Lockdown zealots embrace conspiracy theory

Quacks in the Ivory Tower: How Conspiracy Theorizing Took Over Lockdown Science | American Institute of Economic Research - Philip W. Magness:

June 19, 2021 - "Is the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) simply a front for a secret global eugenics plot, hatched at AIER [American Institute of Economic Affairs] by the British Ministry of Defence and financed by the Koch Brothers as part of an ongoing effort to force climate change, tobacco, and Covid-19 infections on our senior citizens? Such claims may sound like the farcical ravings of an internet paranoiac, yet precisely this narrative has gained a shocking amount of currency among ostensibly serious public health scientists and journalists since the Declaration launched last October 4th....

"Nafeez Ahmed, a writer from a London-based blog called the Byline Times ... has spent the better part of the last year posting conspiratorial bromides against scientists who question lockdown ideology. Fresh off of an unsuccessful Twitter campaign to flood the GBD’s website with fraudulent signatures during the week after it went live, Ahmed shifted his tack in mid-October with a new charge. In a succession of blog posts, he purported to show that the GBD was part of an elaborate scheme by libertarian billionaire Charles Koch to force the reopening of the American economy in spite of Covid’s risks, using AIER as its front. After outlining the financial portion of his conspiracy theory, Ahmed quickly appended a new 'partner' in the alleged plot: the British Ministry of Defence, which he implied to be the source behind the GBD’s website. To top it off, this growing plot was allegedly orchestrated through the owner of a resort hotel in Wales....

"Contrary to Ahmed’s wild imagination, Charles Koch had absolutely no involvement with the Great Barrington Declaration or AIER’s hosting of the conference that produced it  ... (the few exceptions where a Koch-network organization has weighed in on the subject at all tend to take a pro-lockdown stance, such as the Mercatus Center’s Tyler Cowen, who awarded a research prize to Neil Ferguson of Imperial College for his Covid-19 lockdown model. AIER was one of the first high-profile critics of Ferguson’s model and continues to track its abysmal performance over the last year.)

"Although Ahmed’s batty narrative about the GBD’s origins does not withstand even minimal scrutiny, his conspiracy theories spread like wildfire on the pro-lockdown side of the epidemiology profession, and among the journalistic outlets that support them.... Paul Krugman ... promoted the product of Ahmed’s ravings.... Several of the most widely-quoted critics of the Great Barrington Declaration in the press seized on the same narrative and began repeating tall tales about nonexistent funding sources and the wholly imaginary British Ministry of Defense website scheme. Some even added new fringe theories of their own.... 

"David Gorski, a professor of medicine at Wayne State University and one of the media’s favorite go-to sources for quotes denouncing the GBD, published a blog post on October 12th where he liberally quoted and endorsed Ahmed’s conspiracy theories.... Gorski appended his own paranoid attack by branding the GBD a 'eugenics-adjacent' plot to cull and 'sacrific[e] the elderly' in the name of economics.... Gorski’s attacks are not only symptomatic of a deeply disturbed state of mind – they’re unbecoming of a scientific professional, let alone one that the media enlists for expert quotations as a primary interlocutor of the GBD.

"So did Eric Feigl-Ding*, one of social media’s most aggressive promoters of school closures and the fringe 'Zero Covid' theory. Deepti Gurdasani* of Queen Mary University in London, a principal organizer of the pro-lockdown John Snow Memorandum, similarly promoted the Byline Times conspiracy theories about the GBD’s funding. As did Gabriel Scally*, a UK-based epidemiologist who serves the pro-lockdown 'Independent SAGE' group. David Fisman*, a Canadian epidemiologist who aggressively pushed for lockdowns and school closures in Ontario, is another fan of Ahmed’s conspiracy theories....

"Justin Feldman*, a self-described 'epidemiologist of social inequality' at Harvard, ... has published a nonstop stream of frenzied allegations against lockdown critics in the public health profession, usually consisting of unsubstantiated innuendo about shady pecuniary motives behind their scholarship.

"Duke University epidemiologist Gavin Yamey* offered a 'huge shoutout to Dr. Nafeez Ahmed' for supposedly uncovering the bizarre conspiracy linking the GBD website to the British Ministry of Defense and the Welsh hotel proprietor. Elsewhere he praised the Byline Times’s 'great investigative journalism' about the GBD. Half a year later he still asserts that 'Charles Koch shaped [pandemic] policy in the US' through a group of scientists who have no tangible connection to Koch’s philanthropy.

"Columbia University virologist Angela Rasmussen*, another frequent critic of the GBD in the press, embraced the funding conspiracy theory ... accusing the three scientists of being part of a 'propaganda campaign' in the service of AIER’s supposed goal of 'ignore the pandemic, let’s get back to making money via unfettered capitalism.'

"Martin McKee*, a public health professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who denounced the GBD as a 'fringe view' shortly after its publication, has a habit of giving his endorsement to Ahmed’s conspiracy theories about the very same document. Ahmed’s crazy tales of intrigue have another fan in Robert Dickinson*, a professor of medicine at Imperial College London and signer of the pro-lockdown John Snow Memorandum. Snow Memorandum signer Hisham Ziauddeen* promotes the same conspiratorial claims, in addition to his own blogging against the GBD for Ahmed’s outlet. Epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves of Yale, another of the media’s favorite sources for ad hominem-laced anti-GBD hot takes, apparently concurs with Ahmed’s paranoid ravings. So does the University of Washington’s Carl Bergstrom*, another press favorite for expert statements defending lockdowns. 

"Keep in mind that these endorsements of Ahmed involve claims that are not simply dubious or uncharitable interpretations – they are factual falsehoods that have entered the talking points of scientific experts who simply agree with their associated political connotations and believe that repeating them enough will discredit an opposing viewpoint. As matters of scientific analysis though, it would not be inaccurate at this point to state that leading academics on the pro-lockdown side of the Covid political debate are now regularly relying upon the paranoid ravings of a conspiracist blogger as one of their primary sources for attacks upon the Great Barrington Declaration."

Read more: https://www.aier.org/article/quacks-in-the-ivory-tower-how-conspiracy-theorizing-took-over-lockdown-science/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

* - signatories of the John Snow Memorandum

Lockdowns and libertarianism (1)

by George J. Dance

In October, just as in March, a wave of coronavirus swept through Europe, followed predictably by a new wave of media and public panic leading to lockdowns. One by one, like dominoes, democratic governments in Europe – Ireland, Czechia, Spain, Poland, Italy, France, Germany, and finally the UK –fell to the latter wave, with only a few  (notably Norway and Sweden)  managing to resist being swept under by it. 

Unlike March, though, when the voice of panic was all that one heard, this time some dissenting voices managed to make themselves heard as well. This time, even the mainstream media has had to take note of: 

an increasingly heated [public] debate between two unlikely groupings of scientists, columnists, campaigners and politicians.
On one side there are the lockdowners. They think the only hope of triumphing over Covid-19 is shutdowns to bring numbers of cases back under control. Pubs and restaurants may have to close and households once again may be told not to mix.
On the other are the libertarians. They say we cannot return to those days because it would trigger an economic collapse and allow thousands of untreated cases of cancer, heart ailments and other diseases to mount. Tens of thousands might die, they say. (stress added).

"Each side points to different nations that have had greater success than Britain in fighting Covid-19, albeit with very different policies," the news story continues. "Each has attracted its own set of cheerleaders, politicians and journalists, as well as scientists who have also adopted strong contrasting stances." Some of the scientists have even produced duelling manifestos: for the libertarians, the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD), which advocates for "allow[ing] those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally;" for the lockdowners the John Snow Memorandum, which calls that very idea "a dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence." 

