A Look at the Koch Brothers Dark-Money Network 406
An anonymous reader writes "The California attorney general and the state's top election watchdog named the 'Koch brothers network' of donors and dark-money nonprofits as the true source of $15 million in secret donations made last year to influence two bitterly fought ballot propositions in California. State officials unmasked the Kochs' network as part of a settlement deal that ends a nearly year-long investigation into the source of the secret donations that flowed in California last fall."
damn philanthropists (Score:3)
Re:damn philanthropists (Score:5, Informative)
You mean this guy?
On the morning of June 19, 2006, Haas was arrested by IRS agents for investigation of filing false tax returns, witness intimidation, and conspiracy.[12] Four others were indicted together with Haas.
Haas initially pled not guilty, but after all four of the co-indicted plead guilty and just before his case was to go to trial, a plea agreement was reached with Haas pleading guilty on one count.
Haas made full restitution to the IRS and has served a fraction of a 24-month sentence in federal prison. He was released to a halfway house in November 2008. Since February 2009, he has been living at his home and working at Haas Automation.
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Is this a good place to say, "Ha ha!... you spent $15 to illegally influence an election and lost! And now you have to pay $16M in fines!"
Honestly, it's this secret crap that scares me the most, whether it's the Koch brothers or the NSA. If they're going to screw us over, they'd better damn well do it in the light of day.
Re:damn philanthropists (Score:5, Insightful)
Regarding your statement, "But this is typical of the Progressives, they don't mind when it is THEIR guy mucking up the politics."
It's typical of _everyone_ in politics, _everyone_ in the media, and _everyone_ with an agenda. Don't blame just one party when _everyone_ is doing it. It's human nature to deny the guilt of yourself and the people you associate with when the goal is to discredit or disarm a group with opposing views.
Chill out! (Score:5, Insightful)
the true source of $15 million in secret donations made last year to influence two bitterly fought ballot propositions in California
The Koch's have been shafting the political process for years, nobody cared before. What is this? Some sort of fo-public Koch exposure? We all know that the Koch's will remain hidden until the heat dies off then they'll come and fuck something else up.
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Yes, lets crib about the Koch brothers. Let's do PSAs with Richard Nixon in it as Oliver Stone laments lost liberties. Let's not talk about the current political situation that has:
Drone killing. No 4th amendment, warrant-less searches. Executive kill orders. Dragnets. NSA spying. Google being co-opted to spy. All emails being read. All calls being logged. Foreign leaders being spied on. The money being debased. Arms being channeled to criminal cartels for sting purposes. Suspicious withholding of force in
Slashdot Conservatives (Score:5, Insightful)
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You know, some part of me wonders. Why do liberals keep saying "rich people" and "conservatives" as they're interchangeable. Seriously. Lets pull out some of the top billionaires in this country, look not what they're registered as (as you'll find they're pretty much all registered independent), but look at their political leanings. Buffett made campaign contributions to the obama campaign. Bill Gates, called out for his college fund discriminating against whites along with also supporting obama, boy,
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"Koch brother network"? (Score:5, Informative)
The "Koch link" seems to be that one of the guys running one of the foundations was described by Politico as a "Koch operative". The other Koch link was that there was an E-mail asking one of the Koch brothers for contributions to help get a proposition passed that would have limited the ability of unions to raise private money for political purposes. Consistent with his libertarian views, he says he does not support such restrictions and did not support the proposition directly or indirectly.
Can someone explain to me how this turns into a "Koch brother network"? I mean, perhaps the Koch brothers are more deeply involved in this, but nothing in the MJ article or the settlement seems to provide any evidence for any significant involvement by them.
Re:"Koch brother network"? (Score:5, Informative)
I have the same complaint when someone uses some high-tech acronym I don't recognize.
