Criminals, money and extreme conservatism are a lethal mix for democracy.

[seafan]

An absolute blockbuster investigative piece on the criminality of Koch Industries, Inc., is in the November issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine.


It is corporate criminals such as these, with vast amounts of money, who are destroying our electoral process and the democratic foundation of our country.



Koch Brothers Flout Law With Secret Iran Sales, Bloomberg, Oct 3, 2011 1:28 PM ET

In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the world’s largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France. In less than a week, she discovered that the company had paid bribes to win contracts.

.....

She immediately notified her supervisors in the U.S. A week later, Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries dispatched an investigative team to look into her findings, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its November issue.

By September of that year, the researchers had found evidence of improper payments to secure contracts in six countries dating back to 2002, authorized by the business director of the company’s Koch-Glitsch affiliate in France.

“Those activities constitute violations of criminal law,” Koch Industries wrote in a Dec. 8, 2008, letter giving details of its findings. The letter was made public in a civil court ruling in France in September 2010; the document has never before been reported by the media.

.....

And, what happened to Egorova-Farines, for her investigative discovery? She was removed from the inquiry 3 months later, then fired in June, 2009, after specious accusations by Koch management of "incompetence". According to the Bloomberg piece, she is suing for wrongful termination.



That article is a MUST read.


From Talking Points Memo:

.....

Koch Industries is owned by the billionaire and conservative activist brothers David and Charles Koch. The Koch brothers are known for pouring money into pet conservative causes and Tea Party activities, so much so that Jane Mayer of the New Yorker wrote that they've become known as the "Kochtopus" in political circles.

The company, which is famously secretive about its dealings and finances, scrambled last week to discredit the Bloomberg story before it came out, Justin Elliott of Salon reported.

Here is another little detail we aren't forgetting about:


Marco Rubio, the No. 1 recipient of Koch money in 2010 Senate races, March 23, 2011




And right wingers lie in wait, salivating at the prospect of this Jeb Bush apprentice on next year's presidential ticket.


Behold, the corrosive influence of dirty money, controlled by extreme right wing corporate ideologues who are steeped in the arrogance of mammoth greed.



David and Charles Koch
(Via TPM)


"Kochtopus".


This is what is strangling our democracy.

[ixion]

1. mix in a bunch of ideologue Dems

who put party over country, and you've got quite a mixture.

[Supersedeas]

2. follow the money and find the dirty politicians

[pnorman]

3. K & R!

n/t