It’s a story political journalists couldn’t resist. Reporters at the New York Times, Politico, Yahoo News, and other outlets have been rhapsodizing lately about how the ultra-conservative billionaire Koch brothers are “braving the spotlight” and joining forces with “tree-hugging liberals” to dedicate themselves to the cause of ending America’s over-incarceration crisis.
Meanwhile, however, Koch money continues to finance election-year efforts that promote tough-on-crime politics.
Koch money is helping finance advertisements across the state of Pennsylvania calling for judges to hand out tougher sentences, like this one:
In Louisiana, Koch money is supporting the gubernatorial bid of Republican David Vitter, who is now campaigning explicitly against criminal justice reform with a new ad that warns that President Obama’s clemency project will release “dangerous thugs”:
Koch Industries has been widely hailed for donating to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and partnering with groups such as Families Against Mandatory Minimums. Earlier this year, the Kochs helped launch the Coalition for Public Safety, a bipartisan group focused on educational events on the issue of criminal justice that now provides funding to the Center for American Progress and other left-leaning groups.
“We have in the past and will in the future have criticism of the policy agenda of the Koch brother companies, but where we can find common ground on issues, we will go forward,” Neera Tanden, CAP’s president, told the New York Times.
But there is little evidence to show that the Koch political network has made criminal justice a litmus test for candidates or a priority for their vast political machinery.
The Koch political network does a great deal to publicly evaluate politicians on a narrow set of issues, including legislative score cards and pledges signed by candidates.
Those efforts are all still largely centered on climate change, tax and regulatory policies, with no mention of criminal justice reform.
Out of 38 federal lobbyists employed by Koch, only one is registered to work on criminal justice issues. Most work on projects important to Koch Industries’ bottom line, such as rolling back Environmental Protection Agency rules.
Koch’s interest in criminal justice reform was sparked not by the plight of overcrowded prisons or racial disparities in law enforcement, but by the company’s own environmental crimes. In 2000, Koch was indicted over claims that it had polluted huge amounts of benzene, a known carcinogen, from a Texas refinery and then attempted to cover up the crime. The indictment came on the heels of a series of state and federal probes that had forced the company to pay what was then the largest civil penalty for violations of environmental law for allowing hundreds of oil spills across six states.
By the time the benzene case went to trial, George W. Bush, with Koch support, had been elected president, and his Department of Justice reduced the indictment to seven counts, finally settling the case for only $20 million in what reporters called a “sweetheart deal.”
Koch Industries’ Senior Vice President Mark Holden, the public face of the Koch effort on criminal justice reform, did not respond to a request for comment.
One dynamic driving the over-incarceration problem, most experts agree, is the fear of “soft on crime”-style political attacks, made famous through the “Willie Horton” campaign commercial in 1988. Judges and politicians on both sides of the aisle have responded by looking “tough on crime” — by throwing more people in prison for longer.
Research by Emory Law School professors Joanna Shepherd and Michael Kang found that the more ads that are run attacking a judge for being “soft on crime,” the likelihood that the judge will rule in favor of criminal defendants decreases, leading to longer prison sentences regardless of the alleged crime.
Koch Industries provided $100,000 to a political committee airing an ad that claims that a Democratic judge in Pennsylvania failed to “keep our children safe” by allowing a “young girl to be placed in the custody of a convicted murderer.” The committee is also sponsoring ads that ask voters to support Republican judges because they “deliver on keeping violent criminals behind bars.”
The Republican State Leadership Committee, which is sponsoring the group behind the pro-Republican judicial ads, is funded this year by Koch Industries, General Electric, General Motors, Eli Lilly and other large corporations that have lobbied to minimize awards against them in class-action suits.
“What they’re all concerned about is money,” says Matthew Menendez, counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, which tracks judicial elections. But class-action issues don’t sell well in 30-second campaign commercials, Menendez noted. So donors fund ads “that say judge so-and-so is soft on child molesters.”
“The collateral damage is to criminal justice reform,” Menendez said.
In the race for Louisiana governor this year, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., sponsored an advertisement last week that explicitly criticizes his opponent, Democrat John Bel Edwards, for supporting President Obama’s clemency effort to allow reduced sentences for some nonviolent drug offenders.
Charles Koch has applauded the initiative the ad criticizes. He’s even faulted the program for not acting quickly enough to release thousands from prison.
But that hasn’t stopped Koch Industries from donating to Vitter, who has championed environmental and tax policies in line with Koch Industries’ lobbying operation. Vitter, a strong opponent of the clemency project and other criminal justice reforms, has received thousands of dollars in donations from the Koch PAC, in addition to support from Koch Industries in his race for governor. The Super PAC supporting Vitter’s bid also received $25,000 from Koch Industries.
“Edwards calls for letting 5,500 Louisiana convicts go free,” the Vitter commercial claims. “Fifty-five hundred dangerous thugs,” the narrator grimly continues, as the camera pans over an African-American man wearing a do-rag.
A few years ago Fang discovered the Kochs financing a boiler room full of hacks and trolls paid for posting on social media and leaving reader feedback in places like this.
I dont understand why left wing american fascists like the ones who run and own this website whine about their close cousins, the right wing american fascists.
