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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsKoch brothers freak out in response to Rolling Stone expose
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/30/1333457/-Kochs-brothers-freak-out-in-response-to-Rolling-Stone-expose#Koch brothers freak out in response to Rolling Stone expose
by Joan McCarter
Tim Dickinson's fantastic expose of the Koch brothers in the latest issue of Rolling Stone has gotten plenty of attention. For very good reason: it's a well-sourced, deep dive into the very toxicliterally toxicbusiness that earned the Kochs enough money to buy up an entire political party. That and the wrongful death judgement, six felony and numerous misdemeanor convictions, the tens of millions of dollars in fines, and the trading with Iran are all included in the story, well worth your time.
No one has given it more attention, it seems, than the notoriously thin-skinned Kochs. In typical Koch fashion, they don't argue the facts of Dickinson's story. They attack Dickinson, who responds here. Here's the nut of his detailed response.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/koch-industries-responds-to-rolling-stone-and-we-answer-back-20140929
Koch Industries Responds to Rolling Stone And We Answer Back
For the record: In the weeks prior to publication, beginning September 4th, Rolling Stone attempted to engage Koch Industries in a robust discussion of the issues raised in our reporting. Rolling Stone requested to interview CEO Charles Koch about his company's philosophy of Market Based Management; Ilia Bouchouev, who heads Koch's derivatives trading operations, about the company's trading practices; and top Koch lawyer Mark Holden about the company's significant legal and regulatory history.
The requests to speak to Charles Koch and Bouchouev were simply ignored. Ultimately, only Holden responded on the record, only via e-mail and only after Holden baselessly insinuated that I had been given an "opposition research" document dump from the liberal activist David Brock. (This is false.) From my perspective as a reporter, Koch Industries is the most hostile and paranoid organization I've ever engaged withand I've reported on Fox News. In a breach of ethics, Koch has also chosen to publish email correspondence characterizing the content of a telephone conversation that was, by Koch's own insistence, strictly off the record. [ ]
{I}n the main, the Koch responses attempt to re-litigate closed cases incidents where judges, juries, and, in one case, a Senate Select Committee, have already had a final say. They only muddy waters that have been clarified by a considered legal process.
Dickinson then provides an exhaustive, 14-point taken down of each of the Kochs' complaints about his story, including every instance in which the Kochs do not actually dispute the facts that he has reported, but attempt to obfuscate them and whine about that fact that he reported them. They also don't acknowledge that Dickinson attempted to give them the opportunity to talk to him about his story while reporting, but they refused.
The Kochs clearly do not stand up well to close scrutiny, and clearly are not prepared for it. For some reason, probably because they're richer than god, they seem to assume that they should be able to swoop into our political system and attempt to buy it without being subject to close examination. That attitude, along with their long history of abusing people, the environment, and the political system, is doing them no favors. They've made themselves the subject of this election, and if Democrats hold the Senate, it will largely be because the Kochs have made themselves such good enemies.
Help elect more and better Democrats this November! Please give $3 to Daily Kos' endorsed candidates and strike a blow against the Kochs.
Feature story here:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-the-koch-brothers-toxic-empire-20140924
Inside the Koch Brothers' Toxic Empire
merrily
(45,251 posts)ReRe
(10,597 posts)SomeGuyInEagan
(1,515 posts)... are the reason I re-subscribed to Rolling Stone after a 20+ year lapse. Taibbi has since left RS, but Dickinson is killing it.
What I find interesting, too, is how much Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and others are still covered in RS. I love it, but am surprised that they understand the boomer demo.
But, still, I miss Hunter. So much.
immoderate
(20,885 posts)Indignation is a feature of privilege.
--imm
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)Authentic Break-Away Wealth. That wealth provides the capacity to buy off any threat to making greater wealth.
irisblue
(32,975 posts)shining on the Koch brothers, it's good that they are squirming.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Great minds think alike!
Kick
Kingofalldems
(38,458 posts)Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)Seriously, those psychoKochs will stop at nothing to get revenge.
Wait Wut
(8,492 posts)I wonder how much Kochs & Co. are willing to spend to buy RS.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)So I think the last group that could buy it would be the Kochs.
On the other hand, I don't think killing a few people to make their day easier or more profitable is beyond the Kochs, based on their history.
So I think the concerns for personal safety are dead on, so to speak.
LordGlenconner
(1,348 posts)And then purchase any other publications he tried to find a job at. That's what a combined net worth of $85 billion can do for you.
The good news is one day they'll both croak. Neither are spring chickens and immortality cannot be purchased.
N_E_1 for Tennis
(9,722 posts)I could watch those penguins all day. And sometimes have. Love ya!
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)reported on Fox News."
Liberalynn
(7,549 posts)That line had me laughing too.
Gothmog
(145,242 posts)Sunshine is a good disinfectant
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)They'd like to eliminate the competition.
C Moon
(12,213 posts)and could find hardly anything about themeven Wikipedia had a fleeting few paragraphs (maybe I looked up the last name "Koch" instead of their separate names).
Anyhow, it's great to see them "enjoying" the limelight now.
Blanks
(4,835 posts)There are political commercials mentioning them and their contribution to the local republican candidate and they're (Koch brothers) trying to fight back through PACs.
I don't know if it's working for them, but they've apparently decided to step out of the shadows.
logosoco
(3,208 posts)as little kids, whining "mooooooooooo-oooom, he's looking at me!"
eShirl
(18,491 posts)librechik
(30,674 posts)and the second is "crooked. "
tblue37
(65,357 posts)librechik
(30,674 posts)BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)Brainstormy
(2,380 posts)and one even Wall Street would understand. We need to educate the public until there is an absolutely visceral, knee-jerk revulsion to the "Kochs." The same kind of response normal folks have to words like "maggots."