Some people dislike those terms. On the lockdowner side, for instance, economist Tyler Cowen insists that "the emphasis on lockdowns is a strawman," on the grounds that current U.S. lockdowns "are not severe," with relatively few activities on the prohibited list (though he quickly adds that "that list should be expanded"). On the libertarian side, epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta (a co-author of GBD) objects that her politics are Left-leaning, and that she disagrees with libertarians "about the distribution of wealth, about the importance of the Welfare State, about the need for publicly owned utilities and government investment in nationalised industries." 

Since Prof. Gupta has been vilified as a "right wing libertarian extremist" (and even a minion of Charles Koch), one must emphasize the point she is making. Many if not most lockdown opponents are not  libertarians on other issues, and philosophically many are not libertarians at all. (Perhaps 'Covid libertarians' would be a better term.) Still, the key recommendation of GBD – "Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal" while "People who are more at risk may participate if they wish" – is the libertarian position on lockdowns, and its supporters (like it or not) are libertarians on this particular issue. 

Libertarians believe in individual human rights, which limit what any person or group (including a government) may do to a person. Though 'liberty' gets most of the attention, those human rights include rights to life, liberty, and property. Calling those 'rights' simply means that harming another's life (by killing, maiming, or raping), liberty (by enslaving or confining) or property (by taking or vandalizing) is a wrongful act that should be prohibited. 

Lockdowns involve various measures to restrict people's movements and actions: by preventing them crossing a city or state boundary, or travelling only a few miles, or even leaving their own homes; from using the public streets or sidewalks; from working or shopping, by closing businesses; and from meeting with small groups of people (in the extreme case, from meeting with any people). All of those measures are compulsory mandates, enforced by coercion  – by the police power. They violate rights to property (ask the bankrupt businessmen) and liberty (our normal rights to work, travel, shop, dine out, visit friends)  – and, as GBD emphasizes, they do not respect our right to life, either. Lockdowns kill.

Libertarians cannot reject lockdowns merely because they are coercive, though, because libertarians do not reject coercion per se. Almost all libertarians (pacifists being the major exception) would allow coercion to prevent people from violating others' rights; which justifies some use of police power in a pandemic. As libertarian philosophy professor Jeffrey Huemer (quoted by Amitai Etzioni in the National Interest) puts it, "“Preventing the spread of infectious disease is within the legitimate functions of the minimal state, which most libertarians accept.” 

Some libertarians try to argue in good faith from that position to lockdowns. A typical argument goes like something like this: 

1. Governments may use coercion to stop any person from violating another person's rights.
2. For person A to give another person B a potentially deadly disease is a violation of person B's right to life. 
3. Therefore, a government may use coercion to prevent person A from giving Covid-19 to person B.

The argument is sound. But it is not an argument for lockdowns. It is an argument for quarantining someone who is known to be (or at least can be reasonably suspected of) giving others Covid; that is, for quarantining the contagious. Quarantine is a power that can be misused; but as per the above argument a libertarian can accept that there is a police power to quarantine. Like all government powers, it should be used as a last resort, if consent cannot be procured, and the quarantined person should have full procedural rights (to testing and a medical examination, for instance). 

The argument's conclusion, though, cannot be stretched into an argument for 'quarantining' the entire 'non-essential' population, because most of that population is not contagious. As many as 90% of Americans have never had Covid-19. 60% of those who have had the disease no longer have it. And 90% of those who do test positive for it play virtually no role in spreading it. None of these people poses a danger to anyone's right to life. The comparative few who do pose a danger, on the other hand, can just as easily be among the 'essential,' still active in the community, as among the segregated 'non-essential.' As uses of the police power to quarantine, lockdowns are both overly broad – as they are used to coerce contagious and non-contagious, innocent and culpable, alike – and also not broad enough, as they fail to quarantine all the culpable. 

Another libertarian philosophy professor quoted by Etzioni, Dan Moller, argues that "What's weird about a pandemic is that our everyday behavior suddenly puts others at risk  – just showing up to work can have huge negative externalities. So libertarians see restrictions on individual liberty in a pandemic as akin to restrictions on pollution." It is instructive to examine the analogy. Governments can and will restrict a known polluter, if they have clear evidence that the company is polluting, and that the pollution is harming someone's health (and therefore violating that person's right to life). They have never claimed the power to shut down all the 'non-essential' businesses, on the grounds that some of them are polluting and they cannot tell which ones are and which ones are not. Yet that is the power being claimed to justify lockdowns.    

Etzioni also quotes the old libertarian chestnut, "My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins," variants of which he tells us were famously said by Abraham Lincoln, John Stuart Mill, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (The above quote is Lincoln's version.) That is indeed a good libertarian statement, which draws the boundary between competing rights quite well. But, once again, it is not a statement that justifies lockdowns. The latter would be something like: 

In order to save noses, everyone must be handcuffed in the back so they cannot swing their fists (except, of course, when we think it is essential that you be allowed to swing your fist). What, you don't want to wear the handcuffs? Why do you want to give your Granny a bloody nose?

Now, that sounds like what a lockdowner would say. As for me, though, I'll stick with how Lincoln and Mill put it. 

Also read: Lockdowns and libertarianism (2)

Izzit.org promotes free society with free videos

Videos used by schools question minimum wage, climate change | Toronto CiryNews - Matthew Barakat, Associated Press:

February 5, 2020 - "The federal judge’s message to an assembly of social studies students at a Virginia high school seemed straightforward: Courts too often meddle in the affairs of private commerce. The senior appellate judge, Douglas Ginsburg, was talking about the Constitution, telling students how the courts got it wrong by ruling that the commerce clause gave the federal government authority to regulate the cats that roam author Ernest Hemingway’s former home in Key West. 'The Framers didn’t design an almighty federal government that could reach down right into your backyard,' the conservative judge said on a video shown during the presentation.

"Ginsburg’s appearance at Justice High School was a collaborative project between Fairfax County Public Schools and a group called Izzit.org, which provides educational materials and videos to students across the country. Izzit’s materials have a decidedly libertarian outlook, though that’s not always immediately apparent to the teachers who download their free content. A video that questions the rationale for minimum wage laws is under math, for example.

"Another video, called 'Unstoppable Solar Cycles,' downplays man’s role in climate change. The video comes with a quiz in which the correct answer is that man 'plays a small part in global warming.' Another, called 'I am Human,' questions 'America’s historical obsession with race' with criticism of former President Barack Obama for choosing to identify as African American rather than biracial.

Fairfax County schools, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., defended its collaboration with Izzit. 'Izzit is an educational non-profit that specializes in creating free, standards-aligned content for educators that fosters critical thinking and respectful debate,' the school system said in a statement....

"Samantha Parsons, who works for UnKoch My Campus, said Izzit’s work fits with the agenda of the Charles Koch Foundation, which has given hundreds of millions of dollars to colleges in recent years to bolster what Parsons and others have said is an effort to promote right-wing ideology on campuses. She said Izzit, like the Kochs, uses words like 'liberty' and 'freedom' to mask its right-wing agenda....

"Izzit President and Chief Executive Rob Chatfield said Izzit advocates a distinct philosophical perspective. He was reluctant to categorize it as conservative or even libertarian, because he said those terms carry a political connotation that Izzit has no interest in promoting. 'It’s that people who are free tend to be happier, wealthier,' he said. 'If that’s the underlying theme that students pick up on, we’ve done our job.'

"Tax records show the Koch Foundation gave $83,000 in 2016 and 2017 to Izzit’s parent company, the Erie, Pennsylvania-based Free to Choose Network, according to tax documents. Chatfield, though, said Izzit itself has never received direct funding from the Koch network and primarily gets its funding from 'self-made entrepreneurs.'

