Republican governors meet secretly with the Big Oil Koch brothers

[Chris]

Florida Gov. Rick Scott attended a secret, invitation-only meeting outside Vail, Colo., hosted by conservative billionaire GOP donors David and Charles Koch, the governor’s staff confirmed today.

The meeting wasn’t on Scott’s official schedule and his spokesman Lane Wright initially refused to confirm or deny whether the first-term governor would make an appearance, saying he would not “speculate as to what he has done, or will do on his personal time.”

But, after The St. Petersburg Times reported Tuesday Scott did attend the meeting, Wright confirmed that the governor was there but would not say whether Scott was in Colorado on Sunday or Monday.

“I told anybody who asked me,” Scott, in Washington, D.C., told the Times, without revealing too much about what took place.

“It was very interesting,” he told the Times. “They wanted to know basically… what am I doing in Florida.”

Scott, the self-proclaimed “jobs governor,” joined at least three other conservative Republican heads-of-state at the semi-annual meeting.

Govs. John Kasich of Ohio and Bob McDonnell of Virginia all dropped into the conference, entitled “Understanding and Addressing Threats to American Enterprise and Prosperity.” And Scott’s competitor-in-chief, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, addressed the group on Sunday, the first of the four-day meeting that wraps up Wednesday.

Rick Scott attends secret Koch brothers meeting in Colorado | Post on Politics

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Obama meet Wall Street Fat Cats

Obama's White House Meeting With Wall Street Execs: Official or Political? - Political Punch

 

[whitehall]

It's not a conspiracy. George Soros visited the white house more than Monica Lewinsky. He got tax exempt status for his propaganda machine called "media matters" which Hillary said she created.

 

[Salt Jones]

It's not a conspiracy. George Soros visited the white house more than Monica Lewinsky. He got tax exempt status for his propaganda machine called "media matters" which Hillary said she created.

Is that your justification for the Koch meetings? So you are equating them?

 

[Seawytch]

So, the criminal governor met with his corporate masters. They gotta pay him back for all the scratch he is throwing their way (and his own of course). The criminal governor has no interest in actually governing, but just wants to squeeze all he can out if the state before abandoning it. America is a ponzi scheme to these Repuglicans.

 

[Avorysuds]

So secret Christ posted about it on a public board!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Chris]

The Koch brothers' campaign to kill social security

The Brave New Foundation's new film, Counter the Koch Billions; Protect Social Security. Video: Brave New Foundation 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. Together, the publications reveal a vast cottage industry comprised of Koch brothers' spokespeople, front groups, thinktanks, academics and elected officials, which has built a self-sustaining echo chamber to transform fringe ideas into popular mainstream public policy arguments.

"The Koch brothers job is to do everything they can to dismember government in general," Senator Bernie Sanders says in this video. "If you can destroy social security, you will have gone a long way forward in that effort."

Koch Industries spent $857,000 on lobbyists in 2004, one year before George W Bush tried and failed to privatise social security. They also donated $104,660 to his campaign. The attacks on social security needed more time to stew in the echo chamber before they could be mainstream, and given the increase in lobbyists, they have risen dramatically. In the first two years of the Obama administration, the brothers spent $20m on lobbying, according to the Centre for Public Integrity. And they've diversified their donations to a slew of Republican opinion leaders – and strategic Democrats who oppose revenue increases like Senator Ben Nelson and Governor Andrew Cuomo. But traditional lobbying has now given way to the larger, more insidious propaganda campaign aimed at changing the terms of debate on social security.

The Koch brothers' echo chamber has successfully written the messaging for the AARP, a traditional defender of social security for all generations, which recently opened the door to cutting benefits. The Koch echo chamber begins with think tanks like the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation and Mercatus Centre at George Mason University and the Reason Foundation, which owe their founding and achievements to Koch backing. These thinktanks take their $28.4m in Koch funding and produce hundreds of position papers distorting the long-term health of social security.

The Koch brothers' campaign to kill social security | Robert Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

 

[FuelRod]

If you know about it...how secret can it be really? Really?

