control of. Here's the EPA blurb:

    http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/cases/civil/cwa/kochcwa.html

  12. Anonymous says

    August 29, 2010 at 4:47 am

    A Koch company sits very near the Trinity River in Dallas on Singleton Blvd. Its EPA toxic release info is under a different name. Singleton is Pollutor's Row, and those who want to develop the river bottom into a playground need to consider this.

Trackbacks

  1. Connections: Koch Brothers, Ross Perot and Argyle School Children says:
    September 9, 2011 at 6:50 am

    […] I’ve mentioned many times that the Koch Brothers are world class environmental criminals, funded the Tea Party and manipulated global warming news. They also have a secret club for the […]

  2. Occupy Wall Street vs The Tea Party - Page 36 says:
    October 12, 2011 at 9:01 am

    […] – NYTimes.com) (Tea Party Funding Koch Brothers Emerge From Anonymity – Peter Fenn (usnews.com)) (Tea Party funded by Koch Oil, leading environmental criminal.). While there are worries about the co-optation of the OWS movement (VIDEO: Occupy Wall Street […]

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