"Izzit, founded in 2006, says its goal is to 'help educators teach the next generation about the ideas, institutions, and benefits of a free society.' More than 300,000 teachers — most in public schools — across the country use its materials, Chatfield said."

Read more: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2020/02/18/videos-used-by-schools-question-minimum-wage-climate-change/

Also read: Stossel teaches kids about free market (video)

Libertarians have shifted the Overton Window

How David Koch’s 1980 Fantasy Became America’s Current Reality | The New Republic - Adam Eichen:

August 27, 2019 - "Billionaire fossil fuel mogul David Koch ... will rightfully be remembered for his role in the destruction of the earth [by whom? - ed.].... Ronald Reagan may have uttered the famous words 'Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem' back in 1981 — but it was David Koch, along with his elder brother Charles and a cabal of other ultrarich individuals, who truly reframed the popular view of government. Once [seen  as] a democratic tool used to shape the country’s future, government became seen as something intrusive and inefficient — indeed, something to be feared.

"David Koch was particularly instrumental in legitimizing anti-government ideology — one the GOP now holds as gospel. In 1980, the younger Koch ran as the vice-presidential nominee for the nascent Libertarian Party. And ... Koch personally donated more than $2 million to the party — an astounding amount for the time — to promote the Ed Clark–David Koch ticket.... In fact, according to [Lisa] Graves, 'The Koch-funded Libertarian Party helped spur on Ronald Reagan’s anti-government, free-market-solves-all agenda as president.'

"Even by contemporary standards, the 1980 Libertarian Party platform was extreme. It called for the abolition of a wide swath of federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Bureau of Land Management, the Federal Election Commission, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Federal Trade Commission, and 'all government agencies concerned with transportation.' It railed against campaign finance and consumer protection laws, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, any regulations of the firearm industry (including tear gas), and government intervention in labor negotiations. And the platform demanded the repeal of all taxation, and sought amnesty for those convicted of tax 'resistance.'

"Koch and his libertarian allies moreover advocated for the repeal of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other social programs. They wanted to abolish federally mandated speed limits. They opposed occupational licensure, antitrust laws, labor laws protecting women and children, and 'all controls on wages, prices, rents, profits, production, and interest rates.' And in true libertarian fashion, the platform urged the privatization of all schools (with an end to compulsory education laws), the railroad system, public roads and the national highway system, inland waterways, water distribution systems, public lands, and dam sites.

"The Libertarian Party never made much of a splash in the election — though it did garner almost 12 percent of the vote in Alaska — but doing so was never the point. Rather, the Kochs were engaged in a long-term effort to normalize the aforementioned ideas and mainstream them into American politics. Building off the Libertarian campaign, Graves explained, 'David and Charles then used their front groups to pull the Reagan Administration further to the right with their push to privatize across the board.' With their army of think tanks, front groups, lobbyists, and media ties, this multimillion dollar effort to shift the Overton Window grew for nearly four decades, culminating in the takeover of many core political institutions, federally and in key states. The duo additionally capitalized on the anti-government Tea Party movement, which they greatly helped along by bankrolling the conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity.

"The Koch’s Ayn Rand–inspired hellscape has yet to completely come to fruition, but the ideas the duo promoted are now part of the regular discourse — and have been for a while."

Read more: https://newrepublic.com/article/154849/david-koch-1980-fantasy
'via Blog this'

See also: Understanding the Overton Window

Carlson & Graham: libertarians run Washington

The bizarre fiction of libertarians' control of Washington - Bonnie Kristian, The Week:

October 9, 2019 - "It is with great pleasure that I announce to my fellow libertarians: We have won.

"We thought ourselves the acolytes of a largely ignored vision for American governance. We saw a $22 trillion national debt ... while both major parties bailed out big business, using tax dollars to paper over the consequences of bad policy calls. We watched the rise of the post-9/11 security state — mass digital surveillance, the terror watchlist, the TSA.... We wondered if these numerous and apparently permanent wars, with their deplorable carelessness about civilian casualties, war crimes, and due process, would ever end. We objected to the brutality and militarization of American law enforcement.... We talked about abolishing the Federal Reserve, ending the drug war, eliminating entire federal departments, and more, all with relatively little reason to believe our goals would ever be realized on any mass scale....

"But we were wrong! We didn't realize it, but we controlled Washington this whole time. This is big news for us, and I think we owe Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) a huge thanks for letting us know.

"Carlson was the first to give us an inkling of our true power. 'The leadership class is resolutely libertarian,' he revealed in early June, bemoaning Washington's plentiful 'libertarian zealot[s] controlled by the banks, yammering on about entrepreneurship and how we need to cut entitlements.' Later that month, he indicated this dynamic exists because the Koch brothers are 'libertarian ideologues, passionate and inflexible' who 'run the Republican Party,' dictating the GOP platform on key issues including immigration, drug and prison policy, and free speech.

"You may find this surprising — I know I did! — as it seems to bear little resemblance to the actual state of Republican policymaking in 2019. On immigration, for example, the bulk of the GOP has followed Trump into calls for strict border security and limited refugee and immigrant admissions ... but the Koch brothers' perspective Carlson decries includes support for DACA and liberalized immigration policy more generally.... Carlson correctly noted Koch support for the First Step Act, but libertarians like yours truly deemed it a limited achievement. Is backing it anyway what it means to be ideologically 'inflexible'?.... And as for free speech, we do tend to be passionate about the First Amendment.... Rising GOP stars like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), by contrast, back proposals that would, as National Review's David French put it, 'invite an enormous amount of bureaucratic meddling online'....

"Even more surprising for me was Graham's disclosure this week that we libertarians also control America's foreign policy. 'The Obama-libertarian foreign policy does not make America safe,' the hawkish senator tweeted Monday in response to Trump's reshuffling of U.S. troops in Syria. 'If ignoring radical Islam made America safe, there would NOT have been a 9/11.'

"I never would have guessed libertarians dictated U.S. foreign affairs not only from 2008 to 2016 but also in the run-up to 9/11. I thought we were very angry about American foreign policy in those years, always complaining about the blowback, the drone strikes, the unconstitutional executive war-making, the attacks on innocent civilians, the costly and incompetent nation-building efforts, and so on. I thought we were always raising objections to former President Barack Obama's foreign policy on pretty much every possible basis.... Little did we know we were Obama's puppet masters all along!...

"I jest, obviously, but only because it is enormously bizarre to find oneself attacked in wildly inaccurate effigy. The most plausible explanation I can muster for this fiction of libertarian power is that libertarianism is in broad strokes the opposite of the Trumpian GOP's ... current mood of state-enforced social conservatism and what Carlson has dubbed 'economic patriotism,' which we would call protectionism, corporatism, and rank profligacy....

"Libertarians may sometimes punch above our weight in national debate, but when it comes to effectively wielding power in Washington, we're weaklings. I wish Carlson and Graham were right about us running the country. The reality is they're wrong."

Read more: https://theweek.com/articles/870276/bizarre-fiction-libertarians-control-washington
'via Blog this'

“David Koch walked the walk” says Reason editor

“David Koch walked the walk” - Vox - Jane Coaston:

August 23, 2019 - "David Koch, the billionaire industrialist who, together with his brother Charles, ran one of the most influential (and controversial) political giving operations, died Friday at the age of 79. A libertarian, Koch was nevertheless one of the most powerful forces in conservative politics, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to back conservative candidates in elections on every level and pouring millions more into think tanks....

"At their core, the Koch brothers were 'fundamentally, philosophically libertarian,' says Nick Gillespie, editor at large of Reason Magazine , a monthly libertarian publication ... published by the Reason Foundation.... Koch served as a trustee of the foundation for 36 years and was a major donor....  I spoke with Gillespie, who was also formerly Reason’s editor-in-chief, about David Koch’s impact on libertarian politics and politics at large"....