 

[Chris]

The government has added formaldehyde to a list of known carcinogens, despite years of lobbying by the chemical industry. Formaldehyde is found in plastics and often used in plywood, particle board, mortuaries and hair salons. The government also said Friday that styrene, which is used in boats, bathtubs and in disposable foam plastic cups and plates, may cause cancer. The conservative billionaire Koch brothers have led the lobbying effort against labeling formaldehyde as a carcinogen. Georgia-Pacific, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, is one of the country’s top producers of formaldehyde.

Ralph Nader: Koch Brothers Led Fight to Defend Formaldehyde Despite Carcinogenic Evidence | Truthout

 

[martybegan]

So, the criminal governor met with his corporate masters. They gotta pay him back for all the scratch he is throwing their way (and his own of course). The criminal governor has no interest in actually governing, but just wants to squeeze all he can out if the state before abandoning it. America is a ponzi scheme to these Repuglicans.

So I assume he has convictions that allow you to call him a criminal, and these convictions are of course related to how he does business as governor of Florida.

 

[Seawytch]

So, the criminal governor met with his corporate masters. They gotta pay him back for all the scratch he is throwing their way (and his own of course). The criminal governor has no interest in actually governing, but just wants to squeeze all he can out if the state before abandoning it. America is a ponzi scheme to these Repuglicans.

So I assume he has convictions that allow you to call him a criminal, and these convictions are of course related to how he does business as governor of Florida.

No convictions, but how about a $1.7 billion federal fine on the hospital chain that Skeletor founded and led as CEO. The company pleaded guilty to 14 felony charges. (he "resigned" and ran away with a big bag 'o cash)

As for what he's squeezing out of the state, how 'bout this?

Gov. Rick Scott's drug testing policy stirs suspicion

 

[martybegan]

So, the criminal governor met with his corporate masters. They gotta pay him back for all the scratch he is throwing their way (and his own of course). The criminal governor has no interest in actually governing, but just wants to squeeze all he can out if the state before abandoning it. America is a ponzi scheme to these Repuglicans.

So I assume he has convictions that allow you to call him a criminal, and these convictions are of course related to how he does business as governor of Florida.

No convictions, but how about a $1.7 billion federal fine on the hospital chain that Skeletor founded and led as CEO. The company pleaded guilty to 14 felony charges. (he "resigned" and ran away with a big bag 'o cash)

As for what he's squeezing out of the state, how 'bout this?

Gov. Rick Scott's drug testing policy stirs suspicion

Thought so. If they would have had evidence HE committed crimes, they would have prosecuted HIM.

 

[Chris]

As Texas faced some of the worst wildfires in its history and a severe drought crisis that has caused the federal government to declare the entire state a disaster area, its governor was schmoozing with well-heeled conservative donors in Vail, Colorado at a retreat organized by the right-wing industrialist Koch brothers. Gov. Rick Perry (R) left his state without notifying constituents or the press and dodged inquiries into his whereabouts. The media had to resort to tracking the tail number of a private plane owned by one of Perry’s major campaign donors. “This was an opportunity to talk about the economic success in Texas,” a spokesperson said, denying that the trip had anything to do with a potential presidential run.

Perry has spent the past two months complaining that the Obama administration has not been paying enough attention to his state’s fires.

Meanwhile, in Florida, days after declaring a state of emergency for his state’s own climate crisis, Gov. Rick Scott (R) disappeared over the weekend, failing to disclose his whereabouts in his public schedule and refusing to respond to numerous press inquiries. Yesterday, Scott finally admitted he left the state without informing his constituents to attend the the Koch summit. Florida press spent most of the past few days trying to track down the rogue governor while more than 300 wildfires continue to burn in the state:

We finally have an answer as to where Gov. Rick Scott was this weekend, and it confirms our suspicion: at the billionaire Koch brothers’ secret conference outside Vail, Colorado.

St. Petersburg Times reporter Alex Leary got the information out of him, a day after the governor’s spokesman wouldn’t confirm or deny whether Scott was there.

“I told anybody who asked me,” the governor told the Times, apparently ignoring the fact that he spends most of his days playing hide-and-seek from the media.

Govs. Rick Perry And Rick Scott Go AWOL During State Emergencies To Attend Secret Koch Event | ThinkProgress

 

[editec]

Politics is a conspiracy, folks.

Usually it's not an illegal concpiracy, but much of it is a conspiracy nevertheless.