The Koch Brothers have “distorted democracy”, held a “war on climate”, built a vast network of “climate disinformation think tanks”, and we can apparently blame them for “congressional inaction“. But now (oh No) Greenpeace, DeSmog, Think Progress, Naomi Oreskes and fan-followers must be in meltdown, for it turns out there are 58 more powerful forces in US politics! Donations to US political parties were tallied from 1989 – 2012 by Open Secrets and the most powerful donors by far are the unions.
Washington Examiner: “Six of the top 10 are … wait for it … unions. They gave more than $278 million, with most of it going to Democrats.
These are familiar names: AFSCME ($60.6 million), NEA ($53.5 million), IBEW ($44.4 million), UAW ($41.6 million), Carpenters & Joiners ($39.2 million) and SEIU ($38.3 million).
In other words, the six biggest union donors in American politics gave 15 times more to mostly Democrats than the Evil Koch Bros.
Others in the top ten were AT&T, Goldman Sachs, and ActBlue. Three quarters of the top 16 donors sent most of their money to the Democrats. The other quarter split it between both sides of politics. All up, the unions dominated the donor table — there are 18 unions putting in more money to politics than the Koch Brothers.
But the Koch’s are doing a corporate takeover of government from position 59:
Greenpeace: “Today, the Kochs are being watched as a prime example of the corporate takeover of government. Their funding and co-opting of the Tea Party movement is now well documented.”
Presumably Greenpeace is now protesting about the union takeover of government? Or rather, since the Kochs achieved so much with so little, and from number 59, Greenpeace is telling the unions to stop giving money to the Democrats — it’s obviously a waste.
Strap yourself in, the Koch brothers are so influential, they are the excuse for why Obama “should” override congress. Who needs voting any more? (In fact, the US could skip the congress part, just make the Big O a throne and call him King.)
Koch Brothers Pledge Helped Kill Climate Change Legislation: Report
When President Obama rolled out his climate strategy last week, he made a point to sidestep Congress and take executive action — and with good reason. A two-year study conducted by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University offers some insight into how Charles and David Koch have helped systematically derail climate legislation on Capitol Hill. [Huff Post]
Meanwhile the Washington Post laments that there is no Democratic version of the Kochs.
But for the Democratic professionals who actually run campaigns, the thing that frustrates them most about the Koch brothers network is that there’s no real equivalent on their side.
That’s because big Democratic donors and big Republican donors are motivated by different types of issues, and therefore give differently, according to Democratic strategists who deal frequently with high-dollar donors.
Apparently the Republican donors only want to make profits, which means it’s easy to find donors. It’s an “investment” for them. Democrats, we are told, care about social issues, and they pay tax too. It’s not like donors to the Democratic party make money off government handouts, or depend on subsidies and environmental laws for their very existence? Heck no.
On the Democratic side, the opposite is the case. Heavyweights in the Democratic donor community pay the same tax rates as their Republican counterparts, and cuts to the capital gains tax or the higher brackets of the income tax benefit them financially, too.
This reasoning is quite spectacular:
If fiscal issues were the only things driving their giving habits, Democratic donors would support the same politicians that Republican donors do.
So fiscal issues are the same for all businesses, whether they compete in the free market or feed off the handouts? An entire side of the economy is invisible here: the idea that one type of business might want to hobble competitors through environmental rules that favor their product is not even on the radar. Or how about financial houses that might want the government to invent a spurious market in an invisible product and then make participation compulsory. The brokerage on a $2 trillion dollar market is pretty neat. Neither could there be scientists whose careers and junkets depend upon solving a scare which might not be so scary.
Big-government loving commentators hate the Koch’s.
The collectivists need their enemies don’t they? Just as they need to invent messiahs.
h/t Marc Morano Climate Depot