As long as they pay good, right?
"Koch brothers might bid for Tribune Co.; Favor smaller government, less regulation" by Amy Chozick | New York Times, April 21, 2013
NEW YORK — Three years ago, Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialists and supporters of libertarian causes, held a seminar of like-minded, wealthy political donors at the St. Regis Resort in Aspen, Colo. They laid out a three-pronged, 10-year strategy to shift the country toward a smaller government with less regulation and taxes.
The first two pieces of the strategy — educating grass-roots activists and influencing politics — were not surprising, given the money they have given to policy institutes and political action groups. But the third one was: media.
Other than financing a few fringe libertarian publications, the Kochs have mostly avoided media investments.
Now, Koch Industries, the sprawling private company of which Charles G. Koch serves as chairman and chief executive, is exploring a bid to buy the Tribune Co.’s eight regional newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Orlando Sentinel, and The Hartford Courant.
By early May, Tribune Co. is expected to send financial data to serious suitors in what will be among the largest sales of newspapers by circulation in the country. Koch Industries is among those interested, said several people with direct knowledge of the sale who spoke on the condition they not be named. Tribune emerged from bankruptcy on Dec. 31 and has hired JPMorgan Chase and Evercore Partners to sell its print properties.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Boston Globe Going on the Block
Haven't seem much since.
UPDATE:
"New York Times Co. chief executive Mark Thompson told investors at a conference in Boston on Tuesday that he was “pleased” so far with the amount of interest the company had attracted from potential buyers for The Boston Globe. Thompson, speaking at the JPMorgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference on the waterfront, declined to discuss more concrete details of the sale process."
He's the guy who fled the BBC in wake of the hacking and sex scandals, and who even cares what billionaire bastard owns the paper?
The papers, valued at roughly $623 million, would be a financially diminutive deal for Koch Industries, the energy and manufacturing conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., with annual revenues of about $115 billion.
Politically, however, the papers could serve as a broader platform for the Kochs’ laissez-faire ideas. The Los Angeles Times is the fourth-largest paper in the country, and The Tribune is No. 9, and others are in several battleground states, including two of the largest newspapers in Florida, The Orlando Sentinel and The Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale.
A deal could include Hoy, the second-largest US Spanish-language daily newspaper, which speaks to the pivotal Hispanic demographic.
One person who attended the Aspen seminar who spoke on the condition of anonymity described the strategy as follows: ‘‘It was never ‘How do we destroy the other side?’ ’’
‘‘It was, ‘How do we make sure our voice is being heard?’ ’’
As if it i$n't now?
Guests at the Aspen seminar included Philip F. Anschutz, the Republican oil mogul who owns the companies that publish The Washington Examiner, The Oklahoman, and The Weekly Standard, and the hedge fund executive Paul E. Singer, who sits on the board of the political magazine Commentary.
Attendees were asked not to discuss details about the seminar with the press.
A person who has attended other Koch Industries seminars, which have taken place since 2003, said Charles and David Koch have never said they want to take over newspapers or other large media outlets, but they often say ‘‘they see the conservative voice as not being well represented.’’ The Kochs plan to host another conference at the end of the month in Palm Springs, Calif.
At this early stage, the thinking inside the Tribune Co., the people close to the deal said, is that Koch Industries could prove the most appealing buyer. Others interested, including a group of wealthy Los Angeles residents led by the billionaire Eli Broad and Ronald W. Burkle, both prominent Democratic donors, and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., would prefer to buy only The Los Angeles Times.
The Tribune Co. has signaled it prefers to sell all eight papers and their back-office operations as a bundle. (The $7 billion media company, which owns 23 television stations, could also decide to keep the papers if they do not attract a high enough offer.)
Koch Industries serves as one of the largest sponsors of libertarian causes — including the financing of policy institutes like the Cato Institute in Washington and the formation of Americans for Prosperity, the political action group that helped galvanize Tea Party groups and their causes. The company has said it has no direct link to the Tea Party.
Why didn't they mention ALEC?
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Related:
WHO ARE THE KOCH BROTHERS?
Jane Mayer writes in an article that appeared recently in The New Yorker:
"The Kochs are multi-billionaires; they are also longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes and minimal social services for the needy ..."
Speaking about David Koch, she continues,
"With his brother Charles, who is seventy-four, David Koch owns virtually all of Koch Industries, a conglomerate, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, whose annual revenues are estimated to be a HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS. The company has grown spectacularly since their father, Fred, died, in 1967, and the brothers took charge. The Kochs operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline. Koch Industries owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products. Forbes ranks it as the second-largest private company in the country, after Cargill, and its consistent profitability has made David and Charles Koch—who, years ago, bought out two other brothers—among the richest men in America. Their combined fortune of thirty-five billion dollars is exceeded only by those of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett."