If this was the first article you had ever read that mentions the Koch Brothers, I could see where you might need such an explanation. By now, half a decade into their influencing the political system to enhance their fossil fuel and other natural resource holdings, most of the readers, especially the American readers, know who these guys are, who their father was (a big John Bircher and avowed racist and anti-semite) and what they're up to via mechanisms like FreedomWorks and ALEC and the Tea Party. They use their own billions as seed money to create a network of action committees that seek to influence politics from the level of local school boards thousands of miles away from where they live right on up to the President and the President's supervisor, the chairman of the Fed.
A famous story about one of the Koch Brothers recounts how someone called Wisconsin governor Scott Walker pretending to be David Koch and the governor slobbered all over the phone telling the pseudo-Koch Brother how he was gonna make sure - you bet - to get rid of all those unions who expect to actually get, you know, paid for working in Koch Industries facilities, and assured pseudo-Koch that there would be sufficient poor people taken off the state Badgercare rolls so that Koch's companies would get substantial tax subsidies in Wisconsin. It was a remarkable candid snapshot of just how much the name "Koch" reverberates through the precincts of the so-called "constitutional conservatives" and just how much it opens the doors to the treasury to these so-called "patriots".
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It would be local news, except for the fact that the Koch brothers' network, funding the American Legislative Exchange Council and FreedomWorks, is influencing candidates and elections in all 50 states.
So if by "local" you mean "in the United States" then you are correct. If you mean that it's something that's only happening in one little backwater, then no, it's not a lo
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The article says "Koch-linked" but does not clarify by whom or how. One evidence is a mail to Koch, not from. Call it shitty journalism, but I don't think people remember which organisations are run by which interests.
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The article makes specific allegations. Saying "we already know these guys are guilty" doesn't support those allegations.
Re:"Koch brother network"? (Score:5, Informative)
02: "One potential donor courted by an ally of Russo's was Charles Koch, the chairman and CEO of Koch Industries"
03: "Hi Charles
04: "AJS and its lawyers took precautions, choosing to funnel the money through the Center to Protect Patients Rights, which was run by Sean Noble, who was then the primary outside consultant and strategist to the Koch brothers' national donor network"
05: "Here, the money trail forks into two trails. In one direction, CPPR gave $7 million to a nonprofit called the American Future Fund, which in turn passed $4.08 million of that to a subsidiary in California. That subsidiary, the California Future Fund for Free Markets, finally spent the money on influencing Props. 30 and 32.
06: `In the second direction, CPPR directed $13 million to its Arizona neighbor, Americans for Responsible Leadership. ARL then passed $11 million of that money to the Small Business Action Committee in Sacramento, which spent the money influencing Props. 30 and 32.'
07: `Here's the bottom line: A California fundraiser raised a boatload of money. He shuffled it through a network of secretly funded nonprofit groups to hide the donors' identities. And when the money finally arrived in California in time to influence the 2012 elections, the fingerprints on the money had been thoroughly scrubbed off—and in the process, the operatives masterminding this scheme had broken the law. '
Re:"Koch brother network"? (Score:5, Funny)
Please add one more item.
I need to know if you're actually counting in octal or not.
Since when is money laundering a "loophole"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Once again there are no criminal prosecutions of the rich and powerful who choose to deliberately violate the law. A one million dollar fine is nothing to these people, they will recover from that minor "inconvenience" in less than a month. When are the American people going to get fed up with these shenanigans enough to start throwing these people in prison? That's the only thing that will make others think twice about doing the same thing again next year.
So California can only throw them in prison for a year. Make it general population and not one of those country club prisons for the rich and actually fine them the double-the-amount part. A thirty million dollar fine might take them more than a few weeks to recover from.
Re:Since when is money laundering a "loophole"? (Score:4, Insightful)
The article is confusing, but it seems like the fine is actually $16.03 million. What is infuriating is this is a settlement agreement so that the state will not release the names of the donors. It looks as if they are basically paying off the state so they don't have the deal with the public fallout.
Re:Since when is money laundering a "loophole"? (Score:5, Insightful)
... I have a real problem with criminalizing, regulating or punishing people for political speech...
