Free Republic

On Thursday, the Washington Post published an article by Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin titled “The biggest lease holder in Canada’s oil sands isn’t Exxon Mobil or Chevron. It’s the Koch brothers.” The article’s first paragraph included this claim: The biggest lease holder in the northern Alberta oil sands is a subsidiary of Koch Industries, the privately-owned cornerstone of the fortune of conservative Koch brothers Charles and David. The theme of the article was that the Keystone Pipeline is all about the Koch brothers; or, at least, that this is a plausible claim. The Post authors relied on a report...

**SNIP** The KochPAC gave almost $200,000 to Democratic candidates and committees, including just most recently in 2010. This included a $30,000 donation to the DSCC. But isn’t it funny how top Democrats like Harry Reid harp on how the Kochs are ruining politics and complain about their partisan allegiances? Since 2000 KochPAC has given more than $1.4 million to Democratic candidates, leadership PACs and committees. Who’s partisan now? Now, this is not to say that the Kochs haven’t been a huge part of funding Republican ideas, but it must be awfully frustrating for them to have people constantly criticizing them....

 Which is it? Are the Koch brothers the largest land owner in Canada’s oil sands or not? The two reporters who worked on the same article don’t seem to agree. In fact, the original article was such a mess, the Washington Post today ran a follow-up piece headlined, “Why we wrote about the Koch Industries and its leases in Canada’s oil sands.”Credit for that critical second look goes to John Hinderaker of Powerline, who thoroughly debunked the Post’s original piece, concluding that the Post “relied uncritically on a goofball far-left report” provided by the anti-Keystone XL pipeline activist group the...

The Left’s obsession with the Koch Brothers is so out of control that the Washington Post, once a respected newspaper, now nothing but a shill for left wing causes, has made itself a laughing stock with its latest article entitled, “The biggest lease holder in Canada’s oil sands isn’t Exxon Mobil or Chevron. It’s the Koch brothers.” [snip] The main point of the Post story, which relied uncritically on a two-page report by the far-left International Forum on Globalization (“IFG”), is dead wrong. The Post story itself acknowledges that the tar sands encompass 35 million acres, so Koch’s 1.1 million...

It's become very obvious that Saul Alinsky continues to live on in the democrat party and among the decerebrate left. Rule 13 says“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”The 2014 Democrat Party target is the Koch Brothers. Private citizens, they are the 2014 left wing whipping boys and the left has donned its asshats in unison. An article in the Washington Post screams: The biggest lease holder in Canada’s oil sands isn’t Exxon Mobil or Chevron. It’s the Koch brothers. You might expect the biggest lease owner in Canada's oil sands, or tar sands, to be one...

snip Why would the Washington Post embarrass itself by republishing a thoroughly discredited attempt to link the Koch brothers to the Keystone Pipeline? Because that is a Democratic Party talking point, and the Post is a Democratic Party newspaper. But the truth is a little worse than that. Who is Post reporter Juliet Eilperin? Among other things, she is married to Andrew Light, who writes on climate policy for the Center for American Progress. The Center for American Progress is an Obama administration front group headed by John Podesta, who is a “special advisor” to the Obama administration. CAP’s web...

On the surface, it appeared that a major New York hospital had gratefully accepted a $100 million gift from a philanthropic family with a long history of donating to the arts, higher learning and medicine. But the new wing at New York-Presbyterian Hospital inspired a bizarre protest last weekend by activist groups including the NAACP New York State Conference, the New York State Nurses’ Association and the hospital-employee union SEIU Local 1199.

Democrats hate the Koch Brothers. They believe the Koch Brothers are the root of all evil because they donate to Republicans and conservative causes. This week Senate Democrats once again asked the IRS to crack down on conservative groups including Americans for Prosperity, funded by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch. Democrats want to silence the opposition. So how big of a threat are the Koch Brothers? Over the past twenty five years, from 1989 to 2014, Koch Industries has donated $18,083,948 in political contributions to Republicans. While that seems like a large sum, it only ranks them as...

As the U.S. Senate took up a bill to provide financial aid to Ukraine, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, rose to object to an IMF bailout Majority Leader Harry Reid attached to the legislation. In the process he blasted Reid for repeatedly demonizing the billionaire Koch brothers - Reid tried to blame the Koch brothers for halting progress on the Ukraine bill. "I'm beginning to think [the Koch brothers] are a character almost out of Dr. Seuss in the majority leader's mind, they are the grinch who stole Christmas in his telling," Cruz said. Cruz accused Reid of "using his...

Hatred for Charles and David Koch is now so pervasive among the far-left that unions are actually protesting a hospital that committed the cardinal sin of accepting a $100 million donation from the infamous billionaires–even though the money will likely create jobs for unionized employees of the hospital. The donation, made by businessman and philanthropist David Koch, is the largest in the New York-Presbyterian Hospital’s history, and will be used to build a new wing at the facility, according to The Washington Free Beacon. The Free Beacon’s Andrew Stiles pointed out that the donation “will presumably create a fair number...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) used an all-night climate change campaign in the Senate to once again bash Charles and David Koch. “It's time to stop acting like those who ignore this crisis — the oil baron Koch brothers and their allies in Congress — have a valid point of view,” Reid said Monday evening. “But despite overwhelming scientific evidence and overwhelming public opinion, climate change deniers still exist. They exist in this country and in this Congress.” Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) are leading an all-night Senate session to discuss the importance of climate change....

