Tag Archives: Harry Reid

Koch Is Not Good for America

From the Blog of U.S. Senator Harry Reid —

1. The Kochs want to abolish Social Security.

“Documents and interviews unearthed in recent months by Brave New Foundation researchers illustrate a $28.4m Koch business that has manufactured 297 commentaries, 200 reports, 56 studies and six books distorting social security’s effectiveness and purpose.” 

2. The Kochs want to eliminate minimum wage laws.

“According to Charles Koch, the U.S. needs to get rid of the minimum wage, which he counts as a major obstacle to economic growth.”

3. The Kochs are against extending emergency unemployment benefits.

“It causes employers to face higher taxes, too, which discourages them from hiring new employees.” 

4. The Kochs spent $400 million on misleading attack ads in the last election cycle.

“A labyrinth of tax-exempt groups and limited-liability companies helps mask the sources of the money, much of which went to voter mobilization and television ads attacking President Obama and congressional Democrats, according to tax filings and campaign finance reports.” 

5. The Kochs want to put insurance companies back in charge of your health care.

“In Louisiana, the Koch brother’s Americans for Prosperity was blasted for running anti-Obamacare ads featuring paid actors to play Louisiana residents telling “their” stories about how Obamacare had harmed them.”

6. The Kochs are against measures that would reduce the gap between the wages women and men earn for the same work.

“IWF-affiliated writers have argued that the gender gap in income exists because of women’s greater demand for flexibility, fewer hours, and less travel in their careers, rather than because of sexism.” 

7. The Kochs want even more tax breaks for themselves.

“They are known for bankrolling conservative, Libertarian and Tea Party causes and became poster boys for corporate tax reform last year when an Obama Administration official suggested Koch is organized as an S Corp. and so pays no corporate level taxes.” 

8. The Kochs made improper payments to win contracts in Africa, India and the Middle East. And they sold millions of dollars of equipment to Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism.

“Internal company records show that Koch Industries used its foreign subsidiary to sidestep a U.S. trade ban barring American companies from selling materials to Iran. Koch-Glitsch offices in Germany and Italy continued selling to Iran until as recently as 2007, the records show.” 

9. The Kochs lobbied against recognition of formaldehyde as a cancer-causing carcinogen because it might be bad for their business.

“A prominent philanthropist, cancer survivor, and American businessman, David Koch, has given millions to the cause of cancer research, while his company—Koch Industries—has lobbied against formal recognition of formaldehyde as a carcinogen, The New Yorker reported in a piece published today.” 

10. The Kochs rank as one of America’s most toxic air polluters.

11.The Kochs have received over $88 million in government subsidies.

12. The Kochs have admitted they have “a radical philosophy.”

“Charles Koch seems to have approached both business and politics with the deliberation of an engineer. ‘To bring about social change,’ he told Doherty, requires ‘a strategy’ that is ‘vertically and horizontally integrated,’ spanning ‘from idea creation to policy development to education to grassroots organizations to lobbying to litigation to political action.’ The project, he admitted, was extremely ambitious. ‘We have a radical philosophy,’ he said.”

FMI: http://www.reid.senate.gov/koch-facts#.UxdT6oVAc1I

 

Senator Harry Reid on the Shutdown

“Very rich people in America who don’t believe in government have used Obamacare as a conduit to shut down the government …. This has been led by, according to the news article, a former attorney general of the United States, Ed Meese, and the Koch brothers, who have been raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get us where we are right now, By shutting down the government—and that is what has happened—we are satisfying the Koch brothers and Ed Meese, but millions of people in America are suffering.”

Speaking Honestly About Race

Liz Cheney, that longtime voice of egalitarianism, called Sen. Harry Reid a racist.

What?

Dick’s baby girl is all a tither because Reid in his support of the Obama candidacy in 2008 said that Obama was “a light-skinned African-American who did not speak in a negro dialect” and thus would be popular in many circles. That’s it. That’ supposedly racist.

We’ve got to be able to talk honestly about race in this country. It is not racist to state what is factually accurate. Mr. Obama is light-skinned. That’s not a lie and it’s not racist. Members of my family, a family with its origins in Europe, hence a EuroAmerican family, have darker skins than Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama is an African American, he has said that he is, it is not racist to acknowledge this fact.

There is what is referenced as a “negro dialect” although it is also called a Southern dialect. Senator Reid made no derogatory comment and had no disrespectful intent. He may not have used the academic linguistic term for the dialect but he correctly noted that Mr. Obama did not use this dialect.

 Reid’s conclusion that these factors would contribute to Obama’s victory. There is nothing racist about this conclusion.

In my hometown, the police chief was asked what caused a spike in local crime reports. He reported that it was due to an influx of people moving in from Chicago. This was a statement supported by statistics. He was called a racist. He did not even say that it was due to an influx of blacks, he said merely an influx from Chicago, a statement of fact. He was attacked for racism.

Racism is wrong. Stating facts which reference information about race is not racist.

           — A. T. Cameron