Trump’s Withdrawal from Paris Climate Accord Was a Triumph and Financial Windfall for the Koch Brothers Over Democracy

The billionaires David and Charles Koch now own the Republican Party, which should be called the Death Panel Party for wanting to steal the health care insurance from 23 million US citizens, but that’s another story. These two people have driven the United States out of the Paris Climate Accords, which will prove to be financially beneficial to them, and against the overwhelming majority of US citizens who support the Pact. Think about it.

Two billionaires have overwhelmed the will of a hundred million non-billionaires, which is the majority of voters. That’s how corrupt government has become. Of course, the Koch’s had help, some of which they bought with their dollars.

Twenty-two Republican Senators sent a letter to President Donald Trump last week urging US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. Together, these skunks received more than $10 million dollars in campaign funds from fossil fuel interests. In the old days, these campaign contributions would have been called bribes. My how words matter!

The two-page letter was signed by a number of Republican heavyweights from coal/gas/oil-rich states, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and Ted Cruz of Texas.

The Guardian newspaper calculated the oil, gas and coal industries bribed the twenty-two senators with a total of $10,694,284 during the last five years. See Death Panel Party Senators Paris Climate Deal Energy Donations-the Guardian

However, that sum does not even come close to a number of undisclosed funds coming from the deep pockets of Charles and David Koch’s coal, oil and gas conglomerate, Koch Industries, and other outside groups.

As the Guardian explains:

“Visible donations to Republicans from those industries exceeded donations to Democrats in the 2016 election cycle by a ratio of 15-to-1, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And that does not include so-called dark money passed from oil interests such as Koch Industries to general slush funds to re-elect Republicans such as the Senate leadership fund.

“At least $90m in untraceable money has been funneled to Republican candidates from oil, gas and coal interests in the past three election cycles, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics.”

Jeffrey Sachs, a professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, told his views on Trump’s climate walkout in an interview with Bloomberg News. Sachs referenced the senators’ letter and specifically cast blame on the billionaire oil barons for pulling the strings of Republican party leaders, like they were Koch puppets, who both supported exiting the Paris accord.

“This is the victory paid and carried out for 20 years by two people, David and Charles Koch,” Sachs said. “They have bought and purchased the top of the Republican party. Trump is a tool in this.” In other words, Trump is officially now a puppet of the Koch Brothers in their war against the 99 percent according to Sachs and many others.

The Death Panel Republican Party is funded by the Koch brothers, and it’s funded by the coal industry. The Kochs and Big Coal insisted that Scott Pruitt, the Attorney General of Oklahoma that sued the EPA 19 times on clean air, clean water, soot, mercury issue, become the head of the EPA in our country. They got what they paid for.

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The US Public Falsely sees wealthy people and corporations gaining influence in Trump era

As President-elect Donald Trump takes office today, January 20, 2017. the Pew Research Center reports “the public has starkly different expectations about which groups in society will gain influence – and those that will lose influence – under his administration.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) say wealthy people will gain influence in Washington when Trump takes office. Just 8% say they will lose influence, while 27% expect the wealthy will not be affected.”

I agree with the 27 percent who say the wealthy will not be affected. The reason is simple. The rich already control both major political parties, and through them, the rich control the federal government, virtually all state governments, and most big city governments, as well as a lot of local governments.

The wealthy are not going to improve upon that score a whole lot under Trump. Control of the legislative process has been the primary means by which the 1 percent has methodically increased its share of wealth and income of the United States year after year for the last thirty-five years.

That’s why the 64 percent who say wealthy people will gain influence are wrong inasmuch as wealthy people have so much power they can’t possibly gain anymore.

The difference is that those rich folks who use the Democratic Party as a vehicle to control the mechanisms of government and to profit via those mechanisms, have lost influence. Think Warren Buffett, George Soros, Bill Gates and other Democratic Party billionaires. Their rivals who control the Republican Party will gain influence at their expense.