WillyT
(72,631 posts)libodem
(19,288 posts)[img][/img]
freshwest
(53,661 posts)tiptonic
(765 posts)'Kochroaches' I luv it. They got their money from dad, who got it from Stalin. They know what is best for America.
ReRe
(10,597 posts)I betcha' that issue of the RS was one of it's biggest-selling ever and no telling how many subscriptions it brought in. Truth sells in this country where so little of it is to be had.
Rolling Stone:
underpants
(182,803 posts)mountain grammy
(26,621 posts)in the US of A.
Feral Child
(2,086 posts)Warpy
(111,261 posts)paranoid, reclusive billionaires shouldn't try to buy governments. They always leave slug trails behind them and eventually they get caught and no amount of donations to the fine arts will cover up the slime trails.
I'm just surprised by the spider web of big money perverting the country, I always thought there would be more people in the middle of it. It turns out the Koch boys are the only ones at the direct center, monstrous men like Adelson and Pope (among others) are ringed around them.
TeamPooka
(24,226 posts)AllyCat
(16,187 posts)Cha
(297,237 posts)what everyone does who has nothing but bullshit.
Mahalo for this, babylonsistah
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)On the day before Danielle Smalley was to leave for college, she and her friend Jason Stone were hanging out in her family's mobile home. Seventeen years old, with long chestnut hair, Danielle began to feel nauseated. "Dad," she said, "we smell gas." It was 3:45 in the afternoon on August 24th, 1996, near Lively, Texas, some 50 miles southeast of Dallas. The Smalleys were too poor to own a telephone. So the teens jumped into her dad's 1964 Chevy pickup to alert the authorities. As they drove away, the truck stalled where the driveway crossed a dry creek bed. Danielle cranked the ignition, and a fireball engulfed the truck. "You see two children burned to death in front of you you never forget that," Danielle's father, Danny, would later tell reporters.
Unknown to the Smalleys, a decrepit Koch pipeline carrying liquid butane literally, lighter fluid ran through their subdivision. It had ruptured, filling the creek bed with vapor, and the spark from the pickup's ignition had set off a bomb. Federal investigators documented both "severe corrosion" and "mechanical damage" in the pipeline. A National Transportation Safety Board report would cite the "failure of Koch Pipeline Company LP to adequately protect its pipeline from corrosion."
. . . .
The Smalley trial underscored something Bill Koch had said about the way his brothers ran the company: "Koch Industries has a philosophy that profits are above everything else." A former Koch manager, Kenoth Whitstine, testified to incidents in which Koch Industries placed profits over public safety. As one supervisor had told him, regulatory fines "usually didn't amount to much" and, besides, the company had "a stable full of lawyers in Wichita that handled those situations." When Whitstine told another manager he was concerned that unsafe pipelines could cause a deadly accident, this manager said that it was more profitable for the company to risk litigation than to repair faulty equipment. The company could "pay off a lawsuit from an incident and still be money ahead," he said, describing the principles of MBM to a T.
At trial, Danny Smalley asked for a judgment large enough to make the billionaires feel pain: "Let Koch take their child out there and put their children on the pipeline, open it up and let one of them die," he told the jury. "And then tell me what that's worth." The jury was emphatic, awarding Smalley $296 million then the largest wrongful-death judgment in American legal history. He later settled with Koch for an undisclosed sum and now runs a pipeline-safety foundation in his daughter's name. He declined to comment for this story. "It upsets him too much," says an associate.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-the-koch-brothers-toxic-empire-20140924
By the way, benzene, depending on the quantity or dose, is linked to increased risk of leukemia. A very high dose leads to an increased risk -- depending on a lot of factors. I don't want to exaggerate the risk, but handling benzene should be done carefully.
I am referring to a suggestion in the article that the Koch Brothers may have been careless with benzene releases in the Corpus Christi area. That accusation may or may not be true. I do not know and am not claiming that it is. Even bad companies or people are not always "guilty" of the things they are accused of doing. But I think DUers should understand the risks of benzene aside from any claims about the Koch Brothers.
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)Money because of who they were BORN means you fucking LUCKED OUT, and you should be as thankful and humble as hell.
born on third base and think they hit a triple. I think Barry Switzer made that statement years ago about someone about like these jackasses
calimary
(81,267 posts)I'd say FUCK the koch brothers in the heart - if they HAD any. But I'm not sure they have any heart beating under their expensive designer shirts. Probably just a small cash register in there, instead.
santamargarita
(3,170 posts)RagAss
(13,832 posts)madokie
(51,076 posts)fucked a lot of native americans here in Oklahoma and in Kansas. I'm sure a google will turn up a few hits on that one.
fought it the whole way through the courts too. Sorry bastards if ever there was one
my apologies for using the b word but they deserved it and still deserve it to this day
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)Iwillnevergiveup
(9,298 posts)Rolling Stone and Mother Jones both deserve our support.
K&R
RoccoR5955
(12,471 posts)Dyedinthewoolliberal
(15,574 posts)and put it out of business.............which would really validate everything written about them
Uncle Joe
(58,362 posts)Thanks for the thread, babylonsister.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)SunSeeker
(51,557 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)MoreGOPoop
(417 posts)Chuck and Davey are becoming household names. May visions
of orange jumpsuits dance in their heads.
NBachers
(17,110 posts)66 dmhlt
(1,941 posts)LYRICS
Id like to buy the Kochs a world So theyd leave ours alone
Then go back to Park Avenue And crawl beneath their stone
Id like to teach the Kochs about A true democracy
Where working class kicks corporate ass From sea to shining sea
(Theyre the Evil Thing)
Id like to give the Kochs the bird From my whole family
Just keep your phony culture war And keep your f*cking tea
Theyre the Evil Thing Make them go away