Nick Gillespie; "David and Charles Koch, ... more than any two people, are responsible for the postwar, post-’60s libertarian movement. They’re fundamentally, philosophically libertarian — they believe that individuals should be given as much freedom to innovate and to create the wealth that they want to, based on mutual respect for people’s rights and things like that. If you look back toward the end of the ’80s, in an MIT alumni survey, they asked, 'Graduates, what are you most proud of?' And Koch said he was most proud of running for vice president on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980....

"They’re fundamentally libertarian. They think that individuals have rights that should be respected always and everywhere. And that also meant that they’re not religious, they’re not pushing a narrow morality. They were anti-intervention, ... they were against corporate welfare, they were against special rules for connected people. David Koch walked the walk. He believed in free minds and free markets, and believed in making the world better through good business practice and good philanthropic practice...."

"It’s impossible to underestimate or to understate the impact that he had in growing a variety of institutions that created an intellectual architecture of framework for libertarian ideas. So whether it’s through his board membership and contributions to Reason or to other groups, including philanthropic groups, he helped fund a ton of people who learned how to think about ideas in a pre-political way. And I think this is part of what neither the right or the left nor journalists get about the Kochs ... that ultimately they’re more interested in what happens before politics.

"It’s about a worldview, and it’s a worldview that, again, is classically liberal in that it celebrates local cultures and local traditions, but then it also blends that with the kind of cosmopolitanism that comes out of a kind of appreciation for universal human rights and the idea that we’re all equal and we should try and discover how best to live our lives. And I think that’s his main legacy to the libertarian movement: helping to bolster and create and fund the institutions that allow libertarian ideas and thought to flourish."

Read more: https://www.vox.com/2019/8/23/20829962/david-koch-libertarian-legacy
'via Blog this'

Koch legacy alive and thriving: The Guardian

The Kochtopus: sprawling network keeps David Koch's legacy thriving | US news | The Guardian - Ed Pilkington:

August 23, 2019 - "In September 2010, David and Charles Koch, the fabulously rich brothers who turned an oil and manufacturing empire inherited from their father into a cash cow for rightwing causes that would change American politics, sent out a letter to conservative power brokers inviting them to ... an event that was to become known as 'Freedom Partners': a twice-yearly gathering, convened in utmost secrecy, of some of the most wealthy and powerful rightwing players in the country. To attract their guests they included a brochure from a previous Koch gathering in Aspen, where the elite attendees had sat around in mountainous splendor discussing, among other issues: 'Is America on the Road to Serfdom?'

"The most intriguing part of the brochure was a roll-call of names of those lured to previous 'Freedom Partner' gatherings. It included the current vice-president, Mike Pence; the Wisconsin politician Paul Ryan, who would go on to become speaker of the House of Representatives; super-donors such as the hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, and most intriguingly of all two conservative justices of the US supreme court, Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia. That the brothers could bring under one roof top politicians, billionaire donors and senior judges to plot the future of America on a free-market, anti-government course illustrated the scale of their ambitions and the influence they wielded....

"Many date the rise of the Kochs to 2010, the year in which the highly contentious landmark supreme court ruling Citizens United (approved by both Scalia and Thomas) opened the floodgates to corporate money in elections. The Kochs leveraged their affiliated organizations to raise well over $100m in the 2012 presidential election alone....

"Koch’s ... self-interested desire to drive government out of the US economy by undermining regulations and slashing corporate taxes started to firm up in 1980, when he stood as the Libertarian party’s vice-presidential candidate.... In 1977 he supported Charles in founding and funding the libertarian Cato Institute. But it was not until 2004 that the true embodiment of the brothers’ desire to reshape the country was born: Americans for Prosperity.... Through AFP, the Kochs spawned a nationwide web of impassioned conservative volunteers, empowered by the new voter technology they supported through the political data firm i360. Among the key targets of their campaigning: the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare... But it also took on climate crisis regulations, public education and taxes and championed the nascent 2010 Tea Party movement.

"In the past couple of years, David Koch, and his arguably even more ideologically driven brother Charles, have perhaps been less prevalent on the right as their political pulling power has appeared to wane a little. That might be in part due to David’s deteriorating health.... It is also in large part due to the advent of Trump. There has been much discussion in recent months about the very public spat between the president and the Koch brothers, with the Kochs calling Trump’s trade tariffs 'detrimental' and Trump lashing back that the billionaires were 'a total joke'.... [T]he truth about Trump, though, is that he has adopted many of the rightwing postures the Kochs have long espoused....

"In David Koch’s passing on Friday America has lost a lion of conservatism whose backing for ultra-rightwing causes was cherished by fellow billionaires, corporations, polluters – even some supreme court justices. But members of that elite club of 'Freedom Partners' should find solace in the thought that – though David Koch will no longer be there to greet them at their secretive retreats – his influence is still very present, right there in the White House."
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/23/david-koch-death-kochtopus-legacy-right-wing
'via Blog this'

David Koch dead at 79

David Koch, billionaire conservative activist and donor, dead at 79 | CBC News - Associated Press:

August 23, 2019 - "Billionaire industrialist David H. Koch, who with his older brother Charles transformed American politics by pouring their riches into conservative causes, has died at age 79. 'It is with a heavy heart that I now must inform you of David's death,' Charles Koch announced Friday.

"David Koch, who lived in New York City, was the Libertarian Party's vice-presidential candidate in 1980. He was a generous donor to conservative political causes, as well as educational, medical and cultural groups.

"The brothers were best known for a vast political network they built that became popularly known as the Kochtopus for its far-reaching tentacles in support of conservative causes. The two founded the anti-tax, small government group Americans for Prosperity.

"'I was taught from a young age that involvement in the public discourse is a civic duty,' David Koch wrote in a 2012 op-ed in the New York Post.... While dealing with prostate cancer for 20 years, he told a reporter following the 2012 Republican convention that he was thinking about what he will someday leave behind....

"Koch donated $100 million in 2007 to create the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also gave millions to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, the M.D. Anderson Cancer in Houston, and other institutions.

"The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History named in his honour a wing dedicated to the story of human evolution over six million years. Koch donated $15 million to fund the 15,000-square-foot hall.

"Koch, an engineer trained at MIT, joined Koch Industries in 1970, and served on its board. He also served as chief executive officer of Koch Chemical Technology Group, LLC, a Koch subsidiary. He retired from the company in 2018.

"The Koch brothers, each with an estimated net worth of $50.5 billion, tied in fourth place in 2012 on Forbes 500 list of the nation's richest men."

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/david-koch-obituary-1.5257303

'via Blog this'

Oxford study program a big libertarian conspiracy

The Oxford Study programme faces a worrying lack of scrutiny | Cherwell - Libby Cherry:

June 10, 2019 - "Academic freedom is being threatened at Oxford University ... behind closed doors as part of a global attempt by a small sect of libertarians to ... exercise undue influence over those in power: legislators, policymakers, and, most insidiously, students and academics....

"[T]he Oxford Study Abroad Programme ... acts as an intermediary between US students and ... specific colleges, facilitating placements as Associated Members or Visiting Students for up to a year..... OSAP also runs ‘Specialised Summer Programs’. Whilst these ‘Programs’ use college facilities and are often instructed by handpicked Oxford academics, students are taught using custom reading lists and lectures developed by the 'faculty leaders' of the programmes ... without ‘interference’ from OSAP itself. Nor does OSAP’s educational scheme show evidence of being overseen by the central University or departments....