Ever the paragon of civility and class, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) used a provocative homophone Tuesday to describe Republicans’ association with the Koch brothers. “Senate Republicans, Madame President, are addicted to Koch,” Reid said from the Senate floor, pausing a few seconds before continuing his remarks. “In fact, Senate Republicans hardly need the [National Republican Senatorial Committee] anymore, which for decade after decade was their main funding tool for the Republican Senate. Not any longer — the Koch brothers take care of that.” It was Reid’s latest broadside against the GOP and “Koch-backed groups” that have aired advertisements...

**SNIP** At Koch, these are the things in which we believe: a government of appropriate size and scope such that it allows Americans the freedom and liberty to pursue happiness and well-being—for themselves and their families. We also believe in a government that operates on a balanced budget and does not burden American taxpayers with things like unfunded liabilities and mandates; a government that respects the integrity of our country’s Constitutional principles; and regulatory bodies that don’t impose needless burdens on entrepreneurs and job creators, both large and small. This topic is worthy of vigorous dialogue and civil debate between...

**SNIP** A key part of the barrage against Hagan and other Democratic senators that Republicans perceive as vulnerable in 2014 is tying them to Obamacare, something Hagan defended. “The people in North Carolina have the fifth-highest signup on the exchanges, after Florida, New York, California and Texas, it’s North Carolina, so they’re very interested in this,” Hagan said. “We want to show that the Affordable Care Act is something whose time has come. It’s going to really change how the cost of health care will not have these huge increases that we’ve been seeing every year.” Hagan also referenced the...

**SNIP** As Politico described it on Friday, they have already set up an operation so sophisticated it rivals “even the official Republican Party in its ability to shape policy debates and elections.” Its components include a political consulting firm to recruit, train and support like-minded antigovernment candidates, which will be active in the congressional primaries. There is also a center that provides technology and administrative services to right-wing groups and candidates, an office that compiles and analyzes voter data and a youth advocacy group. In 2012, as The Washington Post reported, the Koch network raised $407 million, which was secreted...

The NY Times, flagship publication of the democrat party, recently ran a story whining about how Democrats who supported the Obama regime's takeover of health care were being "staggered" by ads pounding them for their actions. WASHINGTON — Democrats are increasingly anxious about an onslaught of television ads hitting vulnerable Senate and House candidates for their support of the new health law, since many lack the resources to fight back in the early stages of the midterm campaign. Poor things. And right on cue, the evil people behind these ads were clearly identified: Since September, Americans for Prosperity, a group...

(RNS) Dozens of Catholic leaders are protesting the decision by the Catholic University of America to accept a large donation from the foundation of Charles Koch, a billionaire industrialist who is an influential supporter of libertarian-style policies that critics say run counter to church teaching. Charles Koch and his brother, David, “fund organizations that advance public policies that directly contradict Catholic teaching on a range of moral issues from economic justice to environmental stewardship,” says a four-page letter to CUA President John Garvey, released Monday (Dec 16) The letter was signed by 50 priests, social justice advocates, theologians and other...

Charles and David Koch are no longer contemplating a purchase of the Tribune Company’s chain of newspapers, a spokeswoman for the billionaire industrialists said on Thursday. The spokeswoman, Melissa Cohlmia, affirmed a report by the conservative news Web site The Daily Caller that said Koch Industries — where Charles is chairman and chief executive and David is an executive vice president — had concluded that the acquisition was “not economically viable.” But other acquisitions in the media industry might be: “Koch continues to have an interest in the media business, and we’re exploring a broad range of opportunities where we...

One of the most important and so-far least noted threads in the IRS sandal cloth is the inexplicable remark made by Austan Goolsbee, at the time the Chairman of the White Council of Economic Advisors about the taxes paid by the Koch brothers - arch villains in the Manichean delusions of the American left - that would require his knowledge of their confidential tax returns. Did the White House senior staff illegally browse through the tax records of their political enemies? The Washington Free Beacon has been trying to find out, and uncovered an interesting response: CJ Ciaramella reports: The...

In 2007, John McCain’s “comprehensive” immigrant-legalization bill failed after opponents flooded the Senate with calls, shutting down the switchboard. Despite considerable press hype, the bill didn’t even muster a majority on the crucial cloture vote. It won’t be that easy this time. For one thing, they have a better switchboard, I’m told. For another, the Republican consultants–e.g. Gillespie, Rove–who helped Mitt Romney lose the 2012 election have taken their own failure as an excuse to push what they’ve wanted all along–a business-pleasing immigration policy guaranteeing a supply of inexpensive labor from abroad and a stream of campaign donations to pay...