Back in April I wrote a couple of articles about how rampant speculation by Koch Industries, Goldman Sachs and other big players in the energy markets has been driving up the price of oil. Immediately, a bunch of freemarket sockpuppets came out of the woodwork and infested our comments section, repeating the same invisible-hand-knows-best bullshit: Speculators are a force of good, not evil; they don’t drive up prices, but in fact help keep them low. Sounds plausible, right?
Well, a few weeks ago Senator Bernie Sanders leaked a small batch of secret energy trading data compiled by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission which showed that in the summer of 2008, when the price of oil was spiking to a record $148 per barrel, the oil commodities market was one giant speculatory cesspool dominated by the largest fraud-ridden banks, investment funds and oil companies in the world, including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, BP and Koch Industries. (more…)
When I left his ranch back in 2009, I was sure that Glenn Spencer had reached the end of his line. So it was surprising to learn that Spencer was a big player in the Tea Party scene. Suddenly, no one in Arizona cared about his past associations with white supremacists. Instead, Spencer was hanging out with Arizona state senators, hosting GOP political events, speaking at rallies and rubbing shoulders with the creme de la creme of Arizona’s Tea Party beau monde. He was not only back in the game, he’s bigger than ever.
Mark Ames talks with Dylan Ratigan about his investigative article in The Nation magazine, co-authored with labor journalist Mike Elk, exposing the scary and bizarre propaganda and elections influencing that Koch Industries now forces on its employees. Watch the video…
This article was first published in 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 Kochs Give a Big Enron Fuck You to America: Traders working for Koch Industries not only gave PowerPoint presentations outlining their plans to drive up the price of oil, but openly boasted about gaming the market in the business press.
People don’t seem that interested in talking about Wall Street’s unpunished and ongoing rape of America anymore these days. And that’s too bad. Because Koch Industries has a lot more in common with Wall Street than most people realize.
Data pulled from publicly-accessible federal contract databases shows that over the past 15 years, the Kochs have milked the U.S. war machine for about $170 million, all while funding libertarian groups, organizations and media outfits with anti-war positions.
It’s been sort of strange watching America’s sudden, belated discovery of the billionaire Koch brothers, and the shock realization about just how much they’ve been manipulating and managing–and ruining–our country and our lives. It’s been a long time coming. As…
Charles Koch—Moms, keep him away from your kids! It’s official: the Kochs pay social media PR companies to troll the Internet on their behalf. According to Lee Fang over at ThinkProgress, an internal Wikipedia investigation revealed that a number of…
Why are American taxpayers forced to subsidize the billionaire Koch brothers’ massive campaign contributions to Republican Party politicians, the Tea Party movement, and policies that ensure greater subsidies to the Kochs, while cutting more public services to the taxpayers who…
You didn’t hear this on Fox News or the Drudge Report, but on October 10 Venezuela seized and nationalized a massive fertilizer plant part-owned by Koch Industries. The media silence is a bit puzzling. You’d think that the seizure of…
This article was published in The Nation on November 23, 2010 Does anyone else sense something strange is going on with the apparently spontaneous revolt against the TSA? This past week, the media turned an “ordinary guy,” 31-year-old Californian John…
This article was first published on TruthDig.com If tea party candidates were serious about stopping runaway spending and bringing fiscal responsibility to Washington, they would have to address one of the most egregious wastes of taxpayer dollars: federal farm…
An abridged version of this article was first published in the New York Observer Mainstream America is finally getting to know the billionaire brothers backing the libertarian movement, thanks to a pair of dueling profiles in New York and The…
This article was first published in Alternet. Why are the hoppin’-mad Teabaggers so oddly quiet these days, ever since the BP oil disaster? That’s what Thomas Frank, author of What’s The Matter With Kansas? asked last week in his column, “Laissez-faire…
Fertilizantes Nitrogenados de Venezuela, Fertinitro CEC, is a joint venture controlled by Venezuela’s state chemicals company and Koch Industries, each of which hold 34.99% of the shares? More here…
This article was first published on Alternet.org “I would rather live under a bridge than live under socialism” —tea bagger slogan Everyone knows that Tea Party revolutionaries fear and hate socialism about as much as the Antichrist. Which is…