Mayer describes them as the "MONEY-MEN" behind the Tea Party Movement. She writes:
"Over the [2010] July 4th weekend, a summit called Texas Defending the American Dream took place in Austin ... Peggy Venable, the organizer of the summit, warned that Administration officials 'have a socialist vision for this country'. Five hundred people attended the summit, which served, in part, as a training session for Tea Party activists in Texas. An advertisement cast the event as a populist uprising against vested corporate power. 'Today, the voices of average Americans are being drowned out by lobbyists and special interests', it said. 'But you can do something about it'. The pitch made no mention of its corporate funders — THE KOCH BROTHERS."
Peggy Venable has worked in public policy and grassroots campaigns - in government, the political arena and the private sector - for more than 30 years. Peggy is director of Americans For Prosperity, which has a membership of more than 90,000 individuals who support free-market public policies. The organization was founded by David Koch in 2004 and is the means through which the Koch brothers control the Tea Party Movement.
Mayer continues:
"The White House has expressed frustration that such sponsors have largely eluded public notice. David Axelrod, Obama's senior adviser, says, "WHAT THEY DON'T SAY IS THAT THIS IS A GRASSROOTS CITIZENS' MOVEMENT BROUGHT TO YOU BY A BUNCH OF BILLIONAIRES."
No doubt, many Christians will see this statement as nothing more than a "slam" against the Tea Party Movement by an Obama devotee; IT IS, NONETHELESS, TRUE.
SHAPING AND CONTROLLING THE TEA PARTY
MOVEMENT AND THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT
Mayer goes on to say:
"The anti-government fervor infusing the 2010 elections represents a political triumph for the Kochs. By giving money to 'educate', fund, and organize Tea Party protesters, they have helped turn their private agenda into a mass movement. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist and a historian, who once worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a Dallas-based think tank that the Kochs fund, said, 'The problem with the whole libertarian movement is that it's been all chiefs and no Indians. There haven't been any actual people, like voters, who give a crap about it. So the problem for the Kochs has been trying to create a movement.' With the emergence of the Tea Party, he said, 'everyone suddenly sees that for the first time there are Indians out there—people who can provide real ideological power'. The Kochs, he said, are 'TRYING TO SHAPE AND CONTROL AND CHANNEL THE POPULIST UPRISING INTO THEIR OWN POLICIES'."
"A REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN CONSULTANT WHO HAS DONE RESEARCH ON BEHALF OF CHARLES AND DAVID KOCH SAID OF THE TEA PARTY, 'THE KOCH BROTHERS GAVE THE MONEY THAT FOUNDED IT. It's like they put the seeds in the ground. Then the rainstorm comes, and the frogs come out of the mud—and they're our candidates'!"
David Koch once ran as the Vice Presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party on a platform that proposed the legalization of prostitution, recreational drugs, and suicide. One cannot help but wonder how committed Christians could link themselves to such people.
STOKING THE FLAMES OF ISLAMOPHOBIA
But there is more to the Koch brothers' agenda than merely "... lowering personal and corporate taxes, and providing only minimal social services for the needy ..."
Alex Kane, a journalist for the Indypendent, a free New York City-based newspaper, writes:
"Now, more has emerged about the Koch brothers' agenda, and it's not just limited to advocating for 'drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation'. An investigation by CounterPunch's Pam Martens has revealed that 'a secretive libertarian nonprofit with ties to Charles Koch bankrolled what was widely perceived to be a fear mongering effort to throw the Presidential election to Senator John McCain in 2008'." [We urge you to see our articles on the McCain / Palin political alliance, "Things Aren't Always What They Appear to Be" and "McCain & Palin: The Business Right Marries the Religious Right."]
Pam Martens, the author of the article in CounterPunch to which Kane is alluding, writes:
"The 'fear mongering effort' in question [see above] was the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West, which was distributed to millions of people in 'swing states' around the country in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election through corporate newspapers. The documentary features interviews with notorious Islamophobes such as Steven Emerson, Daniel Pipes and Caroline Glick. [We urge you to see our article, "The Theory of the Just War;" for information on Daniel Pipes, please see our articles, "The Rise of Fascism in Europe" and "The Neo-Conservatives."]
NOTE: It is precisely here that one should take note of the fact that when the Koch brothers decided to lend financial assistance to the McCain / Palin presidential ticket in the 2008 campaign, both David and Charles were essentially indicating a WILLINGNESS TO BRING IN THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT AS A "FULL PARTNER" IN GOVERNING THE NATION. And more than that, they were willing to lend financial support to the Christian Right's RELIGIOUS obsession (in contrast to Koch brothers ECONOMIC obsession] to destroy Islam - and if they had to "hold their noses" (as it were) and join forces with the likes of Pastor John Hagee and CUFI (Christians United for Israel), so be it. [Once again, we urge you to see our articles on the McCain / Palin political alliance, "Things Aren't Always What They Appear to Be" and "McCain & Palin: The Business Right Marries the Religious Right."]
