The War on the Koch Brothers
July 19, 2017 — Steven Hayward
I offered a long reflection here the other day on what is shaping up as the most scandalously bad book since Michael Bellesiles’s fraudulent Arming America—Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains. I decided to get a copy for myself (despite complaining that the criticism of the book is yet another Koch-directed conspiracy, MacLean must be delighted that the controversy is juicing sales), and there is literally a howler on every page.
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April 9, 2017 — Steven Hayward
The greenies have their hemp knickers in a twist because Trump’s proposed budget will zero-out the Department of Energy and EPA “Energy Star” program, which, like elementary school teachers passing out gold stars to well-behaved pupils, awards “Energy Star” certification to businesses that build inferior washing machines, dishwashers, glum light bulbs, etc. So here’s a piece of brilliant news that may well make the greenies change their mind: Koch Industries
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January 2, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Politico has a curious story out about how Donald Trump a few days ago ejected from his Palm Beach golf course Harry Hurt, who wrote critically of Trump 20 years ago. Now, this might be just another tale in the long roster of evidence of Trump’s thin skin or vindictiveness, but for one important detail: Hurt was playing in a foursome with David Koch (cue evil sinister music now if
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January 13, 2016 — John Hinderaker
I wrote here about a new book by the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, which continues her vendetta against Charles and David Koch. In her book, as reported and headlined by the New York Times, Mayer breathlessly claims that the brothers’ father, Fred Koch, through a company called Winkler-Koch, designed a portion of an oil refinery that was built in Hamburg, Germany, between 1933 and 1935. What’s the point? There is
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January 12, 2016 — John Hinderaker
Jane Mayer of the New Yorker is not just a bad reporter, but a detestable one. She habitually deceives her readers in order to advance a left-wing agenda. One of her most outrageous hit pieces, published in the New Yorker in 2010, focused on Charles and David Koch and was the source for much of the slander that the Left has directed toward them since that time. Now we learn
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September 30, 2015 — John Hinderaker
Politico reports that Senate Democrats are plotting, once again, to make attacks on Charles and David Koch a centerpiece of their 2016 campaign: A coalition of deep-pocketed liberal groups ― including a pair of super PACs backing Hillary Clinton ― has been meeting quietly for months, examining the 2016 map and plotting attacks against the powerful Koch brothers’ network. At midday Thursday, the architect of that effort, Clinton antagonist-turned-enforcer David
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August 26, 2015 — John Hinderaker
The conventional wisdom is that Barack Obama is a nice guy but an incompetent president. I think this gives him too much credit. There is a reason why Obama is the most divisive president since the Civil War: he is, for a holder of that office, uniquely mean-spirited. On Monday in Las Vegas, Obama launched a personal attack against those who disagree with his energy policies. He began by hailing
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March 19, 2015 — John Hinderaker
It didn’t start with global warming: environmentalists have been distorting (and sometimes fabricating) facts for a long time. As a result, most people have learned to view environmentalists’ claims with skepticism. Here is a case in point. A group called Environment Minnesota started a petition campaign against Flint Hills Resources, which operates the Pine Bend refinery in Rosemount, Minnesota. Pine Bend is one of two refineries in the state. Environment
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February 20, 2015 — Steven Hayward
KDS stands for “Koch Derangement Syndrome,” and it is known to cause politicians to engage in all manner of self-flagellation, most especially Harry Reid. There are two stories out today suggesting Reid is going to want to punch himself in the mirror even harder than he did at Christmas following the Dems’ 2014 midterm wipeout. The Washington Times reports today that Democratic Party strategists have concluded that their Koch obsession
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December 17, 2014 — Scott Johnson
A Power Line reader copies us on his letter to the editor of the Washington Post. His letter presumably will not see the light of day in the Post. I have lightly edited the letter and added internal links: To the Editor: The Washington Post suggests using a fictional rape as a jumping off point for finding solutions, likely draconian, to the “issue of rape on college campuses” (“After the
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December 16, 2014 — John Hinderaker
Conservatives often express frustration that so little, seemingly, can be done about the corruption of the Obama administration. Part of the problem is that when a party is determined to stonewall, our legal system is generally too slow to provide an effective remedy within the time frame of a presidential administration. The case of Austan Goolsbee is instructive. In August 2010, Goolsbee, who directed Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board and
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December 4, 2014 — Steven Hayward
Most big businesses that decry “big government” and “Washington interference” also lobby heavily for favorable tax treatment and anti-competitive regulations. So it is worth noting that Koch Industries (cue evil mustache-twirl music now if you are a mindless liberal) is publicly arguing right now to let expire all of the “temporary” tax “extender” measures that Congress likes to roll over every year and that benefit a number of Koch’s own
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November 8, 2014 — John Hinderaker
Gail Collins has a column on the Keystone Pipeline in today’s New York Times. It illustrates why so many consider the Times to be the last redoubt of the ignorant. Collins begins by complaining that Republicans, victorious in last week’s election, keep mentioning approval of Keystone as something the new Congress will do. Which is bad because…well, she never says. Republicans talk about Keystone because it is low-hanging fruit, something
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November 5, 2014 — John Hinderaker
One of the happy consequences of last night’s Republican sweep is that several obnoxious themes on which Democrats have relied will now, presumably, be put out to pasture. These include the moronic “war on women,” which ostensibly worked in 2012 but fell on its face this year. Someone forgot to tell Joni Ernst, Elise Stefanik, Mia Love, and countless other Republican women who stuck it to the Democrats. A second
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October 15, 2014 — John Hinderaker
The Democrats, hard up for issues to run on this year, decided to try to run against Charles and David Koch. This strategy was counterintuitive, since most people had no idea who the Kochs are, and voters are notoriously indifferent to campaign finance issues. But the Democrats pressed ahead, holding press conferences, denouncing the Kochs on the Senate floor, producing videos, and spending untold millions on campaign ads tying Republican
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October 7, 2014 — John Hinderaker
There are lots of good reasons to hope that the Democrats suffer a humiliating defeat in November, and this one is pretty far down the list. Still, it isn’t insignificant: as we have documented over and over, the Democrats, from the White House and Harry Reid on down, have run this year’s campaign largely against Charles and David Koch. It is rare for the Democratic Party to send out a
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September 25, 2014 — John Hinderaker
Rolling Stone has declined badly since the days when it employed P.J. O’Rourke as its foreign correspondent. The magazine falls a little farther with this month’s issue, which features the most uninspired hit piece on Koch Industries yet to appear in print. Timed to reinforce the Democrats’ campaign theme, Tim Dickinson’s article contains no original reporting, but merely regurgitates tired and discredited stories about Koch’s alleged misdeeds over the decades.
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