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 Will the DSCC return the money?9:00 AM, Oct 4, 2011 • By MARK HEMINGWAYOver the weekend, Bloomberg Markets magazine published a lengthy investigative piece about a French subsidiary of Koch Industries that supposedly conducted illegal business with the Iranian government. The report further insinuates an ensuing cover up.
Both Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post and Dan Foster at National Review Online have enumerated the problems with the piece, which hinges on the word of very questionable sources. It is also larded up with unnecessary and obviously biased political context that details the political affiliation of the company's founder going back over 60 years.
More specifically, the main source of the accusations against Koch in the story recently lost a case against them in a French court and was even ordered to pay Koch's court costs in the process. Further, this is why, according to Bloomberg Markets, Koch Industries is suspect: "Koch Industries is obsessed with secrecy, to the point that it discloses only an approximation of its annual revenue -- $100 billion a year -- and says nothing about its profits." As Foster notes, Koch is a privately held company and it's hardly unusual for private companies to keep their profits to themselves. (Bloomberg also happens to be a privately held company -- I encourage you to call them and demand a complete accounting of the news organization's profits.)
Despite the fact that the Bloomberg story falls apart upon even a cursory investigation, that hasn't stopped the Democrats from piling on. Ben Smith notes the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's (DSCC) latest attack on Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown:
New Blockbuster Report Shows Scott Brown's Deep Pocketed Benefactors Got Rich Selling Chemicals To Iran, Then Used Wealth To Help Brown's Campaign
Scott Brown Talks Big Game on Illegal Contracting With American Enemies, Will He Call On Koch To Come Clean, Cut Ties To Iran?
Scott Brown's deep-pocketed benefactors, the secretive Tea Party billionaire Koch Brothers, are in hot water after a new report shows that their company may have violated federal law by making millions in sales to Iran, a country designated by the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism. Scott Brown talks a big game on illegal contracting with American enemies. Will Scott Brown call on his deep pocketed donors to come clean about all their illegal interactions with Iran and cut ties to the country?
As Smith notes, "Unmentioned here is that, while the Koch brothers are now among the most important donors to conservative causes in America, they've also given pretty widely to influential Democrats in the recent past -- including, most of all, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The DSCC took $15,000 a year from KOCH PAC between 2007 and 2010." So despite accepting $60,000 from the Kochs, the DSCC hypocritically demonizes Brown for taking Koch money. This past summer, Koch Industries even released a voicemail from Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair Patty Murray dropping hints that another generous donation from the Kochs will get them invited to the DSCC's Kiawah Island retreat.
But that's not the full extent of the hypocrisy here. The DSCC apparently didn't even bother reading the Bloomberg piece -- they want Scott Brown to call on the company to cut ties with Iran but, as noted in the article, Koch has already stopped doing business with Iran. As for the business it did do with Iran, a Koch Industries spokesman told Bloomberg, "during the relevant time frame covered in your article, U.S. law allowed foreign subsidiaries of U.S. multinational companies to engage in trade involving countries subject to U.S. trade sanctions, including Iran, under certain conditions.” Read more... This is hardly the first time Democrats have been duplicitous about taking Koch money10:45 AM, Jul 8, 2011 • By MARK HEMINGWAYLast night, Koch Industries posted the following letter addressed to Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Patty Murray on their website Kochfacts.com:
Read more... 11:45 AM, Jun 29, 2011 • By MARK HEMINGWAYThink Progress reporter Lee Fang has a long history of being spectacularly wrong. However, there's a seemingly unending thirst for his breathless demonization of the Koch brothers and other rants about corporate greed among the low IQ end of the liberal spectrum.
Read more... 3:16 PM, Apr 17, 2011 • By MARK HEMINGWAYThe name Lee Fang is far from a household name. However, from his perch at the Soros-funded think tank Center for American Progress, Fang has the dubious distinction of promulgating questionable Koch Industries political conspiracies perhaps more than any other person.
Read more... 4:47 PM, Mar 24, 2011 • By MICHAEL WARRENBen Smith reported this morning that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sent out a fundraising email, signed by Harry Reid, that tries to ride the anti-Koch bandwagon. Here's the relevant part of the email:
Read more... Left-wing critics of Koch Industries are only discrediting themselves.12:10 PM, Mar 3, 2011 • By MARK HEMINGWAYIn today's Examiner, Mark Tapscott discusses William F. Buckley's banishment of John Birchers to the fringe of the conservative movement decades ago and how it relates to today's conspiracy mongering on the left. In particular, the bleatings about the influence of Koch Industries have run comepletely off the rails and it's discrediting to the left:
Read more... 1:31 PM, Mar 1, 2011 • By MICHAEL WARRENProgressives may have decided that businessmen and libertarian political benefactors David and Charles Koch are the latest harbingers of the vast right-wing conspiracy, but they could be shocked to learn that several Koch Industries subsidiaries have been working closely and productively with…the Obama administration.
Read more... 9:16 AM, Oct 6, 2010 • By DANIEL HALPERFrom Andy Ferguson's column in Commentary:
Over the past 30 years, Charles and David Koch, owners of a Kansas-based family business called Koch Industries, have given hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations that advance their political views.
Read more... 4:28 PM, Oct 5, 2010 • By JOHN MCCORMACKThe inspector general for tax administration at the Treasury Department will investigate the allegation that an Obama administration official may have improperly accessed and discussed private taxpayer information.
Read more...  3:52 PM, Sep 23, 2010 • By DANIEL HALPERThe Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee blasts Carly Fiorina today for taking Koch money (emphasis added):
California: Carly Fiorina is hoping that by attacking Barbara Boxer, Californians will forget about her failed leadership of HP. Fiorina laid off 30,000 workers and was the outsourcing queen, saying: "perhaps the work needs to be done somewhere else." Fiorina tripled her salary and bought a $1 million yacht and five corporate jets. Fiorina has yet to explain how an HP subsidiary sidestepped the law to sell printers to Iran during her tenure. Tea Party megadonor Koch Industries must have been impressed, because its leaders just hosted a Washington fundraiser for Fiorina. Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity said the Koch brothers "have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation and obfuscation," and that "they are the Standard Oil of our times." Koch Industries was named among the nation's top 10 polluters and is funding Proposition 23, which would suspend California's air pollution control laws. Boxer has been leading slightly in the polls, but Fiorina's sure to dip into her cushy $42 million golden parachute as the election nears.
Read more...
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