The New Yorker has published a must-read article exposing the long reach of the "Kochtopus" network set up by Koch Industries to fuel the Tea Party and fund the climate denial machine.
Written by investigative journalist Jane Mayer, the piece titled "Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging war against Obama" explores the decades-long efforts of brothers David and Charles Koch to manipulate and deceive the public on issues ranging from climate change to cancer-causing chemicals.
Koch Industries has done far more than even ExxonMobil to fund the climate denial machine in recent years, and media coverage about numerous Tea Party and GOP candidates who deny the science of climate change confirm that the Kochs' reach has infected national politics in unprecedented ways.
The lengthy New Yorker article covers many interesting new angles about the Kochs' influence-peddling empire, and adds to a growing body of research about Koch Industries' anti-science, anti-democratic activities.
Building upon the research from Greenpeace's excellent Koch report earlier this year, Jane Mayer expands on Koch's role in funding climate deniers and anti-science think tanks, not to mention the Tea Party.
Head over to The New Yorker to read the slimy details.
Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.
There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.
Maine’s clean energy legislation has spurred more than $2 billion in local investment and created at least 2,500 jobs in the Pine Tree State. That isn’t stopping some state lawmakers from trying to weaken and kill these laws, as the local political puppets do the will of their fossil fuel masters, the Koch brothers.
A quick reminder: there’s a coordinated national campaign to dismantle renewable portfolio standards (RPS) at the state level. Behind the campaign is the American...
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