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The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against O... - 8/25/2010 1:10:04 AM

Brain

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The family business, Koch Industries, was built up by their brothers' father Fred, an "arch-conservative" and member of of the staunchly anti-Communist (some might say "paranoid") John Birch Society.

In 2008, the three main Koch family foundations gave money to 34 political and policy organizations, many of which promote a skeptical view of global warming. The Kochs, for instance, funded the launch of the libertarian Cato Institute, which has been a fierce opponent of environmental reform. They also have given large sums to the Heritage Foundation and the Independent Women's Foundation, both doubters on the question of manmade climate change.

In 2004, David Koch helped found conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, which has been "instrumental in disrupting the Obama Presidency." The Kochs' involvement, has been "intense"; one source even says it is "micromanaged" by the brothers — a charge they deny. "By giving money to 'educate,' fund and organize Tea Party protesters, [the Kochs] have helped turn their private agenda into a mass movement."

The billionaire Koch brothers: Tea Party puppetmasters?
The New Yorker makes a case that a pair of wealthy brothers is the force behind the Tea Party movement. Here, 5 key assertions from a new article

http://theweek.com/article/index/206405/the-billionaire-koch-brothers-tea-party-puppetmasters

Covert Operations
The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.

The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?printable=true

David H. Koch in 1996. He and his brother Charles are lifelong libertarians and have quietly given more than a hundred million dollars to right-wing causes.

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