NOBODY IS ABOVE THE LAW—MUELLER FIRING RAPID RESPONSE, preparing for the ‘unimaginable’

Given the events this entire past couple years and particularly this weekend with its orchestrated attack on the legitimacy of Robert Mueller's investigation, by Trump and the Murdoch, alt-right media machine.  In an interesting interview Carl Bernstein pointed out, Trump and his backers have created a Cold Civil War and it's serious.  Now unless Americans are willing to support respect for truth and step up to support America's Rule of Law, the consequences will be brutal.  That's why I want to add this information to my collection.  Hope we never need to put this plan into action, but if we do, we had better make a good showing throughout the country, our future will depend on it.

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NOBODY IS ABOVE THE LAW—MUELLER FIRING RAPID RESPONSE 

preparing for the ‘unimaginable’

https://www.trumpisnotabovethelaw.org/event/mueller-firing-rapid-response/

NOBODY IS ABOVE THE LAW—MUELLER FIRING RAPID RESPONSE

Donald Trump is publicly considering firing special counsel Robert Mueller, the person leading the Department of Justice investigation of possible illegal actions by Donald Trump and members of his presidential campaign, and the efforts to conceal those activities.

This would be a constitutional crisis for our country. It would demand an immediate and unequivocal response to show that we will not tolerate abuse of power from Donald Trump.

Our response in the minutes and hours following a power grab will dictate what happens next, and whether Congress—the only body with the constitutional power and obligation to rein Trump in from his rampage—will do anything to stand up to him.

That’s why we’re preparing to hold emergency “Nobody is Above the Law” rallies around the country in the event they are needed.

Koch Government? Public Citizen investigates - Poster Session - 2017

Reproductions of some tables from the report:

(Here and here for background explaining why they are being posted.)

HOW THE KOCH BROTHERS’ AGENDA HAS INFILTRATED THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION 

From suspect puppet masters to trusted partners

November 30, 2017 

Washington, D.C. 20009

http://www.citizen.org

© 2017 Public Citizen

https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/public-citizen-koch.pdf

Copyright © 2018 Public Citizen. Some rights reserved. Non-commercial use of text and images in which Public Citizen holds the copyright is permitted, with attribution, under the terms and conditions of a Creative Commons License.

Click on the images for better viewing

Koch Government? Public Citizen investigates - Appendix

Appendix
HOW THE KOCH BROTHERS’ AGENDA HAS INFILTRATED THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION 

From suspect puppet masters to trusted partners

November 30, 2017 

Washington, D.C. 20009

http://www.citizen.org

© 2017 Public Citizen

https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/public-citizen-koch.pdf

Complete Citations (209 references in all)
(my apologies you may have to copy and paste links)

page 4

1 FREEDOM PARTNERS, A ROADMAP TO REPEAL: REMOVING REGULATORY BARRIERS TO OPPORTUNITY, (January 2017). http://bit.ly/2z8exUW. 

page 5

2 Jane Mayer, Covert Operations, THE NEW YORKER (August 30, 2010) http://bit.ly/2j1mW1B. 

3 Kenneth P. Vogel, How the Koch Network Rivals the GOP, POLITICO (Dec. 30, 2015) http://politi.co/2j0i0K9. 

4 Daniel Schulman, The Making of the Kochtopus, MOTHER JONES (Nov. 3 ,2014) http://bit.ly/2Bmhe1A  

5 Daniel Schulman and Andy Kroll, The Koch Brothers Left a Confidential Document at Their Donor Conference, MOTHER JONES (Feb. 5, 2014) http://bit.ly/2jfT80X.. 

Koch Government? Public Citizen investigates - 2017

I'm taking advantage of Public Citizen's Creative Common License in order share extensive highlights of their report.  I will be following this post with another one that lists all the references used in here, I hope it encourages you to check out the full report.  The following speaks for itself, so without further ado.