If they want to speak, they should just go ahead and speak. Absolutely no one is stopping them. Charles and David Koch, Sheldon Adelman, the whole lot of them, can buy all the air time, print pages, billboards, Internet marketing, etc. they want and say anything they like all day and all night, without breaking one d*mn law.
So why don't they? Why all this hiding behind one shell organization after another to falsify the source of the money they pump into local elections? What are men, like the Koch Brothers, who with their personal assets and ownership of Koch Industries, are worth more than $100 billion a piece, afraid of? No one can touch them for using their immense wealth for public speech. Why the army of sock puppets?
Sorry, pumping rivers of money through one false organization after another to influence elections through sock puppets throughout the country is not "political speech". It is political corruption.
Idea: tax political donations or advertising (Score:4, Interesting)
We could probably balance the budget in no time!
Some background (Score:5, Informative)
See Jane Mayer's New Yorker piece http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer [newyorker.com] to get a truer sense of the depth and breadth of the machinations.
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually politics is one of the most 'nerdist' topics. Nerds tend to obsess over topics most would rather ignore.
Agreed. This article should not be here, not because it is political, but because it is garbage. The author claims there is a "Koch Brothers Network" right in the title, but has no evidence that the Koch brothers are involved, other than the fact that they were asked to donated (and apparently declined). It is absurd to claim the Kochs somehow control or own a political network that has no links to them, even as a donor. Koch Industries made an official statement that they never donated "either directly or indirectly". Since donating is perfectly legal, but issuing false corporate statements is not, why would they make a denial if it wasn't true? This article is just unsupported conjecture, and even if the insinuations were true, the activities would be perfectly legal. Political stories on Slashdot are okay with me, but garbage journalism is not.
Re:News For Nerds (Score:4, Informative)
It is absurd to claim the Kochs somehow control or own a political network that has no links to them, even as a donor.
[Emphasis mine.] Absurd? No. Irrelevant? Yes. From the article:
As part of the deal, two Arizona-based nonprofits, the Koch-linked Center to Protect Patients Rights and Americans for Responsible Leadership, admitted violating [California] state election law.
And yet you claim:
Koch Industries made an official statement that they never donated "either directly or indirectly".
That does not appear to square with the facts.
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Left as an exercise to the reader: figuring out the distinction between what is stated by the entity know as "Koch Industries" and what is actually done by the Koch brothers.
From your link to the LA Times: In a statement, a spokeswoman for Koch Industries said the Koch brothers were not involved in either of the campaigns supported by the $11 million from the Arizona group. So Koch Industries has made an explicit statement that neither they, nor the Koch brothers were involved, either directly or indirectly, in funding the campaigns. Contributing to the campaigns is not illegal. Lying about is illegal. So why would they lie? And if there was any actual evidence that t
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Funny)
Disregard that. I suck Koch.
--Ethanol-fueled
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Recall Plato's admonishment.
'Nuff said.
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Informative)
Yes it does.
Powerful people are using the Citizens United case to funnel large amounts of money into local elections to F up the society that we are trying to build. One where technology is used for good and lets us work less, while living better lives. Not one where two people who control the big companies that people buy a lot of stuff from get to dictate what the public thinks about climate change, upper class taxes, voting rights, and other issues that they can buy people off on.
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
Good, we need an article about how Bloomberg and another billionaire tried to derail the grassroots effort to recall those two Colorado anti-gun rights state senators.
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That will be right after they review George Soros, Move On, etc.
Re: News For Nerds (Score:3, Interesting)
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" lets not forget that a lot of what the ACLU does would be banned had citizens united gone the other way."
How the fuck do you figure that?
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That is actually a new one to me, but it makes sense. The ACLU does a fair bit of lobbying in the same manner as that of citizens united.
