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A Look at the Koch Brothers Dark-Money Network
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."
Please, stop this madness, and stick to real news for nerds.
This story does not belong on this site.
How is this news for nerds?
How George Soros maneuvers behind the scenes
than the "dark-money coming from obama and his gang of socialists?
We already know where slashdot is coming from...
from TFA: there was a philanthropist involved in this. We should string up all of the philanthropists!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I'm really excited about the Kock brothers activism in California. It is just free political speech. Something must be done to counter the sleazy money machine of the California public unions and the democrats.
an ill wind that blows no good
George Sorosis anyone?
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
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
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.
... posting liberal rants.
They are not "news for nerds" but are news for turds.
Probably time to go find a new news site for technology.
Well, I guess we know who the conservatives are on Slashdot, now. It amazing to see how much they complain when criticism is aimed at rich people who are swaying elections in directions that they appreciate.
Anyone at least 20 years old should realize that an institution with a name like that is most likely a lobbying arm for crackpots.
The right uses George Soros to the same effect. Not too dissimilar to the way Jews were treated in the 1930s in Europe.
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.
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.
It's damage to the political process. Route around it.
If this is news for nerds, obviously it is an exhortation to re-engineer politics such that they cannot be controlled by entrenched elites.
Hi there ya kleptocratic fascist! Please go fuck yourself with an outboard motor!
Start investigating the liberal lefties !
BTW keep this stuff off of here
Pick only one topic:
- Arduino
- Bitcoins
- 3D printers
- Magnets
- Aliens
If it's not one of those, it doesn't belong on Reddit.
Wait, what do you mean this is not Reddit? Have you seen the topics lately?
The Koch 'Brothers' Funded the UC Berkeley study to demonstrate for once and for all that American human radiation is melting the Antarctic ice sheets and disturbing the breeding cycle of Japanese.
Ha ha.
We could probably balance the budget in no time!
Will there soon be a report on the "dark" money from Soros and his Marxist dark money.
After all, this $15 million is important, but the $100 million that is laundered for Soros and Bennett by the Tides group every year is not important.
Would be nice to see if the money "donated" by Soros to DNC people would raise half the ire.
-- A computer without Windoze is like a choclate cake without mustard
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)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The constant, and ignorant, anti-koch rants on Slashdot are rather amusing; All the left-wingers rant against the Kochs because the Kochs are frequent contributors to conservative/libertarian opponents of liberal candidates and/or policies (left-wing hatred of the Kochs is, therefore, understandable even though the over-the-top modern hysterical rhetoric tends to be extreme). Libertarian-leaning Slashdot READERS however ought to be better informed and not fall for it. The Kochs are NOT Conservatives, they're Libertarians who have even raised the ire of many Conservatives by supporting gay marriage; Their opposition to Obama and the hard left is from a Libertarian rather than Conservative angle. The Kochs support conservative and/or Republican candidates when doing so advances their libertarian ideals (as smaller, less-intrusive govt does) but given a choice between a candidate Pat Robertson and a slightly left-of-center Dem they'd probably fund the Dem. At least the Kochs are patriotic Americans.
On the other side, however, many of the anti-Koch ranting comes from people and/or websites and/or organizations partially or wholly funded by one Billionaire (using hundreds of front organizations with warm-and-fuzzy names like "open society" ) who hates the U.S., wants global leftist government, has done great damage to NATIONS (attempted to destroy the British pound), and has said he was happiest in life at the time when he was collaborating with Hitler's NAZIs plundering the possessions of the Jews on their way to the gas chambers.... That would be the most powerful funder of the modern Democrat party and its activist organs: George Soros
Given the choice between ANY candidate backed by American Libertarians who want to ratchet-down government influence in our lives and business, and ANY candidate backed (directly or indirectly) by Soros and working to tear down the U.S. and subsume national governments into intrusive dictatorial world government, I choose the former. It's a moral choice, and when there is no viable third option, if you crawl into bed with the NAZI you get all his fleas
If Slashdot is going to devolve into hyperventilating over political funders, can we at least have a little balance? NO article on a big right-of-center funder like Koch or a left-of-center funder like Soros should by here without an equal piece on the opposite side. Love letters on one side showing all the best of it, should be matched with love letters to the other side showing its best, and hard-hitting expose's on one side should be matched with hard-hitting bits on the other. In such an equal journalistic arena, I am absolutely certain that there is not a single bigger dirtbag on Earth to match the evil of Soros.... does the hard-left REALLY wanna play this game on a fair field?