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HOW THE KOCH BROTHERS’ AGENDA HAS INFILTRATED THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION 

Public Citizen

     

http://www.citizen.org   |  November 30, 2017 

https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/public-citizen-koch.pdf

Copyright © 2018 Public Citizen. Some rights reserved. Non-commercial use of text and images in which Public Citizen holds the copyright is permitted, with attribution, under the terms and conditions of a Creative Commons License.

     Donald Trump and the Koch brothers had a rocky relationship during the 2016 presidential campaign, despite the Kochs’ status as Republican mega-donors and kingmakers. Now, as the one-year anniversary of Trump’s inauguration approaches, political operatives and policy experts who have worked at numerous Koch-funded organizations have fanned out through the Trump Administration, taking jobs influencing education, energy, the environment, health care and taxes — all in service of a hard-right anti-government agenda. 

     A Public Citizen review of the Koch brothers’ connections to the Trump administration and their policy agenda in Washington, D.C. finds:

* 44 Trump administration officials have close ties to the Koch brothers and their political groups, particularly Vice President Mike Pence, White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney. 

* The bulk of Koch allies are in the White House, with 21 officials working there or nominated for White House jobs. 

* Koch allies are also staffing jobs at the Environmental Protection Agency, Interior Department, Energy Department and the Treasury Department. The positions they are advocating overlap with the Kochs’ economic interests, in weakening regulatory enforcement, lowering corporate taxes, loosening environmental regulations and opening up public land to oil and gas extraction. 

* The Kochs have already achieved the majority of goals contained in “Roadmap to Repeal” — a policy document1 published in January 2017 by Freedom Partners, a Koch group. 

METHODOLOGY 

¶ ‘Sons of Wichita’ by Daniel Schulman, Koch bio - 2014

Daniel Schulman wrote a biography that’s been given a lot of credit for humanizing the Koch brothers.  The highlight is his argument that the Koch’s aren’t in it for the money, they are true ideological warriors for fundamental “Libertarian” ideals.  Not sure why that should have me trusting them or their intentions.

Merging libertarianism with being nearly the richest and most politically engaged bullying master of the universe - seems profoundly incongruous.  Bullying?  Well over a billion dollars spend on power political strategy and political campaigns, campaigns that are founded on deception and lies.  I’ll classify that as bullying.

Below is an excerpt from a Washington Post opinion piece on the book and links to three different YouTube events featuring author Daniel Schulman discussing his book to three very different groups of listeners.

Following that I include a few references towards defining what the elusive “libertarian ideal” is.  Actually, to my eyes, that’s one of it’s biggest problems, it’s all idealized thinking.  That's followed by a list of articles reporting on the Koch CATO connection.

Libertarians must ignore huge aspects of reality, be it about our geophysical Earth, or our modern complex crowded society.  

Libertarianism seems akin to nostalgic thinking, where we idealize a time and place that never was and never could have been.

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Review of Koch brothers biography, ‘Sons of Wichita,’ by Daniel Schulman

By Matea Gold  |  May 23, 2014

SourceWatch report: Americans for Prosperity, the gritty details.

Sourcewatch is known for gathering reliable information about political groups and their page on Koch's 'Americans for Prosperity' is another amazing and frightening eye opener.  (Click on the image for a clear view.)  Wish I had the time to convert the following to a linkable list, but I don't so here's the teaser and how to get there: 

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Americans_for_Prosperity

also see: 
OpenSecrets.org's report on Koch Industries
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=d000000186

Americans for Prosperity Lobbing Report
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/lobby.php?id=D000024046

Americans for Prosperity =
https://www.opensecrets.org/search/?q=Americans+for+Prosperity&cx=010677907462955562473%3Anlldkv0jvam&cof=FORID%3A11

Freedom Partners, Funding Dirty Tricks - 2013, Politico Exposé

And then there's the money, more tales of intrigue and secrecy:

The Koch brothers' secret bank, Freedom Partners

By MIKE ALLEN and JIM VANDEHEI  |  09/11/2013

https://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/behind-the-curtain-exclusive-the-koch-brothers-secret-bank-096669

An Arlington, Va.-based conservative group, whose existence until now was unknown to almost everyone in politics, raised and spent $250 million in 2012 to shape political and policy debate nationwide.