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Informative)
Point taken. I guess this sums it up (from the horses mouth): https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/aclu-and-citizens-united [aclu.org]
Re:News For Nerds (Score:4, Informative)
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Amazing that some of you think that way. You see a firearm as a penis replacement. I suppose that some gun owners are insecure, and also view their weapons as a macho appendage. Strange stuff happens. But, you. What about you? Why do YOU see a firearm as a penis? What is it about a firearm that makes you think penises? Are you insecure? Do you have penis envy? Are you jealous of anyone who can handle a weapon, without fear? Oh - are you AFRAID of penises?
I wish that we could get some qualified ps
Re:Your hypocricy is astonishing. (Score:4, Informative)
Totally off topic, but can't resist.
Tell that to the hundreds of thousands who use firearms in defense every year. Mass shootings are used to whip up hysteria, while the defensive use of firearms in deadly situations is conveniently ignored.
I think a lot of people would argue that the vast majority of "defensive use of firearms in deadly situations" would not even be necessary in a country where it is even slightly difficult to get your hands on automatic firearms.
Toss out suicides and criminal-on-criminal violence, and the US numbers start to look a whole lot like those of other industrialized nations.
No, actually it doesn't. Toss out suicides and criminal-on-criminal violence and you're still left with outrageous numbers of cases of "defensive use of firearms" (which you mentioned in the first paragraph but had forgotten in the second?). Cases which in most other countries would wind up a fistfight or not even that.
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How the bullshit flows so freely. Instead of condemning the temptress, people have to learn how to resist. Fuck the money. It is a non-issue. It is the voters who sell their votes for the bling and the false promises, hoping for a piece of the pie. They are the only ones to blame. They are the ones who reward corruption.
Re:News For Nerds (Score:4, Insightful)
Before we can make the world we want, we need to be honest with ourselves about the world (and people) as it is (they are)
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I dunno. Nerds like complicated machines. This story happens to be one constructed out of legal entities. The machine too complicated for the average attention span, so somebody who has a mentality that isn't daunted by a simple activity diagram ought to be paying attention.
Maybe "News for Nerds" doesn't must mean "Nerdy Stuff". Maybe it could also mean "News for Nerds to Pay Attention To".
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
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That depends on your perspective. From what I've observed, slashdot is very often pro AGW, anti-GMO, pro labor union, and "probama". You tend to notice those articles you disagree with more than the ones you agree with, and it's had articles pointing in favor of both sides of all of the above issues.
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This may not mesh with what libertarianism is in actuality, but my view on it has always been this:
Do what you want as long as you dont' step on anyone's autonomy to do what they want.
Which in that sense I agree with...to me economically exploiting people until they have no choice to do x or y action is stepping on their autonomy. So the standard slashdot argument against it wouldn't apply. Since libertarianism is basically defined as a philosophy advocating minimal state intervention my definition would se
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Actually, the majority political position on this site is center left.. neocon/pro religion perspectives are almost unheard of, and there is a slightly larger libertarian contingent. It makes sense as the majority of nerds posting here grow up with silly utopian stuff like star trek, then go off to ivy league universities whose cultures are loaded with marxist philosophy.
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Argument from authority, in this case an irrelevant one. Knowledge in physics does not give credence to a political philosophy. ..and in case you didn't notice, the nobels are mostly handed out for pro-left political 'victories' these days. Obama comes to mind. His 'accomplishment'? Being not-bush. In 2009, he had only been in office a little more than a year or so. Then there were the three women who were awarded it for....being women and politically active in a pro-left fashion. Oh, and here's another
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Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
ivy league universities whose cultures are loaded with marxist philosophy
I was going to parody this comrade, but I couldn't think of any way to make it funnier.
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
This comment of "I DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS TOPIC" does not belong on this site.
Also, vote in the fucking firehose and stop complaining.
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
"Please, stop this madness, and stick to real news for nerds.
This story does not belong on this site."