I like the Koch bros. They're not a bunch of left-wing shitheads, like the wackos that hate them so much.
"The constant, and ignorant, anti-koch rants on Slashdot are rather amusing"
.. oh, btw, in none of that long-winded-ad-hominem rant did you actually address the original article.
Where, please give examples
--
ref: anti-koch, fleas, George Soros, Hitler's NAZIs, hyperventilating, hysterical, ignorant, intrusive dictatorial world government, left-wingers, Libertarian-leaning, rants, ratchet-down government influence, the evil of Soros
Or religious organizations. I would like to know.
is assuming the politicians are the ruling class. Make no mistake, the ultra-rich are the rulers. The folks in the House/Senate are, like you said, water carriers. But the actual, practical effect is that the Koch bros. and their ilk call the shots. So from a practical standpoint we have a Kleptocracy.
,it doesn't really matter what happens. This is why the economy keeps getting worse for Labor but the stock market keeps hitting record highs.
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
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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.
See Jane Mayer's New Yorker piece http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer to get a truer sense of the depth and breadth of the machinations.
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there
the locals decide that they are tired of being put at risk by a bunch of gun nuts and try to put a stop to it. apparently it's OK for the emasculated gun nuts to cry for their daddy to help them with their replacement manhood, but anyone that is getting tired of having to clean up these idiots mess is just supposed to sit there and quietly bury their dead so you can pretend that you have an ethical leg to stand on.
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.
Two big democracies whose political systems can be compared as they are big countries are India and US. I have always felt the multiparty democracy we have in India has greater advantages as far as representing diverse political views compared to the two party system of USA. The American senate and house need to have diverse views. You need 10 more Justin Amash, Dennis Kucinich, more (far) right and (far) left in the political process. In such a system a safe centrist character like Obama may not even become President. The race for President - the ultimate political prize in this planet - itself is anti-democratic.
The disadvantages of having a multiparty system are small regional players keeping the coalition alive and sometimes holding the government to ransom. But then with the latest US government shutdown such a situation can arise even with a two party system.
Indian Prime Minister is only an elected representative of the upper house (Rajya Sabha), or lower house (Lok Sabha) - not a winner of a nationwide pageant like the US president elections. Imagine the hubris such a win can impart on the psyche of an individual like Obama - he is the leader of the free world, not a constitutional professor who was a community organizer - that element of Obama, which made him endearing does not apply anymore.
Some of the clueless Indian politicians - like Shashi Tharoor, a glib writer and UN diplomat with American roots - want to remake our political process to more reflect the US presidential style. But I don't think it will happen, and it should not happen.
Tat Tvam Asi
That's it. I think I'm done with Slashdot. I was going to quit as soon as their new UX took effect, but if they're going to post stories like this, no point in staying even that long.
Everybody knows from where that money came...
Coming soon to a Ruling near you: in the spirit of Citizens United, he Roberts court is currently teetering on the edge of classifying all political donations as free speech, regardless of source or amount. Watch for it.
Bribery wants to be free!
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
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.
I don't know why people are so interested in them suddenly.
But what I do know is that they give big donations to libertarian thinktanks and media companies, one of which is the cato institute.
The cato institute was originally founded by a well known economist, murray rothbard, who later left because they were no longer true austrian libertarians but chicago half-libertarians. Now they're not even chicago economists with speakers such as BEN BERNANKE at conferences.