The group, Freedom Partners, and its president, Marc Short, serve as an outlet for the ideas and funds of the mysterious Koch brothers, cutting checks as large as $63 million to groups promoting conservative causes, according to an IRS document to be filed shortly.

The 38-page IRS filing amounts to the Rosetta Stone of the vast web of conservative groups — some prominent, some obscure — that spend time, money and resources to influence public debate, especially over Obamacare.

YOUTHFUEL: Americans for Prosperity, the video - 2014

Here’s my last post for this run, good night.  It’s a short video looking at AFP and it provides a nice summary of the information I’ve shared in this series of informative posts looking into the real Americans For (Koch's) Prosperity.  Below this video I share some notes and another handful of important sources that add further details.

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YOUTHFUEL: AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY

Climate Reality  |  Published on Sep 16, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XvnP22nUM8

Watch as documentary filmmaker Vanessa Black turns her lens on Americans for Prosperity (AFP).http://www.24Hoursofreality.org 

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0:15  -  A closer look.

2008 No Tax Climate Pledge to oppose all legislation concerned with climate change

Kochs in-house Political Spy Organization. Mayer, and Vogel - 2015

The amount of disturbing information is overwhelming.  Here are excerpts from another New Yorker article by Jane Meyers, describing the Koch in-house political surveillance operation.  It's followed by Politico's Kenneth Vogel's reporting on the unit's operation along with looking into the strategy and thinking that drives these people.   

I'm sharing this because I think the Democrats of La Plata county should be able to take a crash course on what they are up against with this oh so friendly sounding "Americans for Prosperity" who have moved into town with their silver tongues masking sinister intent. 

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Do the Kochs Have Their Own Spy Network?

By Jane Mayer  -   November 18, 2015 in the New Yorker Magazine

Five years ago, when The New Yorker published my piece “Covert Operations,” about the ambitious and secretive political network underwritten by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, the Koch brothers complained mightily about the story’s title, protesting that there was nothing at all covert about their political activities. Since then, the two have embarked on an impressive public-relations campaign meant to demonstrate their transparency and openness. 

But today, the Politico reporter Kenneth Vogel came out with a blockbuster scoop suggesting that the brothers, whose organization has vowed to spend an unprecedented eight hundred and eighty-nine million dollars in the 2016 election cycle, are more involved in covert operations than even their own partners have known.

Koch's Covert Operations. By Jane Mayer - 2010

Covert Operations

The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.

By Jane Mayer in the August 30, 2010 Issue of the New Yorker Magazine

This is an amazing over ten thousand word roundup of Koch efforts up to 2010.  Below I include some highlights, but the entire article needs to be read to start getting a grasp of what Americans are dealing with here.

… In Washington, Koch is best known as part of a family that has repeatedly funded stealth attacks on the federal government, and on the Obama Administration in particular.

… The Kochs operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline. Koch Industries owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products. Forbes ranks it as the second-largest private company in the country, …

The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. 

These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.”

Senator Reid Exposes the Radical Koch bros - 2014

In March of 2014 Senator Reid gave a speech to the Senate, that lays out what’s going on here.  Below the fold I include the full text of his talk.

The Radical Koch Brothers, Exposed By Senator Reid

The Daily Conversation  |  Published on March 13, 2014  |  6:33 min

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiS_un4hKAs

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) speaks out against the efforts of Charles and David Koch, who are using their vast fortunes to push for right-wing, pro-industrialist policies.

Subscribe to The Daily Conversation for more progressive videos like this.

https://www.youtube.com/TheDailyConversation

Full transcript: