Koch Network Pushed $1 Billion Cut to CDC,Now Attacks Shelter-in-Place Policies for Harming Business

[BeckyDem]

Charles Koch Network Pushed $1 Billion Cut to CDC, Now Attacks Shelter-in-Place Policies for Harming Business


Lee Fang

March 26 2020, 3:20 p.m.

Americans for Prosperity, the pro-corporate pressure group founded and funded by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, wants employees to return to work despite desperate pleas from public health officials that people should stay home as much as possible to help contain the spread of the coronavirus.

As states began to order nonessential businesses to shut down last week, AFP released a statement calling for all businesses to remain open.

“Rather than blanket shutdowns, the government should allow businesses to continue to adapt and innovate to produce the goods and services Americans need, while continuing to do everything they can to protect the public health,” said Emily Seidel, chief executive of AFP, in a press release.

Some of the group’s state chapters have taken a similar tone. AFP Pennsylvania’s state director, as well as a regional director with the group, have taken to Twitter to lambast shelter-in-place policies. The Michigan chapter of AFP on Monday slammed Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home order, which closed down fitness centers, nail salons, amusement parks, casinos, and other businesses deemed nonessential, calling it the “wrong approach for our state.”

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/26/americans-for-prosperity-cdc-coronavirus/

[C_U_L8R]

1. Toilet paper profiteers

Don't be such self-absorbed shitstains. Go back to counting your money and let the rest of us lead healthy happy prosperous lives.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

2. Billionaire business owners want the people to die for them. ....

Because the serfs are not making them money. I would not want to be going to Wallyworld, Target, to church.

Down to their last $100 Billion? Poor babies.

[BeckyDem]

4. There will never be enough money for people like them.

[MontanaMama]

3. Fuck these guys.

Tell them to ramp up toilet paper production and STFU.

[bronxiteforever]

5. Emily Seidel history

AFP, under Siedel, announced a $400 million plan "to protect like-minded incumbents while targeting vulnerable Democrats in key Senate races" according to NBC. Alongside AFP President Tim Phillips, Siedel looks to "target" Democratic Senators Tammy Baldwin (WI), Claire McCaskill (MO), Bill Nelson (FL) and Joe Donnelly

Mike Memoli How the Koch network aims to prevent a 2018 Democratic wave NBC News Jan 29. 2018

Connection to Mike Pence

At the time of his departure from the House in 2010, Seidel served as "Director of Operations" and "Assistant to the Chief of Staff" in the office of now-Vice President Mike Pence

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Emily_Seidel

[BeckyDem]

6. Thanks for adding that.

[bronxiteforever]

10. Thanks for your post! I learn something

new here everyday.

[hatrack]

17. Yeah, and we know how well AFP's political strategery worked out that time . . .

.

[bronxiteforever]

18. Didn't mean to give the impression they are all powerful.

I do think knowing who they are and who they work with is helpful to understanding the opposition. They got kicked in 2018 (and that election saved what’s left of the republic).

They did help elect Scott in Florida in 2016 and for that alone they deserve everlasting opprobrium.

[hatrack]

19. Oh, far from it - key takeaway, IMHO, is that they never stop

Not matter how destructive, how stupid, how illogical their positions, they never stop.

[bronxiteforever]

20. +1 "no matter how destructive" couldn't agree any more.

They never stop. Great way to describe them.

[malaise]

7. Why doesn't he join his rotten brother? n/t

[BeckyDem]

8. ASAP.

[DBoon]

9. Their free market cult now demands human sacrifice

their religion of greed and selfishness is pure evil

[nuxvomica]

11. Jeez, how would it be if 1 million consumers died in a few months?

Would that hurt their business? That's where we might be if we listened to these baciagaloops. They're not just evil, they're stupid evil.

[CousinIT]

12. THEY are why Trump REFUSES to activate DPA. They begged him not to via US Chamber of Commerce

Along with many other businesses/corporations. This is THE reason why Trump refuses to activate Defense Production Act - which would spur fast manufacturing and delivery of PPE, ventilators, etc to places where needed most.

US Chamber of Commerce, on behalf of the Kochs and many other big businesses didn't want to be inconvenienced with the useless task of SAVING LIVES so they begged Trump, Kushner and Kudlow NOT to activate PDA and THAT is why it hasn't been activated.

Kochs, and other fossil fuel, big ag, big chemical companies lobbied them also to SUSPEND ALL EPA REGULATIONS indefinitely too, just to add to the misery. https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/489753-epa-suspends-enforcement-of-environmental-laws-amid-coronavirus#.Xn076UUpiP0.twitter

Koch brothers, all corporate CEOs, big business all over the nation care more about THEIR PROFITS and their being inconvenienced than YOUR or anyone's lives. YOU are supposed to DIE for capitalism and corporate profit.

It's THE definition of psychopathy.

[BeckyDem]

13. I know. Thanks for adding the evidence.

I am sick about it.

[Dustlawyer]

15. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a RW organization working openly and

behind the scenes for their fascists agenda. Through their “Institute for Legal Reform” years ago started secret courthouse newspapers in jurisdictions they had previously identified as “Judicial Hellholes.” They were areas where individuals had obtained big verdicts against corporations. Their goal was to hand out the papers to people coming in for jury duty to poison the juries against plaintiffs. They have several of these papers around the country owned by the Chamber but their name does not appear anywhere on the paper. They have now gone online and become less partisan to make them more believable. The opinion part is where they put their propaganda now.

The one in our county is the Setxrecord.com. There is the Louisiana record, the WVrecord and several more. I cannot get the link to work but they can be googled.

I bet they received a lot of Russian money to put towards Republican campaigns too. Wish some reporters would look into this!

[crickets]

16. Thanks for posting this - deserves its own OP.

If it has been posted before, perhaps it should be posted again. So much info is flying through every day that some important items like this one might easily be missed.

[UpInArms]

14. I will not even wipe my ass with their products

How Koch’s Georgia-Pacific, One Of Country’s Biggest Toilet-Paper Makers, Is Responding To Coronavirus Panic Buying

As consumers have been panic buying toilet paper, shelves at some local supermarkets and drugstores are bare. But how does a manufacturer respond to coronavirus-sparked shortages of this inexpensive commodity?

We reached out to Georgia-Pacific, the paper-products giant owned by Koch Industries, which makes the AngelSoft and Quilted Northern brands, to find out. Koch Industries, one of America’s largest private companies with more than $110 billion in total revenue, is run by Charles Koch, the conservative billionaire behind Americans for Prosperity who’s now worth $40.6 billion by Forbes’ estimates. (His brother David died last summer.)

Consumer-related panic buying due to COVID-19 has caused “a significant increase in orders beginning last week,” Fernando Gonzalez, president of Georgia-Pacific’s consumer business, explained by email. “These increases have been as high as two times our normal demand.” However, Georgia-Pacific also sells its toilet tissue to hotels and businesses, and the B2B part of its business has been softer; the company expects those sales to decline as consumers ditch their business travel and vacation plans.