Elizabeth Warren: Koch Brothers Are Trying To Handpick Government Officials. We Have To Stop Them.

[Triana]

On Wednesday, members of the Senate Finance Committee will vote on the nomination of Charles Blahous, a Republican, to serve a second term as a public trustee for Social Security. Mr. Blahous, a prominent opponent of Social Security and the architect of President George W. Bush’s efforts to privatize benefits, is part of an army of aggressive conservative ideologues groomed for government service and bankrolled by the Koch brothers. Their purpose is clear — to tilt the game in Washington ever further in favor of corporate special interests. The Senate should reject them.

For more than a decade, conservative activists like the Koch brothers have worked to distort our politics by using their vast corporate and personal wealth to rig the rules in Washington in favor of giant corporations like theirs. Their acidic influence on our elections is obvious, as far-right activists have exploited our broken campaign finance system to bankroll candidates who will espouse their rigidly pro-corporate, anti-government view.?

But there is another, less obvious way that wealthy activists advance these interests. Through tax-deductible “charitable” donations, the Kochs are systematically manufacturing a legion of “experts” at universities and think tanks across the country — and then fighting to place them in Executive Branch positions so they can undermine the government from the inside.

Mr. Blahous is one such individual. He is a long-time opponent of Social Security who served as the Executive Director of a commission under President George W. Bush that tried to privatize the program. In numerous books and articles, he has argued that Social Security’s meager retirement benefits, which average a little over $1,300 a month, are actually too generous and should be slashed. Just last year, he fought against a bipartisan solution that saved Social Security disability recipients from devastating cuts.

THE REST: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-warren/koch-brothers-charles-blahous_b_10325224.html

[global1]

1. Please Tell Me How A Republican Was Nominated For This Position Under The Obama Administration?.....

[Octafish]

7. Neil Barofsky explains...

For the non-paupers in spirit, a pot of gold awaits...

Neil Barofsky Gave Us The Best Explanation For Washington's Dysfunction We've Ever Heard

Linette Lopez
Business Insider, Aug. 1, 2012, 2:57 PM

Neil Barofsky was the Inspector General for TARP, and just wrote a book about his time in D.C. called Bailout: An Insider Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street.

SNIP...

Bottom line: Barofsky said the incentive structure in our nation's capitol is all wrong. There's a revolving door between bureaucrats in Washington and Wall Street banks, and politicians just want to keep their jobs.

For regulators it's something like this:

[font color="green"][font size="5"]"You can play ball and good things can happen to you get a big pot of gold at the end of the Wall Street rainbow or you can do your job be aggressive and face personal ruin...We really need to rethink how we govern and how regulate," Barofsky said.[/font size][/font color]

CONTINUED... http://www.businessinsider.com/neil-barofsky-2012-8

"Integrity is for paupers." -- Tim Russert (attributed)

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Hey,this is how Washington really works.

Step back and look,we have a very conservative Elitist Ivy League Democratic Administration,and this Guy is red meat for the Third Wayer's . Were do you think the source of the Anti Social Security garbage was coming from. Ms. Warren has had this Dupe in her cross-hairs for quite some time.

[Triana]

5. Pete Peterson and his "fix the debt" assholes for one ...

....Kochs for another. Those greedy bastards who will never need social security have had their guns aimed at it for years.

Thing is, a "Democrat" / DLC type has a better chance of gutting it (and likely will) than a Repub. Just another example of how far our party has fallen.

[Wellstone ruled]

6. Said this before.

Our greatest threat to Democracy is the Elites of our Party. There is a aggregate of some 54 trillion dollars hanging in and around what is called the Social Security Trust. And this is the last major chunk of untouched money left in the world. And Wall Street and the 1%ers want it.

[UTUSN]

3. R#4 & K for, *nailed* by Elizabeth!1 n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. The incredible speed at which the Kochs are getting ever richer

I was looking at Oxfam's data on the wealth of the richest - they have a spreadsheet that include the richest 80 individuals each year since 2002: http://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/oxfam/bitstream/10546/592643/1/df-economy-one-percent-tax-havens-180116-datafile-en.xlsx

I noticed that the Kochs were at 80 (for the whole world) in 2003, and I was surprised that, for people in what I thought were established industries, they'd risen so far since then. And this is especially notable when you compare them to Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, the emblematic new technology company since 2002. Before 2006, both the Koch brothers and Page & Brin are in and out of the top 80, after that, both pairs are always in. Here are their positions, and wealth in billions - the Koch have the amount shown each:

2003: 80: Kochs $4b (Page and Brin $4b or under)
2004: (all $5.2b or under)
2005: Brin & Page 55 $7.2b (Kochs $5.6b or under)
2006: 33: Kochs $12b; 26 Brin $12.9b, 27 Page $12.8b
2007: 49: Kochs $12b; 26 Page & Brin $16.6b
2008: 37: Kochs $17b; 32 Brin $18.7b, 33 Page $18.6b
2009: 19: Kochs $14b; 26 Page & Brin $12b
2010: 24: Kochs $17.5b; 24 Page & Brin $17.5b
2011: 18: Kochs $22b; 24 Page & Brin $19.8b
2012: 12: Kochs $25b; 24 Page & Brin $18.7b
2013: 6: Kochs $34b; 20 Page $23b, 21 Brin $22.8b
2014: 6: Kochs $40b; 17 Page $32.3b, 19 Brin $31.8b
2015: 6: Kochs $42.9b; 19 Page $29.7b, 20 Brin $29.2b

So, in 12 years, the Kochs' fortune went up over 10 times - despite a huge recession in the middle of that. From 2006, when both paris are always there, the pair who own a huge chunk of possibly the most transformative technology of the age have added about 130% ; the Kochs, by about 260%.

That's how much they benefit from their influence over politicians.