Those Republican billionaires include Sheldon Adelson, Donald Trump, Charles and David Koch, hedge fund managerz Paul Singer and Robert Mercer, and a lot of other Wall Street investors.

Together, the billionaire Democrats and billionaire Republicans form a kind of good old boy network with some rivalries among them. They also control the media in such a way as to ensure we don’t see this, although it’s pretty obvious.

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Trump or Clinton? The Two Choices for President Are Incredibly Poopy for Working People

On May 17 2016 the Richmond Times Dispatch posted the above obituary. No doubt these were the sentiments of Mary Noland and her family.

What choice do we have?

We have Hillary Clinton on one side. She was for the massive income redistribution scam known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and for fracking. We know from leaked emails she told Wall Street executives she was for “free trade and open borders.” Those are code words for accelerated exporting of jobs and pushing US wages lower. Then Bernie Sanders entered the Democratic primary. Since then Hillary has said she’s against the TPP and fracking, but she has already stacked the deck in favor of Wall Street, the TPP and fracking, and she’s not even president yet.

Everybody opposed to fracking and the TPP should be alarmed at the choices she’s making, and her sincerity should be seriously questioned, especially since she has lied many times before.

She chose Tim Kaine to be her running mate. Kaine voiced support for the TPP two days before Hillary chose him. Now he claims he’s against it.

And now she has named former Colorado Democratic Senator and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to be the chair of her presidential transition team — the group tasked with helping set up the new administration should she win in November. That includes identifying, selecting, and vetting candidates for over 4,000 presidential appointments.

Wall Street and other corporate CEO’s are drooling at her two choices. Kaine and Salazar demonstrate a complete lack of sincerity in her opposition to the TPP and fracking. If she is elected president, expect her to push the TPP and redistribute massive amounts of income from the 99 to the 1 percent, especially by exporting jobs.

Now if she wanted to represent the people of the US, and not just the super rich ones, Clinton would chose Joseph Stiglitz as Treasury Secretary. That would alleviate some anxiety on the part of labor union members and leaders about her sincerity, but that’s not going to happen.

Then we’ve got Donald Trump. He says and does anything like he’s a contestant on a reality television show. He’s got zero political experience. He’s gone bankrupt on four occasions. He’s got two feet that must be terribly swollen because of all the times he’s stuck them in his mouth in just the last twelve months.

The Republican Establishment is against him, as are the Koch Brothers. The corporate media is also against him.

My girlfriend is from Iran. Her brother lives there. He says the people of Iran are laughing at us because of our presidential choices. No doubt much of the rest of the world is also. Is this the best we’ve got?

Where have you gone Harry Truman? We need you. Where is an Eisenhower? A JFK? We sorely miss you Franklin Roosevelt! We miss you too Jimmy Carter! I’d give anything to have Gerald Ford or Bob Dole running for president in 2016! Even Lyndon Johnson of the Vietnam quagmire, Ronald Reagan of numerous scandals, and Richard Nixon of Watergate are preferable to the choices we have today.

Are you listening Elizabeth Warren, Sharrod Brown or Jeff Merkley?

Bernie! Can you still run as an independent?

Click here for Mary Noland’s obituary in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

 

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US Supreme Court is Weighing in on Another Attack on the Middle Class

The corporate wing of the US Supreme Court, a commodity purchased by the Koch Brothers long ago, is likely going to hand down the Koch Brothers influenced, or ordered, decision against public employee unions, just as it destroyed legal precedents with its Koch Brothers influenced, or ordered, decision in the Citizen’s United case. The Koch Brothers wing of the court include Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, Samuel Alito and sometimes Anthony Kennedy. To be fair, the Warren Buffett/George Soros wing of the US Supreme Court are the remaining justices.

The object of their decision, of course, is to tip the scales of justice more and more into the hands of their billionaire backers, and away from legal precedents, the Constitution, and the vast majority of US citizens, and the Democratic Party.