The koch brothers aren't libertarian, they're big-business "libertarians", they support what will further their big oil business and thats it. They couldn't care less about civil liberties, the federal reserve, subsidies or anything else.
For the full story, read the below link. I hope you've learned something.
http://archive.lewrockwell.com/gordon/gordon37.html
Don't the Koch brothers stand to make about $100,000,000,000 profit from the KeystoneXL pipeline?
Take a look at someone's when you're in the lavvie.
Long, barrel shaped. Shoots stuff out one end.
Clinton is making a living as a circuit speaker and author.
Al Gore has several businesses.
How do you think people are supposed to make money? Be born into it only?
If you think the big player in Cali politics is the evil Koch brothers then you're clueless. The big unions... especially the government unions... teachers unions, cal trans, police/firefighter/etc unions are MASSIVE in cali. Just absurdly hugely powerful.
This bill as I read it, would have limited their ability to automatically put the wages of union members towards political contributions. That is a huge part of their power in the state. These unions are very large and they can kick in huge sums of money to every election and never run dry because they're taking a relatively small portion of every union member's pay check. And they don't need to get your consent to do it. If you work for the government, you probably belong to one of these unions... and if they decide to kick in money it will come out of your non-voluntary dues at the very least.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
A compromise position is biased and unworkable if you have only one "extreme" view allowed. It's "codified" as the "Overton window", but it's just as well stated with (forget the dude, some European thinker) "The world changes by the efforts of unreasonable men. The reasonable man will change to fit the world, the unreasonable one will move to change the world to fit him."
Or something of that sausage.
I prefer to consider "I'm a centrist" as someone with the completely ass-backward idea of there being only straight lines and "in the middle" defined as "I disagree with those people over there I put on one side, and those people there I put on another side, therefore I must be moderate and in the middle!".
I like to consider the idea that these spectra are NOT straight lines, but triangles. Each extremist on the three ends can see two more extremists either side and they are EXACTLY in the middle. Therefore they MUST be moderate.
Except each extremist can see the same thing.
Moreover, they can say they agree with some things (on the line between them and the point mid way between "the other two sides" and disagree with others, because they are not against the true median as much as they are against those extremists. More proof they are "moderate"!
Only the extremist can see this, though.
The actual moderates can see themselves more in agreemeng with one of those extremists than either of the other two, hence see they are NOT "moderate" when compared to "the extremists".
The only ones CERTAIN they are moderate are the extremists.
All in all, I think the triangle works really well as a metaphor.
When will investigations into Soros, Buffet, or Bloomberg happen? Should they every, I wonder if all the Conservatives will applaud while the Liberals moan. Could we have a consistent standard?
And David gives a shityload of money to colleges, hospitals, PBS, opera ...
Not saying this excuses their politics.
Their birth rate is declining, businesses are fleeing and their welfare state is unsustainable.
So you're right: They are socialist.
Said no one. Ever.
CA being hardcore liberal Democrat would do its damnedest to point out the evil conservatives 'dark money' network, while saying JACK SQUAT about the Democrats and their behind the scenes money making. This is what is killing America, the bias of 'journalists' and the political machinery in government that is determined to stay in power at all costs.
It's funny and frightening how the America is paralleling the Late Roman Empire in it's political maneuvering, graft, corruption and spin doctoring. I am amazed at how idiotically short sighted we are here in America. The old 'it can't happen to us' mindset is a true killer.
Pax Vobiscum
why is it "dark money" if it involves these guys, but when it is paulie walnuts dropping off a sack of cash at the seiu office no one cares.
lose != loose
Or maybe in places with lots of gun crime they introduce controls in order to reduce it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
I escaped to the country with a degree from the University of Detroit in 1970. Doing OK now.
Went back to visit last summer, got a 2 inch drywall screw stuck in my tire. Won't be back again.
...is that it's "you're", not "your."