"Not only does this seem a singularly irresponsible model, a closer look at OSAP’s sample lectures, lecturers, and academic advisors reveals a highly commercialised organisation aimed at pushing a far-right agenda that is not only similar to those being propagated in the US but is directly funded from the same Koch sources....

"OSAP is the brainchild of the late Chicago-trained economist, Robert L. Schuettinger.... Trained under Friedrich Hayek in the 1950s ... Schuettinger was an Associate Member of Christ Church, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the University’s Rothermere Institute.... Not only was he Director of Studies at US conservative thinktank the Heritage Foundation, which received $300,000 from the Koch-affiliated organisations in 2013, he was also a contributor to the Mises Institute’s online journal. The [Mises] Institute’s board of directors includes Bob Luddy, who founded the Thales Academy, a chain of private schools teaching 'free-market economics' to school pupils.... But perhaps most damningly, Scheuttinger was a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, near-universally considered the most exclusive club of libertarian ideologues internationally ... with members including Charles Koch himself....

"Edwin Feulner, cited as a member of OSAP’s ‘Academic Advisory Board’, was former President of the Heritage Foundation and member of the 2016 Trump transition team.... OSAP’s website also includes praise from Texan Public Policy affiliate Ronald Trowbridge, who has formerly argued for the privatisation of universities....

""[T]he Reagan-Thatcher Lecture Series ... OSAP’s 'latest offering' ... received $10,000 from the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation.... The lecturers on the Reagan-Thatcher series ...  includ[e] historians Mark Almond, formerly a lecturer at Oriel College, and Norman Stone, former Chair of Modern History at Oxford and foreign policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher.... Almond also has his own personal ties with the American libertarian network, acting as an Academic Advisor for the Ron Paul Institute....

"This fatal combination of narrow political ideology, politicised funding, poor educational materials, and questionable lecturers makes OSAP’s course the paradigmatic opposite of academic freedom.... Putting aside the fact that their political philosophy encompasses those who have espoused racist, anti-democratic, and elitist viewpoints, simply allowing the University’s name to be associated with completely unregulated educational programmes seems absurd."

Read more: https://cherwell.org/2019/06/10/the-long-read-the-libertarian-links-of-a-private-tuition-programme/
'via Blog this'

Joe Biden takes libertarian line on licensing

Biden Echoes Libertarians' Call on Occupational Licensing | RealClearPolitics - Philip Wegman:

May 9 2019 - "Speaking before the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers before declaring his third bid for the presidency, Biden settled on one example in particular: occupational licensing reform. 'You know if you are a hair braider, you braid people’s hair, you have to get a license to do something like 400 hours of training,' he said before ... concluding that licensing requirements were part of a greater unseen effort 'not to help the worker.'

"The union crowd in Washington, D.C., gave the gaffe-prone politician a laugh, and three weeks later at his presidential campaign kickoff, Biden recycled the talking point. 'Why should someone who braids hair have to get 600 hours of training? It makes no sense,' he told another labor crowd, this one packed into a union hall in Pittsburgh. 'They’re making it harder and harder in a whole range of professions, all to keep competition down.'

"The union members in the crowd and the workers standing behind the candidate applauded again -- reliably Democratic voters all cheering the kind of government deregulation that has been the pet project of libertarian billionaires like Charles and David Koch for half a decade....

"Well known to limited-government types, occupational licensing reform is the sort of thing discussed by wonks at libertarian think tanks. Until now, the issue hasn’t been fodder for presidential politics. This could change, thanks to Biden, and it could begin a larger national discussion about state and local licensing rules that govern everything from hair braiding to pet walking.

"According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, roughly half of U.S. workers hold an occupational license, a dramatic increase since 1950 when just 5% of the workforce held such permits. Attorneys, construction contractors, and surgeons are all expected to obtain legal certification to ensure quality and public safety. But critics complain that licensing requirements have gone too far when hairdressers and interior decorators have to obtain permission from the government to do their jobs....

"Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf ... Democrat and close Biden ally ... eliminated licensing requirements for more than a dozen jobs.... Pennsylvania barbers were required to train for 1,250 hours, pass written exams, and spend thousands of dollars just to legally give a buzz cut. And anyone who want[ed] to auction off antiques, manage a campground, or even sell cemetery plots in his state had to obtain legal certification to do so. Critics like Wolf argue that those hoops do more to harm workers looking for opportunity than they do to protect consumers.

"Biden agrees and the longtime liberal is getting rare accolades from an unusual source for making the argument: the conservative Koch network.... Erica Jedynak, director of employment initiatives at the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, told RealClearPolitics that Biden’s comments show the 'issue is now coming to the forefront'....

"Clark Neily, a vice president at the libertarian CATO Institute, is normally no fan of the former vice president ... Neily told RCP, but Biden is a persuasive politician who has grasped onto 'something that is fundamentally true, namely that occupational licensing is destroying the engine of American prosperity.... If he is prepared to translate that into terms his constituency can understand and respond to, it’s going to be a winning message,' Neily said. If Biden [also] backed the libertarian case for further criminal justice reform, the CATO scholar added, 'heck, I might even vote for him.'”

Read more: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/05/09/biden_echoes_libertarians_call_on_occupational_licensing_140280.html
'via Blog this'

STATES Act reintroduced in Congress

Gardner re-introduces the STATES Act - Boulder Weekly - Paul Danish:

April 11, 2019 - "Last week Colorado Republican Senator Cory Gardner, Massachusetts Democratic Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, and eight other Senators re-introduced the legislation the two co-sponsored last year to allow states to legalize marijuana without federal interference.... The bill is called the STATES Act, for 'Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States'... .”

"[A]n identical bill, also called the STATES Act, was introduced in the House of Representatives with 26 cosponsors — half Democrats and half Republicans. The lead sponsors in the House are Oregon Democratic Representative Earl Blumenauer and Ohio Republican Representative David Joyce....

"According to ... Warren’s office, the STATES Act is supported by the ACLU, the American Bankers Association, Americans for Prosperity (the Koch brothers funded political interest group), Americans for Tax Reform, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cooperative Credit Union Association, the Credit Union National Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and a number of Indian tribes."
Read more: https://www.boulderweekly.com/features/cannabis-corner/gardner-re-introduces-the-states-act/

1 Big Reason Why U.S. Marijuana Legalization Might Actually Happen This Year - Keith Speights, The Motley Fool:

April 9, 2019 - "Gardner ... held up President Trump's judicial nominees after Jeff Sessions, then Secretary of the U.S. Department of Justice, overturned Obama administration policies about not intervening in states that had legalized marijuana [which] ultimately led to a deal with President Trump to keep the DOJ from taking any actions against Colorado or other states that allowed legal marijuana....

"There will be 22 Republican seats up for election [in 2020].... One of those seats ... is held by ... Cory Gardner. If Gardner can campaign on success in keeping Colorado's marijuana industry safe from federal intervention, it could mean the difference between victory and defeat.... Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, R.-Ky. ... knows that Gardner would be less vulnerable if the STATES Act is at least brought up for a vote. There's a reasonable chance that he will work behind the scenes to help Gardner....

"Democrats control the House by 36 seats. The STATES Act is virtually assured of sailing through committee review and is likely to win a solid majority vote in the full House. Passage of the bill in the House also could increase the chances that it isn't blocked in the Senate....