Yeah like the hard right and corporate world were FOR social security, perhaps if nerd wannabe's like yourself were not so fucking historically illiterate you'd understand the danger of extremist capitalist ideology to the stability of societies historically speaking. Hard left ideologies like communism didn't appear in a vaccum, they were birthed by the extreme exploitation of real people by the types of extreme right wing ideologues that are now rampaging across the US. Despite what capitalism's ignorant cheerleaders tell you, it took two world wars and the cold war to get a 'middle class' not capitalism. People had to bleed in the streets to fight for better wages you just assume fall out of the sky from right wing econ 101. Americans are just so historically illiterate it's shocking.
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chicken/egg syndrome much? Every side points to the others and labels them 'extreme.' It's called an ad hominem attack. Communism sprung from the minds of ivy league utopianism, and capitalism was an extrapolation of barter, both of which are enabled by human nature at work. One did not 'cause' the other.
It's not like whatever country you hail from has an unbiased educational system. If it's state sponsored, which is likely, it's definitely not. It's going to spin the narrative to its benefit so that you
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Every side points to the others and labels them 'extreme.' It's called an ad hominem attack
No, no it's not.
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
i'm sorry everyone (Score:3)
the topic adequacy police has spoken
we have to move on now
delete your comments and find a new topic
if the anonymous coward disapproves again, you need to abandon that thread too
i'm sorry folks, but the anonymous topic adequacy police is in charge here, we all know that
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But so long as they keep taking pot shots at us, we should show them why you don't kick the slumbering dragon.
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For one thing, the Koch brothers actually exist while this "gang of socialists" does not.
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Assuming you know as much about bridges as you do about socialists, I'm sure it's actually a boat you're talking about.
No thanks, they tend to be money pits.
Re:And how is this any different... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would a centre right president have a gang of socialists?
There are very few socialists in the USA. The politics are so distorted that some people assume that "liberal" means left wing. It doesn't. It means politically right in the middle.
If right in the middle is way to your left, where does that mean you are?
Re:And how is this any different... (Score:5, Funny)
If right in the middle is way to your left, where does that mean you are?
Hopefully a padded cell.
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C'mere, you. Lemme give you a big kiss. You just gave me a good laugh.
Re:And how is this any different... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want an understanding of what "socialist" means in American political discourse (I'm guessing you're from the old country, given your sig and your spelling conventions), then search sometime for "AM talk radio" and listen in for a few hours. "Socialist" is little more than a pejorative. I truly wish we had some genuine socialists in the US, not because I support their politics (full disclosure: I'm decidedly to the right and reckon Edmund Burke one of your finest political writers) but because I appreciate their clarity.
The ACA was little more than mandating the purchase of a corporate product, centralizing its sales, and offering subsidies to folks with lower income who don't qualify for the medicare expansion (which is to say, indirectly subsidizing the insurance companies). What we have here are the problems of capitalism combined with the problems of central planning in one system.
Socialists offer a real alternative to this system, and an alternative which is rooted in specific moral principles. I do not agree with all those principles (but chiefly I have a different view of human nature, which is why I'm a conservative) but I can at least come to an understanding with a socialist based upon what principles we share. Our current political landscape seems to be dominated instead by centrist politicians whose chief principles consist in ensuring reelection by satisfying corporate donors. If we had real socialists, at least we could have a real conversation. Since the liberals in this country co-opted the right's plan and passed the ACA, the right has been devoid of any real ideas. The most interesting ideas I've seen on the right have come from distributists [distributistreview.com], but such get no play in our current political environment.
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I truly wish we had some genuine socialists in the US
They're called Unions.... you know, like the first name of USA?
Re:And how is this any different... (Score:5, Insightful)
As any good Marxist will tell you, unions will not get you to socialism (unless they rather suddenly go revolutionary). They will get you to neoliberalism. The problem is that their interests are tied to those of their industrialist employers. They want a bigger slice of the pie but, ultimately, they also want to maintain the system that keeps them fed.
Unions take a rather conservative (in the looser sense of the term) approach to the labor issue. They're content to have the capitalist own the capital. They only ask that labor get a more equitable share of the revenue. This is not the case with a genuine socialist.
