"I want my fair share–and that's ALL OF IT."
The Kochs & the XL Pipeline
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Activists alert:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his son Connor Kennedy were arrested Wednesday in Washington while protesting against approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline.
A rally in Washington, DC, protesting the Pipeline, has been called by Forward on Climate for Sunday, February 17.
According
to the transcript of the secretly recorded tape, Charles Koch was
chuckling like a six-year old. Koch was having a hell of a laugh over
pilfering a few hundred dollars’ worth of oil from a couple of dirt-poor
Indians on the Osage Reservation.Why did Koch, worth about $3 billion at the time (now $20 billion) need to boost a few bucks from some Indian in a trailer home? Koch answered:
“I want my fair share – and that’s all of it.”Now “all of it” includes a pipeline, the Keystone XL, which would run the world’s filthiest oil, crude made from tar sands, down from Canada to his family’s refinery on the Gulf Coast of Texas.
This is Part 2 of “The Koch Brothers, Hugo Chavez and the XL Pipeline.” Part 1 explains that the Koch Oil refinery can only “crack” heavy crude from Venezuela—which costs $33 a barrel more than tar sands heavy oil. But Canada’s cheap crude cannot get to Texas without a new, giant pipe. XL would save the Kochs nearly $3 billion a year.
Problem: the Keystone XL tar-oil tube would endanger the largest US water sources, vastly increase pollution in the USA and measurably heat the planet.
Solution: Congressman Tim Griffin.
Congressman Griffin is sponsoring the bill to force the Obama Administration to approve the XL Pipeline without the environmental review now required by law.
What’s odd is that Griffin represents Arkansas, a state with no stake in the Pipeline.
But the Kochs have a stake in Griffin. In his maiden run for Congress, Griffin was elected with an eye-popping $167,000 donation from the Kochs. For $167,000, any congressman will wash your car – with their tongue.
For the Kochs, $167K is peanuts. Their political action operation, Americans for Prosperity, built a quarter billion dollar fund this past year, a sum never seen even in the US politics cash swamp.
Global Warming Denial as a Profit Center
To answer the concerns about global warming raised by the XL and the Kochs’ oil business, the billionaire brothers have bankrolled a gold-plated campaign of global warming denial.
For example, Americans for Prosperity funded “Hot Air Tour” rallies across the US with the slogan, “Global Warming Alarmism: Lost Jobs, Higher Taxes and Less Freedom.” More rallies were held by the Koch-funded FreedomWorks, a foundation which has seized control of the Tea Party movement—and redirected populist rage against plutocrats. FreedomWorks transformed the Tea Party into a used tea bag, dangling from the Kochs' string.
Break the Law then Re-make the Law
States on the pipeline’s route could block the Keystone XL, but the crucial extension will originate in Oklahoma where the Kochs have cowed all resistance to their needs.
The Kochs’ power to terrorize politicians in Oklahoma and the West originates in that case of Osage tribe’s missing oil.
FBI agents filmed Koch Oil men pilfering the crude, had witnesses to Koch’s directives to siphon the oil, and more. The US Justice Department drafted a criminal indictment of Koch Industries and Defendant “67C” (reportedly Charles Koch himself) for “Crime on an Indian Reservation” and racketeering, big-time jail-time offenses.
That’s when Koch Oil drilled down and struck Bob Dole, the nation’s most powerful Senator, the Republican Majority Leader.
Dole (representing Kansas), joined by a Koch-funded Senator from Oklahoma, Don Nickles, had the federal prosecutor who brought the case fired. Case closed except for a few million paid to the Osage for some of their stolen oil.
Dole ran for President using Koch money given to Dole’s not-for-profit foundation. It was a cheap buy for the Kochs because it was illegal – so Dole, when caught, had to give it back.
But one Senator wouldn’t let the oil theft go: Dennis DeConcini, chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Investigations whose report concluded, “Koch Oil is the most dramatic example of an oil company stealing by deliberate mismeasurement and fraudulent reporting.”
The Kochs didn’t like that. And when the Kochs don’t like something, or someone, it’s notably more serious than a ‘thumbs down’ on your Facebook page. In 1996 (yes, I’ve been investigating the Kochs for that long), DeConcini told me the Kochs warned him that if he published and stood by the Senate’s and the FBI’s findings, the Kochs would destroy the Senator’s political career. They did.