"There is one final hurdle if the STATES Act passes both the House and the Senate: President Trump must sign the bill into law. However, Sen. Gardner doesn't think that will be a problem. Gardner stated to Roll Call, 'The president has been very clear to me that he supports our legislation.'"
Read more: https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/04/09/1-big-reason-why-us-marijuana-legalization-might-a.aspx

'via Blog this'

Evil Kochs fund free economics/ethics textbook

Koch Brothers Pushing Garbage Libertarian “Textbook” On Poor Schools - The Ring of Fire Network - Faron Cousins:

March 2, 2019 - "Ethics, economy and entrepreneurship is the name of a textbook that ... I’ve never heard of ...  which is not accredited. There’s no bibliography, there’s no footnotes, there’s no sources listed in any of it, but this is a textbook nonetheless that is being pushed on poor school districts, particularly right now in Arizona by the Koch brothers and their affiliated networks. And here’s the thing about this textbook. It is filled with lies and libertarian economic principles, which also happened to be lies by the way. Um, this book is being given out to ... school districts for high school students for free. And here’s how this little scam works....

"In several areas of Arizona, the Koch brothers starting in 2009 began lobbying to cut funding for their school districts. And the Koch brothers somehow prevailed. People hopped on board and said, hell yeah, we don’t need money for schools. So then you end up with cash strapped schools that can’t afford textbooks. So then the Koch brothers and their networks and their little members ... came forward and said, we’ve got a free textbook for you, use this and you won’t have to spend any money....

"This book ... is pure nonsense. It’s pure insanity. And it is funded by groups associated with the Koch brothers. And they laid the framework in the state of Arizona to force this textbook on to students. And this is what the Koch brothers have been trying to do all over the country, not just in high schools, but also at colleges. Koch brothers have been buying up influence at colleges, school boards all across the country to push their braindead libertarian principles. Libertarianism, much like communism doesn’t work in practice, just like trickle down economics....

"We have seen what corporations do when left to their own devices with no regulation whatsoever ... disaster for American consumers. Yet that is what the Koch brothers want every one of us to engage in. And the poorer you are, the more likely they think you are to buy into their backwards libertarian principles that everybody is just a millionaire waiting to happen. All you gotta do is start a small business. Oh, and by the way, while you’re [at it], kill the federal government too."

Read more: https://trofire.com/2019/03/02/koch-brothers-pushing-garbage-libertarian-textbook-on-poor-schools/
'via Blog this'

The Cato Institute's "libertarian success story"

The Academy Is Unstable and Degrading. Historians Should Take Over the Government, Instead. - The Chronicle of Higher Education - Daniel Bessner:

February 27, 2019 - "What does it mean to be a public intellectual? When scholars discuss this question, they generally assume that the primary path to publicness is to engage with a mass audience.... But there is a second way that scholars, particularly those who identify with the social-democratic left, should contribute to public life: by engaging with state institutions through participation in the intellectual technostructure — think tanks, policy schools, university centers — that since World War II has shaped U.S. policy....

"The history of libertarianism, the most influential radical movement in modern U.S. history, ... indicates that intellectuals can effect significant change by working within the strictures of the American political system.... Just 70 years ago, libertarians stood on the fringes of American politics; in the last two decades, however, they have exerted a profound impact on public policy....

"The history of libertarianism’s ascent begins with Murray Rothbard, an economist who ... is today largely forgotten.... Rothbard encountered the radical free-market ideas of the Austrian exile Ludwig von Mises. Specifically, Mises’s influential Human Action (1949) inspired Rothbard to develop a political theory he dubbed 'anarcho-capitalism,' which combined anarchist philosophy with a capitalist faith in free markets.

"Rothbard spent his life spreading the libertarian gospel and organizing the budding libertarian movement. One of his most clever moves was to frame libertarianism as a fundamentally American ideology. As Rothbard argued in his For a New Liberty (1973), the American Revolution was "explicitly libertarian'... The tragedy of American history was that various events, from the Louisiana Purchase to the Civil War to the New Deal, betrayed the revolution.... For Rothbard, the goal of libertarianism was to return the nation to its supposedly anti-statist roots.

"In 1977 Rothbard helped found the Cato Institute with the aid of Edward Crane, a libertarian operative, and Charles Koch, a right-wing billionaire. Cato quickly developed the two-pronged strategy that still guides it today. First, per Rothbard’s vision, Cato seeks ... 'to identify and develop the future leaders, thinkers, advocates, and supporters of the libertarian movement, thereby promoting the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace'.... Second, Cato embraces the perspective of Crane and Koch, who wanted the think tank to affect public policy directly by producing expert reports and lobbying congresspeople and other politicians. By combining Rothbardian notions of public education with Cranian ideas of policy advocacy, Cato has brought libertarianism to the center of American politics and, according to the University of Pennsylvania’s Think Tanks and Civil Societies program, has become one of the United States’ most influential think tanks, particularly in the areas of economic, education, and social policy.

"Cato’s success has a lot to teach socialist intellectuals. At the most general level, it demonstrates the importance of not limiting intellectuals’ activities to any one sphere.... Specifically, Cato’s history and present influence suggest that think tanks are critical means to develop, promote, and spread ideas that currently stand outside the mainstream. It might therefore be useful for left-wing intellectuals to create avowedly socialist think tanks."

Read more: https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Academy-Is-Unstable-and/245778
'via Blog this'

Koch machine stresses coalition-building in 2019

The Daily 202: The Koch network donor retreat turns touchy-feely - The Washington Post - James Hohmann with Joanie Greve:

January 28, 2019 - "Liberal activist Van Jones protested the Koch brothers outside their donor meeting in 2011. Groups funded by the billionaire-backed network had successfully clamored for his ouster as President Barack Obama’s green jobs czar two years earlier, labeling him a dangerous radical.

"At the 2019 Koch seminar, however, there is a giant banner with Jones’s smiling face.... He’s literally become the poster child for how the network of conservative and libertarian donors hopes to seek out unlikely allies to advance its agenda. Jones, now a CNN talking head, recorded a video with Koch Industries general counsel Mark Holden about their partnership to pass the First Step Act, a sweeping overhaul of the criminal justice system that President Trump signed into law last month.

"That’s been the vibe here in the Coachella Valley all weekend as the network aggressively seeks to rebrand itself as kinder, gentler and less political.

"Wearing purple, the color of bipartisanship, industrialist Charles Koch — who remains a boogeyman on the left — declared that his top goal is 'uniting with people across the whole spectrum, including those who have been adversaries in the past,' to pursue shared priorities. 'This attitude of holding things against others who have different beliefs is tearing our country apart,' the 83-year-old said during a cocktail reception on Saturday night. 'What we need to do, and what we’re doing, is bringing people together'....

"Charles has concluded that reaching across the aisle to build coalitions is the best way to maximize his network’s impact with a president in the White House he personally doesn’t like but whom many members of his network do. The network plans to stay out of the presidential race again in 2020, as it did in 2016....

"Even though the president has attacked Koch personally, network officials were still able to work constructively with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner on criminal justice.... Indeed, the president’s son-in-law appeared in the same video as Jones. 'One of the things that really surprised people, including myself, was how broad the coalition we were able to build was,' Kushner said....

"In past years, network leaders announced how much money they planned to spend on politics and policy in the upcoming election cycle. This year, they’re not providing a target. Brian Hooks, the chairman of the Seminar Network, which includes the constellation of Koch groups, said they still plan to devote 'significant resources' but that the opportunities will dictate the amount. 'We see this as the next big step forward in the evolution of this network,' Hooks said."

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2019/01/28/daily-202-the-koch-network-donor-retreat-turns-touchy-feely/5c4e843a1b326b29c3778ce2/
'via Blog this'

Rival foundations funding the UnKoch movement

Deep-Pocketed Donors Behind Campus Anti-Koch Movement - Washington Free Beacon - Lachlan Markay:

November 2, 2015 - "Liberal foundations financing a nonprofit news venture that is reporting on donations made by the Koch Brothers to colleges are also financing on-campus groups protesting the Kochs’ donations. The same foundations have also spent billions backing educational initiatives of their own that frequently promote left-wing policy agendas....

