The War on the Koch Brothers
July 18, 2012 — John Hinderaker
On the floor of the Senate yesterday, Frank Lautenberg did something that to our knowledge is unprecedented: he called publicly for a boycott of his own constituents. The context was the “DISCLOSE Act,” which would require 501(c)(4) entities to disclose the identities of their donors. The bill is opposed by a coalition that includes the ACLU and the NRA, and likely is unconstitutional, but the Democrats think it is good
»
July 8, 2012 — John Hinderaker
David Koch held a fundraiser for Mitt Romney this afternoon at his home on Long Island. At this point in the election cycle, that’s how the candidates are spending much of their time–attending fundraisers. But leftists thought they could make some hay out of connecting Romney to the Koch brothers, perhaps because they assume, wrongly, that most people share their detestation of the Kochs. So for some weeks, a consortium
»
June 21, 2012 — John Hinderaker
In recent election cycles, Democratic candidates have consistently outspent Republicans. In 2004, John Kerry spent more than George W. Bush. In the last weeks of the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama, the greatest money-machine in the history of American politics up to that time, reportedly outspent John McCain by five to one. Democrats boasted of their fundraising prowess, and Obama vowed to raise an unprecedented billion dollars for his reelection campaign.
»
May 18, 2012 — John Hinderaker
We wrote here about MSNBC’s disgraceful attacks on Charles and David Koch and Koch Industries in connection with the Trayvon Martin shooting. Guest host Karen Finney said: Who was the Typhoid Mary for this horrible outbreak? It’s the usual suspects the Koch brothers…the same people who stymied gun regulation at every point who funded and ghost write these laws. A few days later, Van Jones, a guest on MSNBC, said:
»
April 22, 2012 — John Hinderaker
I wrote here about MSNBC’s campaign to tie the Koch brothers to George Zimmerman’s shooting of Trayvon Martin. That effort was, it is fair to say, insane, but it apparently inspired one or more liberals to take MSNBC’s theories a step farther. Someone wrote–I think it was on Facebook–that Koch Industries had paid for Zimmerman’s legal defense and/or put up his bail money. Other liberals happily repeated the claim, to
»
April 19, 2012 — John Hinderaker
We wrote in MSNBC, the Faux News Network about MSNBC’s latest attack on the Koch brothers, whom guest host Karen Finney outrageously blamed for the Trayvon Martin shooting. Finney’s slander was repeated on MSNBC by former Obama administration official Van Jones, who said, “You’ve got all of the passion around Trayvon and what a horrible injustice that was and you can draw a direct line to the Koch brothers.” The
»
March 30, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Liberals have been feverishly attacking Fox News for years now, irate that the Left’s monopoly on television news outlets has been broken. Conservatives, on the other hand, have tended to ignore MSNBC, even though that network is far more partisan, and less reliable, than Fox. Perhaps this is because of a perception that hardly anyone watches MSNBC. It is true, of course, that that network’s ratings are nowhere near Fox’s,
»
March 20, 2012 — John Hinderaker
The Democrats’ attack on Rush Limbaugh hasn’t turned out the way they had hoped. The blowback, in the form of conservatives pointing out the outrageous conduct of liberals like Bill Maher and Keith Olbermann, has dwarfed the original reaction against Rush. Worse, the blowback continues. So Democrats are now in the position of trying to shut down the conversation about civility and misogyny that they opportunistically started. Last night on
»
February 26, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Byron Tau reports at Politico that the Koch Companies have released a response to the Obama campaign’s fundraising letter of this past Friday directly assaulting the Koch brothers and their business. John wrote about the disgusting nature of the Obama campaign fundraising letter here, alternately quoting from and responding to it. It is a letter that comes straight out of the Alinsky playbook. Tau links to the Koch Companies’ response,
»
February 25, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Yesterday, along with millions of others, I got a fundraising appeal from Barack Obama’s campaign manager. The email was titled “They’re obsessed.” It began: In just about 24 hours, Mitt Romney is headed to a hotel ballroom to give a speech sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a front group founded and funded by the Koch brothers. AFP is a grass roots organization with close to two million activist-participants. I believe
»
January 13, 2012 — John Hinderaker
What is it about the Koch brothers that causes liberal news outlets to lose their minds? Scott has been following the New York Times’s vendetta against the Kochs, which the paper’s Public Editor has helpfully explained: hey, man, we’re a liberal newspaper and we write for a liberal audience. But the Times is hardly alone. The New Yorker has similarly gone around the bend with regard to the Kochs, led
»
January 13, 2012 — Scott Johnson
We posted the letter from Koch Industries spokesman Melissa Cohlmia to New York Times public editor (ombudsman) Art Brisbane regarding the Times’s ludicrous treatment of the Koch brothers in “Obsessive Koch disorder.” Brisbane has now responded with what I take to be almost endearing candor. Key quote: This brings forward another ingredient in this situation: The Times’s audience. That audience consists of New Yorkers, by and large a liberal population,
»
January 9, 2012 — Scott Johnson
The State Politics site takes note of a letter from Koch Companies representative Melissa Cohlmia to New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane on the paper’s obsession with Koch Industries and the Koch brothers: For those who pay attention, it is astonishing to witness the non-stop, over-the-top efforts of liberal mainstream media like the New York Times to discredit Wichita-based Koch Industries and its principals Charles G. Koch and David
»
December 14, 2011 — John Hinderaker
We have been following the Left’s coordinated effort to mount a “voting rights” campaign that will energize the Democratic base while intimidating states that are trying to maintain ballot box integrity. The campaign started with a march in New York City that was co-sponsored by a rogues’ gallery of left-wing organizations and addressed by several Democratic politicians, but was attended by only one or two thousand people, mostly at the
»
December 11, 2011 — John Hinderaker
Yesterday a motley coalition of left-wing groups operating under the name Stand For Freedom marched in New York City, ostensibly to support voting rights. A large number of groups were represented, almost more organizations than people: the NAACP, the ACLU, SEIU, CAIR, the Communist Party, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, the Hispanic Federation, the United Federation of Teachers, the Action Network, NOW, several Democratic politicians, and many more. Despite
»
October 9, 2011 — Steven Hayward
The Nation magazine thinks it has hit a two-fer in a recent issue, calling attention to the supposed hypocrisy of Charles Koch (cue villainous musical fanfare here) and Friedrich Hayek, for taking advantage of Social Security benefits. Hayek was reluctant to accept an invitation to make an extended visit to the U.S. in the mid-1970s in part because of health reasons, and he worried about his health care coverage if
»
October 6, 2011 — John Hinderaker
In Bloomberg Whiffs, Parts one and two, I documented various errors in two of the main themes of Bloomberg Markets’ politically-motivated hit piece on Koch Industries. The subjects of those posts were Bloomberg’s false claims that Koch Industries illegally did business in Iran, and terminated an employee who was responsible for compliance because she discovered that employees of a French subsidiary had made improper payments in support of sales. This
»