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What we have here are the problems of capitalism combined with the problems of central planning in one system.
Yay!, Someone who actually understands something about the ACA. Don't forget that insurance companies have to actually spend most of their money on medical treatment, or give their customers a rebate. Hopefully that will bend the cost-curve. (Debatable if that has already happened.) The rest of the world has a much cheaper system, and adding government isn't always the solution, but the USA seems to suffer from an incompetent piece-meal approach, and _could_ do with some clarity. Personally I think most of
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insurance companies have to actually spend most of their money on medical treatment, or give their customers a rebate
The proportion of premiums that the insurance companies have to pay out is called the medical loss ration. While the ACA puts a lower limit on the MLR, that limit is below the MLR they were operating at before the ACA was passed, which in turn is lower than what the insurance companies operated profitably at 10 years before that. It's like saying "we're putting an upper limit on your pay by giving you a raise".
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Socialist party (Score:5, Informative)
If you want an understanding of what "socialist" means in American political discourse (I'm guessing you're from the old country, given your sig and your spelling conventions), then search sometime for "AM talk radio" and listen in for a few hours. "Socialist" is little more than a pejorative. I truly wish we had some genuine socialists in the US...
Right. The current President of France is from the Socialist Party, which is one of the two big parties in France. France has universal socialized medical care - everyone legally resident in France is covered. France has free abortion on demand. France has a 35 hour work week and 5 weeks of vacation a year, enforced by law. Productivity per hour worked is one of the highest in the world, above US levels. The median wage per hour worked is one of the highest in Europe. France has energy independence, with 80% of electricity coming from nuclear power. Most education through college is Government-funded. Current tuition at French universities is about 200EUR/year.
France is a "social democracy". The French government doesn't own most businesses. Most employment is private. There's a lot of regulation, some of it petty, some of it historical going back to Napoleon. It's more annoying than serious.
That's what socialism looks like.
Liberal / Conservative (Score:4, Informative)
No, it doesn't. You sound like you're regurgitating something you were spoon fed in college. I don't care what it meant at one point. I do care what it means today.
"Liberal" means lose, freely, without limitation, etc. "Conservative", means limited, restrained, cautious, etc. A true liberal sees no need to be hampered by bad decisions made in the past. Progress can be made, things can be fixed. A true conservative, on the other hand, sees no need to fix things that aren't broken. Why experiment if something is working? You might break it.
Most of us are not one, nor the other. We're a bit of both, some more to one side or the other.
Here's the important bit that you need to wrap your head around: Liberal and Conservative aren't points on the political spectrum. They're directions. (Most people overlook this, including most professors.)
The common usage of these terms has varied wildly over the years. The fundamental definition of the words hasn't changed, but the tyrants, liars, and impostors over the years have all used them to prop up their own brand of crazy. Today, those words depend almost entirely on which country you're in. In the US, they mean "acceptable to Democrats" and "acceptable to Republicans". No, those aren't the actual definitions of those words, but no other country in the world uses strictly correct definitions for them either. Remember, they're directions, not destinations. (pointing towards change, and away from change)
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It's all about perspective to be honest. Probably because Obama generally looks favorably upon redistribution, which most people in America aren't in favor of. To us, that is socialist.
This is as opposed to say Francois Hollande, who wants a 75% tax rate in France. Does him being more socialist make Obama less socialist? Absolutely not. A Hollande supporter would say Obama isn't a socialist, but that doesn't make him any less socialist either.
And honestly, I hate the terms left and right because they don't
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To us, that is socialist.
Reminds me of another line:
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean'
Others prefer to use a defined definition, as provided for example by Merriam and Webster:
socialism
1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2
a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3: a stage of society in Mar
Re:And how is this any different... (Score:4, Insightful)
That is the most twisted pile of crap i've heard in years.
Sounds like a bad case of cognitive dissonance to me.
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likely this is a no true scotsman fallacy..
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Why not? While I do not have proof, it would not shock me if there weren't many people between the sitting president and the koch brothers. Parties are irrelevant that high up.
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Koch bros does it, soros does it, both the neocons and liberal progressives do it, it is just a left VS right battle over who controls the kleptocratic fascist state, the only ones really losing is the middle class which shrinks every year while the ghettos keep getting bigger, in another decade the rest of the USA will look like Detroit
Maybe the people need to do their own sort of justice on these people. If our government isn't going to effective, then isn't it up to us to put a stop to people like that? And by stop, I mean, put them to death. Extremist view, ya, but honestly, I'm getting sick of the bullshit in this country. It's getting time to make the governments and corporations fear the people again, instead of us fearing them.
Also, thanks for the new word, kleptocractic. Describes what our corporate politicians are exactly.
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So grab a gun and do it
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If our government isn't going to effective, then isn't it up to us to put a stop to people like that? And by stop, I mean, put them to death. Extremist view, ya, but honestly, I'm getting sick of the bullshit in this country.
So grab a gun and do it
Sir, yes sir, I will do as you just ordered me to, sir!
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Not a new word... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptocracy [wikipedia.org]
Re:blah blah blah (Score:5, Informative)
Koch bros does it, soros does it, both the neocons and liberal progressives do it,
What is "it"?
Let me summarize why the article is news. According to the California AG's office, the Koch brothers have set up a fraudulent scheme that allows them and their allies to illegally deduct money spent on political projects from their taxes.
I sympathize with your strong feelings about the excessive influence of money in democracy, but the story is about more than billionaires spending their money on politics. It's about the Koch brothers allegedly committing fraud while they do that.
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Re:blah blah blah (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, all of those seem kinda true, but fall apart when you examine them closely:
1. George Soros doesn't attempt to hide what he does with his money. David and Charles Koch do.
2. I don't think you know what "kleptocratic" and "fascist" really mean:
- In a kleptocracy, the primary purpose of government is personally enriching the officials in it. The US doesn't really operate that way: The politicians get paid well and get paid off, but they aren't really getting all that rich themselves (by the standards of rich people), they're more carrying water for billionaires like Soros, Koch, and Koch, which makes the US more of a plutocracy than a kleptocracy. By contrast, a kleptocrat like Jean-Claude Duvalier snagged something like $500 million, making (for example) Bill Clinton's $80 million in book sales and speaking fees look like peanuts by comparison.
- If the US were really full-blown fascist, you'd see a much larger percentage of economic activity geared towards funding a war of conquest somewhere, mass executions of citizens without trial, open and legalized discrimination in the streets, and people shipped off to labor camps based solely on their parentage. We've had some of that at various points in our history, but there's a lot of steps between modern American and Mussolini's Italy that simply aren't happening right now.
3. The ones really losing are not the middle class, they're the people in those ghettos already who have no good way out. You mention Detroit: As bad as it would be if you were used to living in a nice suburb and then ended up in something kind of like Detroit, how much worse would it suck if you were born and raised in Detroit and never acquired the net worth or job skills to be able to viably move somewhere else. Another factor in all this, that I'm not positive the upper class really understands: If the middle class goes completely under, it takes the upper class with them, because the upper class's investment income depends ultimately on the consumer spending of everyone else.
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As bad as it would be if you were used to living in a nice suburb and then ended up in something kind of like Detroit, how much worse would it suck if you were born and raised in Detroit and never acquired the net worth or job skills to be able to viably move somewhere else.
A whole buch of people on Slashdot, including myself, "viably moved" between nations, while not being insanely rich in the first place. An Indian or Chinese citizen faces a far more formidable barrier than a US citizen; and still, the
Re:blah blah blah (Score:5, Insightful)
That Chinese or Indian citizen has something that the citizen of Detroit does not. A decent start in life as a middle class citizen of their own country, with the education that goes with it and from there grows hopes and aspirations.
You're mistake... (Score:4, Interesting)
The middle class are still losing. We all are. I've always hated this logic: Things are continuously getting worse, but since they could get even worser it's all OK. It doesn't change the fact that the middle class is going away...