"The Center for Public Integrity [CPI] ... [has] detailed the Kochs’ grants to colleges and universities, that, reporter Dave Levinthal wrote, are 'now a critical part of their broader campaign to infuse politics and government with free-market principles.' According to Levinthal, Koch-backed foundations provided $19.3 million in funding for colleges and universities in 2013, a $6.6 million increase over 2012. 'Funding — as well as pushback against it — is increasing," he wrote.

"One group committed to such 'pushback' is UnKoch My Campus, which immediately picked up on and promoted CPI’s story. Its publication came just days before UnKoch’s planned 'day of action' ... to protest what it says is the Kochs’ undue influence on the curricula and staffing of those programs.... UnKoch, as its name suggests, is focused exclusively on the influence of conservative and libertarian university donors....

"UnKoch’s views reflect those of the groups backing the campaign: environmental giant Greenpeace; Forecast the Facts, a climate-focused project of the left-wing Citizen Engagement Lab; the Center for Media and Democracy, another nonprofit news venture; and the American Federation of Teachers.

"Those groups receive significant funding from the same foundations that finance CPI’s reporting. The Park Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Foundation for an Open Society have all granted money to CPI and at least one of the groups behind the UnKoch effort.

"These groups are also heavily involved in education philanthropy: Together, those six foundations have doled out more than $4.2 billion in related grants, including nearly $270 million in 2013, according to the nonprofit research service Foundation Search....

"Levinthal followed up his reporting with a story detailing the work of six foundations with ties to the Kochs. Together, the foundations reported net assets of $463 million in 2013. In comparison, the six aforementioned foundations backing CPI and the groups behind UnKoch reported combined net assets in 2013 of more than $31 billion....

"Levinthal writes that the Kochs’ giving will 'build a "talent pipeline" of libertarian-minded students.' Little attention is paid to the fact that this is exactly what the foundations backing CPI and the groups behind UnKoch are also trying to do....

"UnKoch referred questions about its activities to Greenpeace spokesman Connor Gibson, who rejected any parity between university donations from the Kochs and similarly ideological donors on the left.... Gibson for the most part declined to directly address questions about the UnKoch effort, and demanded to know whether the Washington Free Beacon is 'contracted to write defenses of [the Kochs] every time another scandal breaks.'"

Read more: https://freebeacon.com/issues/deep-pocketed-donors-behind-campus-anti-koch-movement/

'via Blog this'

CBC ties Bernier to Kochs in 'smear job' interview

Maxime Bernier is furious after being interviewed by the CBC — and he may have a point | The Kingston Whig-Standard - Stuart Thomson:

September 25, 2018 - "After a CBC interview aired Sunday, Maxime Bernier’s Twitter account launched into an angry rant, accusing host Wendy Mesley of a 'smear job' ... arguing that Mesley fabricated a story 'about a libertarian conspiracy funded by US billionaires, and implies with her repeated questions about it that I violate Canadian electoral laws.' Mesley pushed back on the same platform, saying she never made that claim....

"But ... how strong are his connections to the two libertarian American billionaires Charles and David Koch?

"The Koch brothers are two American oil-and-gas billionaires who have become renowned in the last decade for massive donations to free-market think tanks and right-wing politicians. Just like people on the right describe George Soros as the mastermind of all nefarious activity on the left ... the Kochs are the scary billionaires on the right....

"Bernier once worked at the Montreal Economic Institute, one of the nearly 500 think tanks partnered with the Atlas Network, which is heavily funded by the Koch brothers....

"Mesley asked Bernier if he would accept help for his new party from the Koch brothers or the Atlas Network. Bernier explained that Canadian election laws prevent him from accepting money from American billionaires....

"'Later in the interview, Mesley asked Bernier what he would do 'if the Koch brothers call you?' 'I don’t know why you are asking that question,' Bernier responded.

"Twelve of Mesley’s 17 questions or follow-ups are about the Koch brothers or libertarianism.

"It’s hard to make an argument that Bernier’s 13-year-old connection to a think tank that was partly funded by a network of think tanks that is partly funded by the Koch brothers is relevant to the average Canadian....

"CBC producers may have been influenced by an investigation by the left-leaning investigative news site The Intercept, which demonstrated the influence of the Atlas Network on Latin American politics. That movement, which is working in opposition to leftist populism, is distinct from the Trump-style right wing populism that is also sweeping across Europe, which has nationalist and authoritarian overtones. Koch-linked think tanks warily keep an eye on right and left-wing authoritarianism, which they see as a threat to economic freedom....

"Although the CBC interview goes to great lengths to tie Bernier to the Koch brothers ... Bernier’s most controversial policy position — decrying increasing levels of immigration — is at odds with the Kochs.... For Bernier, who has always been stridently libertarian, his immigration position is a diversion from his ideological playbook. It could be a major shift in his thinking or simply political opportunism. And if the CBC gets him back for an interview, that would be a good question to ask."

Read more: https://www.thewhig.com/news/politics/maxime-bernier-is-furious-after-being-interviewed-by-the-cbc-and-he-may-have-a-point/wcm/e52125f5-2a68-4f7a-a135-7f57d76f245a
'via Blog this'

Koch's a joke, Trump tweets

Koch Brothers Break With Trump: 5 Things You Need to Know - IVN.us - W.E. Messamore:

August 1, 2018 -"In the face of mounting criticism from the notorious libertarian billionaire industrialists, Charles and David Koch, Donald Trump flamed the Koch Brothers on Twitter Tuesday, tweeting:

The globalist Koch Brothers, who have become a total joke in real Republican circles, are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade. I never sought their support because I don’t need their money or bad ideas. They love my Tax & Regulation Cuts, Judicial picks & more. I made…..
….them richer. Their network is highly overrated, I have beaten them at every turn. They want to protect their companies outside the U.S. from being taxed, I’m for America First & the American Worker – a puppet for no one. Two nice guys with bad ideas. Make America Great Again!

Here are 5 things you need to know about the Koch Brothers and their dispute with Donald Trump:

1. The Koch Brothers are not conservatives. They’re libertarians.
"[T]he Kochs (pronounced “Coke,” not “Kautch” or “Coach”) are not conservative. They are libertarian. Really they would prefer to describe themselves as classical liberals, which means they believe in the philosophy of limited government ... and they oppose ... efforts to expand the size, role, and influence of the government into the private lives of individuals, and into the complex interactions of the marketplace. So ... the Kochs opposed the war in Iraq (which even many Democrats supported), supported gay marriage before even many Democrats (like Hillary Clinton) did, and support open borders and the free flow of people as well as goods and ideas across borders.

2. The Koch Brothers are hardly a joke in Republican circles.
"As the conservative National Review points out ... 'In 2016, seven of eight Koch-backed Senate Republicans and 96 percent of all Koch-backed candidates nationwide won on Election Day'....

3. Steve Bannon has warned GOP candidates to refuse Koch money
"Trump’s former advisor, Steve Bannon, piled on as well, warning Republican candidates in an interview with CNBC: 'You take Koch money, it’s going to be toxic. We are going to let people know that if you take Koch money there’s a punishment'....

4. But Koch money is already refusing GOP candidates
'As Bloomberg reports: 'The network’s decision Monday not to support Representative Kevin Cramer against Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota was cast as a warning to other Republicans who might be tempted to stray from the free-market, fiscally restrained approach backed by the Kochs and their followers.... The decision not to back Cramer ... was announced at a briefing for more than 500 donors gathered at a luxury resort in Colorado Springs, Colorado.'