Maybe you should write about how multi billion dollar ebay protects the privacy of its users?
And what planet do you live on?
From Carl Jung Liber Novis / The Red Book:
I: “People tell me that you understand the black art. I am interested in that. Will you tell me about it?”
: “What should I tell you about? There is nothing to tell.”
I: “Don’t be ill-natured, old man, I want to learn.”
: “You are certainly more learned than I. What could I teach you?”
I: “Do not be mean. I certainly don’t intend to become your competitor. I’m just curious to know what you are up to and what magic you are performing.”
: “What do you want? In the past I have helped people here and there who have been sick and disadvantaged.”
I: “What exactly did you do?”
: “Well, I did it quite simply with sympathy.”
I: ” Old man, that word sounds comical and ambiguous.”
: “How so?”
I: “It could mean that you helped people either by expressing compassion or by superstitious, sympathetic means.”
: “Well, surely it would have been both.”
Faust and Mephistopheles Koch have cremated care and rule for the sake of power not humanity. They rue nothing except lost opportunities to make more money and have more power.
Game over humans, its everyman, everyman for himself. Stay true and die on your feet not on your knees, for when justive is gone, there’s always force.
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/l/laurie+anderson/o+superman_20081561.html
Its a sad state of affairs when even our plutocrats are compelled to put up a false front.
Lee, I think it would be a good idea to further probe the Koch – Vitter connection. Louisiana is very heavy into petrochemicals, so my suspicion is that the Kochs are trying to grease the wheels for their business interests once Vitter gets elected. Above all, the Kochs are about making money, and so while their ostensible position on prison reform is diametrically opposed to that of Vitter, they are likely supporting him despite that, because it is in their interest to do so.
There is a long history of industrialists supporting politicians they did not necessarily agree with, when they see profits in the election outcome. The Krupps and Hitler come to mind, but I would not want to imply that I am demeaning the Krupps by comparing them to the Kochs.
Thank your, Mr. Fang, and excellent catch, sir!
Of course, this is what they always do. While Warren Buffett is suggesting higher taxes on the rich, his company was in the federal tax court fighting against billions owed in past federal taxes.
And nobody but nobody exemplifies the tax thief than the career tax avoider himself, Warren Buffett! (Wrote off his watch and bike as business expenses when he was a paperboy – – wish I’d known about that or thought equally diabolically when I was a newsboy, but my daddy wasn’t a corrupt US senator like Warren’s – – actually, I was an orphan . . .
What, exactly, is the point of the Warren Buffett paperboy story? That he got the tax law changed so he could write off his expenses? No, that couldn’t be it. That you (and me too) were too dumb to take the writeoff? So you resent that?
Also, on the topic of Buffett’s father, Howard Buffett, 4 term US congressman, not senator. According to the piece in Wikipedia, he was unshakably ethical. Yes he was a conservative, but that does not equate to corruption.
Finally, did you notice that Buffett has willed his entire estate to charity – something the Koch Brothers almost certainly will never do. I rather think it puts him in an entirely different class from the Kochs.
Warren Buffet was never like the Koch brothers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXQS4S3vgGA
[snip]
That’s why I wish I had a pencil thin mustache
The “Boston Blackie” kind
A two-toned Ricky Ricardo jacket
And an autographed picture of Andy Devine
Oh, I could be anyone I wanted to be
Maybe suave Errol Flynn or the Sheik of Araby
If I only had a pencil thin mustache
Then I could do some cruisin’ too
[snip]
Precisely.
I wonder where the oddballs leaving poetry here come from? Are they attempting deliberate distraction from the issues, or merely electronic graffiti artists?
It is part of their campaign of seduction and subversion, small diversionary efforts to change their public image. A careful watcher of PBS will notice Koch money and influence creeping in – including their sponsorship of news programming and (what used to be a science series) Nova. Likewise, one can hear the announcements of Koch funding for NPR. Principally, it is the Charles Koch Foundation.
With this money naturally comes influence; if you are an NPR or PBS reporter, you are going to naturally soften your tone when speaking of good old Dave and Charlie, without anyone having to create a potentially embarrassing paper trail by sending you a memo.
That said, arguably PBS and NPR lost their credibility as unbiased purveyors of news long ago, even before caving in to George W. Bush in the run up to the Iraq invasion, because in their zeal to appear unbiased, they started the practice of bringing extremists on every topic to talk past each other, furthering the ever growing lack of will to find common ground and compromise.
The Coke’s are nothing more than modern-day dictator wannabes. They truly believe in their hearts and have converted all the slaves around them (use of the term ‘slave’ here means ’SLAVES TO MONEY, NOT USING RACE ABOUT SKIN COLOR’….. The Coke’s believe they can buy everything. For them, there ARE no obstacles. They want it, they buy it or can use a certain thing as an asset, they lease and discard. Just what the rethugicons ordered!! A throw-away political party to go along with our throw-away elections..
In looks and action, the Kochs are very reminiscent of another pair of execrable brothers of yore, the Dulles brothers.
Seems as a perfect mission for Kiran Bedi, but it takes more than a breakfast to bring her to the U.S.