Also, the point of the upper class Kleptocracy is to take everything. If they have everything
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it is just a left VS right battle over who controls the kleptocratic fascist state
I see this as an intellectually lazy point of view. As someone with some academic understanding of the political system, and following politics and society for decades, all I can say is that I disagree. Citizens United certainly made things much worse, but we are far from kleptocracy. (The GOP information machine is rather kleptocratic as David Frum pointed out, but that's not the entire system.)
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it is just a left VS right battle over who controls the kleptocratic fascist state
No, it's another example of why we need an amendment nullifying Citizens United. Money influencing politics is always bad, no matter who is doing it. Let's focus on the real problem here - this is something that we can solve. Throwing up your hands and saying, "It's all fucked." is not constructive.
Re:I guess the left has to have their bogeymen (Score:5, Interesting)
George Soros makes his money from currency arbitrage. You think he's above attempting to influence the factors that affect the relative value of currency?
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I would note that he's only liberal about certain things but he's really only in it for himself. He has his own agenda and a lot of it doesn't really line up with what most liberals believe.
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You have news about Soros violating contribution disclosure laws? Please share and cite it.
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Damned iOS autocorrect. Sorosis = Soros.
I take it then that: is = 1.
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Perhaps.
I concur with all the others that feel this article is not really what this site should be about.
Tech Articles pleaseâ¦.
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Nobody does it more than Fox not-News corp. In fact in reality they outspend everyone else by ten to one. They provide free airtime for the craziest right views that other political groups would have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy.
As for your child molester theory, everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. If any teacher was proven guilty of child molestation in a court of law they would be in prison and really rather easy to fire. So what you are saying is news organis
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I'll define crazy for you, in this context: encouraging millions of people to act against their own self-interest on the basis of fact-free drivel. That's what Fox does. It is considerably worse than what CNN or MSNBC does because it is so determinedly fact-free, and it causes millions of people to suffer real economic harm.
As for this arse-twattery about feminism doing stuff to men in 'family courts': it will be reasonable for men to complain about this kind of injustice at the point when women are not rap
Re:Exciting prospect (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't see why the usg should be largely exempt from critique here.. the site has a politics section for stuff like this.
Re:George Soros (Score:5, Informative)
You have Soros, on the left with his money, and the Koch brothers, on the right with their money, and "we the people" in the middle getting screwed from both ends.
Lets see. The Koch Brothers. Charles and David Koch each have personal assets of $36 billion each, in addition they each own 42% of Koch Industries that does $100 billion of business each year. A petrochemical company is valued at about three times annual revenue, so 42% of $300 billion is $126 billion that each of them owns*. Plus their $36 billion each in holding outside Koch Industries and each of them is worth $162 billion, or $324 billion for the set.
George Soros, is worth $20 billion, a 16-1 one disadvantage in wealth. Also note that he is the only liberal billionaire that the right-wingers seem able to find, whereas on the right the list goes on forever (Sheldon Adelman, Pete Peterson, etc.. etc.) . And finally it helps to do a little reality checking to find out how much Soros has actually contributed over time to liberal causes. The total amount seems to be about $30 million, mostly spent during the early Bush years.
Sorry, despite the fevered efforts by the right to try to whip Soros up into a bogeyman, his contributions to political causes over time are tiny compared to the money machine that the Kochs and company have built up over the years, and keeps running with billions in annual funding without pause.
You are getting screwed from only one end, the corporatist end. And it is rich men on the right who are successfully buying our political system so that the screwing will continue.
*Odd, isn't it, that Forbes doesn't count business ownership in its calculation of wealth. You may object "But that's not real wealth, they can't spend it", which is nonsense. They could borrow against it for cash whenever they chose, or put their ownership on the market and cash out. They can tap that money whenever they like.
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That's
AMERICA: THE BEST GOVERNMENT MONEY CAN BUY