Awesome! Rolling Stone Outs the Kochs!

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Thursday September 25, 2014 · 4:16 PM PDT

2014/09/25 · 16:16

I retrieved the mail today - and got a huge surprise. It was the newest issue of 'Rolling Stone' magazine - a glossy format mag my former host daughter had subscribed to. I almost threw it away - but a blurb on the front cover caught my eye at the last minute...well, to be honest,the cover guy John Oliver's expression caught my eye and kind of directed it towards the article on the Kochs; excellent placement of the info on the cover. I am really shocked a MS publication has printed this article, much less featured it on the cover!

And here I thought that Rolling Stone had become just another glossy hipster mag. Shame on me. This brings back memories of when it was a cheaply printed rag that held the feet of the powerful to the fire.

Anyway, Tim Dickinson has written a great article in a mainstream publication. It really introduces the Kochs to a wider audience...any light that is shone on these parasites is welcome. I have been searching for a 'primer' on these modern day creepy oligarchs - this fits the bill perfectly. I will be buying copies for my in-laws, relatives, friends, and teabag associates.

Link and excerpts from the RS article below the orange whattizit.

(The comments after the RS article are fun to read too - get out the popcorn as the koch-klones try and spin this away.)

Inside the Koch Brothers' Toxic Empire
By Tim Dickinson | September 24, 2014

Together, Charles and David Koch control one of the world's largest fortunes, which they are using to buy up our political system. But what they don't want you to know is how they made all that money

The enormity of the Koch fortune is no mystery. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40 billion. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly well-chronicled. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; they've cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the Tea Party and powers today's GOP. Koch-affiliated organizations raised some $400 million during the 2012 election, and aim to spend another $290 million to elect Republicans in this year's midterms. So far in this cycle, Koch-backed entities have bought 44,000 political ads to boost Republican efforts to take back the Senate.

What is less clear is where all that money comes from. Koch Industries is headquartered in a squat, smoked-glass building that rises above the prairie on the outskirts of Wichita, Kansas. The building, like the brothers' fiercely private firm, is literally and figuratively a black box. Koch touts only one top-line financial figure: $115 billion in annual revenue, as estimated by Forbes. By that metric, it is larger than IBM, Honda or Hewlett-Packard and is America's second-largest private company after agribusiness colossus Cargill. The company's stock response to inquiries from reporters: "We are privately held and don't disclose this information."

But Koch Industries is not entirely opaque. The company's troubled legal history – including a trail of congressional investigations, Department of Justice consent decrees, civil lawsuits and felony convictions – augmented by internal company documents, leaked State Department cables, Freedom of Information disclosures and company whistle-blowers, combine to cast an unwelcome spotlight on the toxic empire whose profits finance the modern GOP.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/...

On edit: Top of the Rec list, I am humbled - was just trying to pass on this info to help others in the good fight. Never been on the list at all. Thanks kossacks.

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Awesome! Rolling Stone Outs the Kochs!

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