Then there was the matter of the 97-count criminal indictment of Koch Oil for dumping poisonous crude sludge into rivers in six states. The Kochs didn’t merely want to beat the rap—they wanted to continue dumping.
That would require buying a whole new Congress. No problemo, Pardner. In 1996, Koch Industries, through a fake front called Coalition for our Children’s Future, secretly funded millions of dollars in vicious attack ads against vulnerable Democrats just days before the election.
As a result, Republican Newt Gingrich kept his post as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Gingrich pushed an agenda he called "The Contract with America", which would eliminate criminal sanctions for pollution and slash rules against polluting. The Center for Public Integrity said it “seems to have been drafted and designed for Koch interests.”
Wrong. The Contract was drafted by the Kochs and crafted at the Heritage Foundation, a think-tank the Kochs founded.
Bill Clinton’s Administration, though nominally Democratic, went easy on Koch interests. Vice-President Al Gore especially, head of the Reinventing Government Commission, attacked regulations with more verve than Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher. Gore’s anti-regulation guidebook was the “Mandate for Change” drafted by the Democratic Leadership Council. It was the DLC that had launched the career of the previously unknown Bill Clinton, its first chair, and Al Gore’s career as well. The DLC was created with $100,000 of Koch money.
The Kochs use of fronts for corporate donations to politicians was plain illegal—until, in 2010, the US Supreme Court decriminalized this game in the Citizens United case. The lawyer for Citizens United is Ted Olson, whose day job is representing Koch Industries.
Note: The Kochs are bi-partisan employers. They also retain lawyer Bob Strauss, former Chairman of the Democratic Party.
The Themis Machine
As if their billions, their think tanks, lawyers, fronts and political action fund were not enough to scare the bejeezus out of politicians, there is Themis. Themis, created by the Kochs, is the nation’s most sophisticated, detailed database on every American living, surpassing the most demonic dreams of the FBI.
Themis, for example, knows the last time you, Jack, downloaded porn.
Given their power and their Themis, is it really possible for a few greenies and some fact-afflicted scientists to stop the Kochs from jamming their pipeline right up our aquifers?
Absolutely. Indeed, that’s the only way it will be stopped, because the Kochs have already put the politicians in their pipe and smoked them.
...
Note: This article by Greg Palast was originally written for Vice Magazine, and is used with permission.
1 comment:
hope all will read the article below my comments and think about the problems it speaks about.
I do not know the facts and do not follow such things generally. I am concerned in general with the actions of our politicians and the more obvious influence of special interests as indicated, if true, written in the message below.
There is no doubt that the polarization and gridlock has more to do with special interests than governing.
The agreement by a group of Republican elected and unelected lobbyists upon Obama’s original election to vote against anything that would make Obama succeed was a terrible disservice to the entire nation and a violation of their oath of office. In many cases, they voted against their own bills or issues they had fought to bring into law. The excessive use of delaying tactics, holds on bills and appointments, the use of the filibuster, etc had no purpose other than to frustrate the president. To some, it was just politics. It was an abuse of rules that had worked for generations! We now have gridlock and period crisis that harm business, our economy and our system of government. It did not work and Obama was elected again. Now we are seeing the continuation of such tactics, perhaps for another four years. We know it is harmful but little can be done to change anything until the next election.
Let us assume that the Republicans win the next round. What if the Democrats use the same tactics to frustrate the majority party until the next election cycle? Will our system survive with perpetual gridlock, sometimes sponsored by special interests whose money will follow whichever side wins? Eventually we will have a Plutocracy governing the USA which could lead to either a permanent one party system or a dictator.
Read history and see how most such governments took over in other parts of the world.
It is not a joke. It has already done great harm by not solving real problems that affect us all. Government appointments have been put on hold, leaving departments without leaders. Congressional hearings have become a stage for preening representatives to ask the same questions that have been asked by half the members of the committee. The end result is no new legislation to cure the problem investigated. As far as we know, no changes were made by Congress to prevent more similar incidents. Careers are routinely trashed without real cause.
Our media plays up such stories for a few days then goers on to the next headline.
I have no answers other than to be more careful with our voting unless our representatives wake up and review the rules.
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