Kane writes:
"The CounterPunch investigation adds a whole new layer to the overlap between anti-Muslim activists and the Tea Party."
That is to say, in addition to allying themselves with the domestic agenda of the Christian Right, the Koch brothers have crawled into bed with those in the Christian community (e.g., Pastor John Hagee and his ilk in CUFI) who are wickedly involved in fanning the flames of Islamophobia in order to wage a war of annihilation against the Muslims of the Middle East and Central Asia. [Please see our article, "Crossing the Rubicon."]
BUT THEN WHAT ELSE WOULD ONE EXPECT FROM PEOPLE (e.g., the Koch brothers) WHOSE MONEY IS DERIVED FROM THE PROFITS OF BIG OIL? — that is, after all, what Koch Industries is all about — BIG OIL.
FOLLOW THE MONEY
Martens' report in CounterPunch reads in part:
"CounterPunch can now report what this race-baiting, fear-mongering campaign involving the movie, Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West, cost and where the money came from.
"28 million DVDs of the film - Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West - were produced at a cost of $15,676,181 by Artist Direct Media which does mass manufacturing of CDs and DVDs with volume discounts. The big media buy for Sunday newspaper insertions ran up the tidy tab of $719,436 and was conducted by NSA Media, a unit of the global ad giant, Interpublic Group, parent of McCann-Erikson. That figure seems decidedly on the light side so there may be other funding sources involved that have not yet surfaced. (NSA Media is a powerful ad buyer, representing some of the biggest print buyers and consumer brands in the country, which might help explain why so few questions were asked by the largest newspapers about this unseemly project.) The full tab, and then some, was paid by the super secretive libertarian nonprofit, Donors Capital Fund. In 2008, Clarion Fund became Donors Capital Fund's largest grantee by a large margin, receiving $17,778,600. That sum constituted 96 per cent of all funds received by Clarion in 2008 and 9 times its revenue in 2007."
To simplify what was going on here, Clarion acted as a conduit for money emanating out of Donor's Capital Fund and Donor's Trust Fund (both controlled by the Koch brothers — see below) the purpose of which was the production and distribution of the hate-filled, anti-Muslim film, Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West.
NOTE: It is through this exact same nexus of shadowy "players" and "money conduits" that Iranium is being funded and released to the public.
Shadows of the Koch brothers are all over Donor's Capital and Donor's Trust - this is the kind of labyrinth through which Koch money flows to the Religious Right and the Tea Party Movement.
THE SHADOWS OF THE KOCH BROTHERS ARE EVERYWHERE
Marten continues:
"There are shades of Charles Koch all over Donors Capital and Donors Trust. Two grantees receiving repeat and sizeable grants from Donors Capital are favorites of the Koch foundations: George Mason University Foundation and the Institute for Humane Studies. Another tie is Claire Kittle. A project of Donor's Trust is Talent Market.org, a headhunter for staffing nonprofits with the 'right' people. Ms. Kittle serves as Talent Market's Executive Director and was the former Program Officer for Leadership and Talent Development at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Then there is Whitney Ball, President of both Donors Capital Fund and Donors Trust. Ms. Ball was one of the elite guests at the invitation-only secret Aspen bash thrown by Charles Koch in June of 2010, as reported by ThinkProgress.org. Also on the guest list for the Koch bash was Stephen Moore, a member of the Editorial Board at the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Moore is a Director at Donors Capital Fund. Rounding out the ties that bind is Lauren Vander Heyden, who serves as Client Services Coordinator at Donors Trust. Ms. Vander Heyden previously worked as grants coordinator and policy analyst at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation."
The liberal Jewish periodical Tikun elaborates on the CounterPunch article:
"The Counterpunch exposé about the Clarion Fund takes the story to the next level. This is a development I've been awaiting for two years. We knew that Clarion was the ostensible producer of the three anti-Muslim films, Third Jihad, Obsession and the latest, Iranium.
The three anti-Muslim films produced by Clarion: From left to right: the first film, The Third Jihad, the third film, Iranium and the second film, Obsession.
"There are several aspects of this that shock me. I always figured Shelly Adelson or Irwin Katsof, billionaires much more closely associated both with pro-Israel and anti-jihadi political forces, to be the suspect donors.
"This latest news takes things in a far more radical libertarian direction, and generally Jews have stayed clear of right-wing libertarianism because it's always had a whiff of anti-Semitism about it. While the Koch family is Jewish, their philanthropy has never been visible in that community nor has their interest in far-right Israeli politics been evident."
NOTE: The Koch brothers are Jewish by ethnicity, but Catholic by religion.
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Related:
Six Zionist Companies Own 96% of the World's Media
Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed
Like I said, you won't notice much of a change in your newspaper.