5. This ... is one more example of how the political party duopoly no longer makes any sense
"As libertarian ... Reason Magazine (which is partially funded by grants from the Koch Foundation) points out: 'Political tribalism ... demands blind loyalty. Shut up and get with the program, as Steve Bannon puts it. But the tribe that Donald Trump and the Republican Party represent is growing smaller every day. The same holds true for Democrats as well.'"

Read more: https://ivn.us/2018/08/01/koch-brothers-break-trump-5-things-need-know/
'via Blog this'

Koch machine breaks with Trump GOP over trade

Koch group condemns ‘divisiveness’ and ‘lack of leadership’ in Washington - The Washington Post - Michelle Ye Hee Lee:

July 29, 2018 - "Top officials with the donor network affiliated with billionaire industrialist Charles Koch this weekend sought to distance the network from the Republican Party and President Trump, citing tariff and immigration policies and 'divisive' rhetoric out of Washington.

"At a gathering of hundreds of donors ... officials reiterated their plans to spend as much as $400 million on policy issues and political campaigns during the 2018 cycle.... But ... network co-chair Brian Hooks lamented 'tremendous lack of leadership' in Trump’s Washington and the 'deterioration of the core institutions of society.' He called out the White House and Trump-allied GOP lawmakers, particularly over trade policy and increased federal spending, and added that 'the divisiveness of this White House is causing long-term damage'....

"Koch — now solely at the helm after the retirement of his ailing brother David this year — stopped short of blaming the president personally for the political divisions.... Asked about Democrats possibly retaking control of the House, he said: 'I don’t care what initials are in front [of], or after, somebody’s name'....

"In reality, the network is expected to be a powerful force for the political right during the midterm elections, particularly in states where Senate Democrats are most vulnerable. It is also heavily backing the confirmation of federal judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.... But some of Trump’s most ­controversial actions break sharply with the priorities of the libertarian-leaning network, which opposes Trump’s tariffs on foreign goods and his hard line on immigration, including the now-suspended zero-tolerance policy that saw hundreds of migrant families separated at the border....

"[N]etwork leaders pointed to their recent ad campaigns thanking Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) for co-sponsoring legislation that rolled back Dodd-Frank financial regulations, and attacking Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.) — the Trump-backed candidate for Senate ... — for a vote to increase federal spending.... Emily Seidel, chief executive of the network’s political arm Americans for Prosperity, said ... 'The fact that we’re willing to do this during an election year shows everyone that we’re dead serious.... This network will no longer follow anyone’s lead or be taken for granted,' ... as donors applauded.

"The network is holding education sessions for its activists across the country to extol the value of free trade and pro-immigrant laws, and countering Trump’s approaches on both issues. They are undertaking ... 'a multiyear, multimillion-dollar commitment' to promote the benefits of free trade.....

"The network has met twice a year since 2003, when Koch ­convened a small group of like-minded business leaders to oppose increasing federal spending and steel tariffs under the George W. Bush administration. Fifteen years later, the network has grown to encompass more than 700 donors who each contribute at least $100,000 annually to Koch-linked groups. "

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/koch-group-condemns-divisiveness-and-lack-of-leadership-in-washington/2018/07/29/314398c2-933f-11e8-a679-b09212fb69c2_story.html?utm_term=.4d623f0171bc
'via Blog this'

Kochs invest millions to reshape US foreign policy

Getting Realist: Charles Koch Ramps Up Efforts to Reshape U.S. Foreign Policy — Inside Philanthropy:

December 14, 2017 - "The Washington Post's Greg Jaffe reported recently that the Charles Koch Foundation is making 'major investments' in foreign policy programs at elite American universities, including a $3.7 million grant to Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"That news comes on the heels of roughly $10 million in similar grants the Charles Koch Foundation has given in recent months to Notre Dame, Tufts University, Catholic University, and the University of California San Diego — with much more on the way.

The grants, according to Jaffe, are part of a 'larger effort to broaden the debate about an American foreign policy Koch and others at his foundation argue has become too militaristic, interventionist and expensive.' Longtime watchers of Koch philanthropy won't be surprised here; the Cato Institute, which the Kochs helped found in the 1970s, has long made these same arguments....

"Charles has never been aligned with Republicans on foreign policy. He was against the Vietnam war and more recently ... America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, as mentioned, Cato has long been among the leading voices challenging the globalist security dogma largely embraced by both political parties.

"To that end, according to Jaffe, the grants are 'aimed at generating new ideas about how America should use its military power and vast economic influence,' and adhere to a 'realist school' of foreign policy that is leery of humanitarian interventions, nation building, or other causes that are tangential to American interests.... The gifts will primarily pay for graduate-level and postdoctoral fellowships....

"Charles' expanding anti-interventionist grantmaking aims to intellectually bolster a strain of thinking that's lately gained steam on an increasingly populist right and has fans on the left, too. While Trump's crude America First rhetoric isn't very persuasive, the arguments made by realist scholars like Stephen Walt carry more heft. Walt, who's getting in on this new Koch funding, has lately emerged as a leading critic of a national security strategy that has America embroiled in multiple wars, with 200,000 U.S. troops stationed in 177 countries....

"The Peace and Security Funders Group (PSFG) and the Foundation Center recently found that conflict, national security, and peace ... funders have made an 'outsized impact'.... Such high-leverage giving goes back decades, but it's typically been supported by donors who embrace an expansive U.S. role in the world, and that's still largely the case.

"Now it's fair to say that such funders are going to have some competition. These success areas are precisely the kinds of foreign entanglements that Charles Koch, armed with an impressive Rolodex and billions in the bank, would like the U.S. to avoid."

Read more: https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2017/12/14/koch-anti-intervention-grants-posen-walt
'via Blog this'

Ed Crane accused of sexual harassment

Former Cato employees describe years of harassment - POLITICO:

"Three former employees of the famed Cato Institute say they were sexually harassed by Ed Crane, the 73-year-old co-founder and president emeritus of the think tank and one of the most recognizable figures in the libertarian movement.

"One former employee said Crane asked her to take off her bra. Another said he compared her breasts to pornographic images on his computer. A third said he sent her an email on breast augmentation. Crane also settled an additional sexual harassment claim by a former employee in 2012, her lawyer confirmed....

"Crane, who served as president and CEO of the libertarian think tank for more than 30 years before becoming president emeritus after a dispute with Cato shareholders Charles and David Koch, denied several of the incidents or said he didn’t recall them before ending a brief interview. He declined to comment on whether he was involved in a legal settlement in 2012.

"Peter Goettler, who has served as Cato’s president and CEO since 2015, also declined to comment on specific incidents of alleged sexual harassment during Crane’s tenure.... James Davis, a spokesperson for the Koch brothers, said they found out about the 2012 sexual harassment settlement in the midst of their dispute with Crane, at a time when they were already seeking to remove him as president.

"A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, who spent part of his early career as an investment manager, Crane became a national leader in the libertarian movement.... In 1977, the then-32-year-old Crane co-founded Cato with economist Murray Rothbard and Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist and political donor. Crane ran the institute on a daily basis, establishing Cato as a top Washington think tank and growing its annual budget to more than $20 million at the time of his retirement. Cato helped to inject libertarian policies — such as privatizing Social Security — into the political mainstream....

"Goettler, Cato’s current president, ... said there was a settlement at the organization in 2012 and another settlement at Cato during that period of time, but declined to provide details on who paid the settlements or whether they involved Crane....

"Goettler ... said the think tank has 'a pretty explicit policy against sexual harassment,' as well as a 'robust complaint process' for employees and an anti-retaliation policy. He said the procedures predate his own time as president, which began in 2015.... Cato also conducted a mandatory sexual harassment training for employees several years ago, Goettler said."

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/08/ed-crane-cato-institute-sexual-harassment-398989?lo=ap_f1
'via Blog this'