The case is simple enough in the soon to be decided Friedrichs v California teachers Association case. Some union members don’t enjoy paying union dues, but they enjoy the benefits of union/management negotiations. So they want a free ride.

“Earlier this month the justices heard oral arguments in the case that turns on the so-called no-free-lunch provision of the union contract in a school district near Anaheim, Calif. It requires teachers to pay a portion of the union’s dues even if they choose not to join. Several teachers sued, claiming that violates their First Amendment rights. Unions take political positions, the teachers noted, with which they might not agree.

By the union’s logic, all teachers benefit from the salary scale it negotiates. So shouldn’t all have to pay their share of the cost of negotiating a contract? Can’t the free-speech issue can be addressed by giving nonmembers a discount — subtracting an amount proportional to what the union spends on political activities?”

The plaintiff, Rebecca “Freeride” Friedrichs doesn’t even want to pay that trivial fee. So she was mysteriously discovered by a billionaire organization, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTWLDF), according to PRWatch.

“The NRTWC has deep connections within the national right-wing network led by the Koch brothers. Reed Larson, who led the national right to work groups for over three decades, hails from Wichita, Kansas, the hometown of Charles and David Koch. Larson became an early leader of the right-wing John Birch Society in Kansas, which Fred Koch (the father of Charles and David) helped found. Several other founders and early leaders of the NRTWC were members and leaders of the John Birch Society, specifically the Wichita chapter of which Fred Koch was an active member.

The groups remain tied to the Kochs. In 2012, the Kochs’ Freedom Partners group funneled $1 million to the National Right to Work Committee, while the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation gave a $15,000 grant to the NRTWLDF, which has also received significant funding from the Koch-connected DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund. Today, at least three former Koch associates work as attorneys for the NRTWLDF.”

One can rightly suspect the Koch Brothers and their buddies are going after public sector labor unions because those unions largely support Democratic Party candidates. On the national level, Koch Brothers rivals, such as billionaire hedge fund managers Warren Buffett and George Soros, largely control what the Democratic Party does legislatively.

However, the result of this battle between billionaire titans is another nail in the coffin of the middle class, with the weakening of labor unions if Justice Kennedy decides in favor of the Koch Brothers, which means Rebecca Friedrichs has allowed herself to be just another brick in the wall of this never-ending struggle.

– See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/06/12498/who-behind-national-right-work-committee-and-its-anti-union-crusade#sthash.0BWV56Iy.dpuf

As Supreme Court weighs unions, middle class hangs in the balance–Chicago Tribune

Click here for more on the story from the New York Times.

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What Did Billionaire David Koch Say Back in 1980?

Doing so has made more and more politicians dependent on the merchants of big money, and they don’t get money unless they do the legislative bidding of the highest bidders. That is something corrupt Wall Street Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia, themselves always voting for big money against the US Constitution and the 99 percent. How far has corruption spread? Just look at the supreme court.

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How the Koch Family Made Their Billions

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Walmart Workers in an Historic Against Right Wing Corporation

The Walmart Workers strike is spreading across the nation, in at least twelve states. The Walton family, the primary owners of Walmart, are among the most anti-Americans in the world, along with the Koch Brothers. These people continue to support legislation that redistributes income from the 99 to the 1 percent. click the link below for the complete story.

Walmart's First Strike

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The Six Billionaires That Tell Mitt Romney What to Do

What do Donald Trump, Charles Koch, David Koch, Sheldon Anderson, Jack Welch and David Siegal have in common? They’re billionaires, they enjoy paying politicians to redistribute income from the 99 percent to themselves, and Mitt Romney worships at their wallets. Who is Paul Ryan? Why he’s the Koch Brother’s number one boy in politics, tied only with Wall Street Mitt the Twit Romney. Check out the story via the link below.

What Plutocracy Looks Like; The Six Billionaires That Own Wall Street Mitt Romney

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