Carl,
When I read this article, I immediately thought of you because it's a clear
explanation of how the elites run the show, even as they fight each other for
power.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2017 11:28 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Billionaires vs. Billionaires: How TrumpCare's
Defeat Was Actually a Victory for the Koch Brothers
Dirty Oil? Not to worry. Donald Trump has promised us "Clean Coal...I mean
really clean."
If washing the outside of coal makes it "clean", then can we make dirty oil
clean by running it through clean pipelines? I had a buddy in high school who
showered in the morning and again at night. "My hair gets too greasy, so I
might as well wash all of me while I'm washing my hair", he told me. But as
clean as his hair was, he still had the dirtiest mind in the twelfth grade.
And that got me to thinking. Donald Trump seems to spend a great deal of time
primping his hair. Probably washes it every day, too. And yet...well, maybe
his mother should have used the old Ivory soap treatment for his dirty mouth.
Of course even Ivory soap will only clean the surface of the hands, while doing
absolutely nothing for where and when the hands go groping. But what the Heck,
wash the coal and call it clean.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/30/17, Mike Edwards <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Sent from my iPhone
On Mar 30, 2017, at 6:00 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
David and Charles Koch. (photo: Getty)
Billionaires vs. Billionaires: How TrumpCare's Defeat Was Actually a
Victory for the Koch Brothers
By Greg Palast, OpEd News
30 March 17
When RyanCare-TrumpCare finally ended up face-down in the swimming
pool, triumphalist Democrats whooped and partied and congratulated
themselves on defeating the Trump-Ryan monstrosity.
But deep in their counting house, counting their gold, three brothers
cackled with private jubilation.
David and Charles Koch knew the day was theirs.
Joining them in the celebration was Brother Billy, William Koch, who
will share in their $21 billion windfall that the President arranged
for them only hours before TrumpCare crashed--when Trump announced
his State Department had formally approved the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Let's start with that $21 billion.
The XL Keystone Pipeline would take the world's heaviest, filthiest
crude from Canada's tar sands, and snake with it all the way down to Texas.
[Watch this clip from The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.]
Now here's a question I never hear from our sleep-walking media:
Exactly why are we sending oil all the way across the United States
to Texas. I mean, doesn't Texas already have a little oil?
In fact, Texas is drowning in oil, choking in it. But the Kochs'
Texas refinery can't use much local crude. The Koch Industries Flint
Hills refinery on the Texas Gulf Coast was designed specifically to
crack only the world's "heaviest" (i.e. filthiest) crude.
Texas crude ain't heavy enough, ain't dirty enough, for the Kochs'
Gulf Coast operation, originally designed for imports for the world's
major source of heavy crude: Venezuela. The price the Kochs paid for
Venezuela's oil was set by its President Hugo Chavez, and now, by
Chavez' chosen successor, Nicolas Maduro.
Chavez and Maduro both told me they'd squeeze the Kochs by their tankers.
They have.
Enter the Mounties: Canadians sell their super-heavy crude at a $12
to $30 a barrel discount to the Venezuelan price. If the XL Pipeline
is complete, the Kochs can suck down Canada's cheap cruddy crude for
a minimum savings of
$1.27 billion in a single year.
The Kochs pocket billions while we fry: burning the Canadian tar
sands reserve will, all by itself, raise the temperature of the
entire planet by
0.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
Over the life of the XL Keystone Pipeline, the various Koch
operations will put at minimum, $21 billion in Koch family pockets.
Because we have to add in not only Charles' and David's gains, but
Brother Billy's windfall as well"
Brother Billy's Filth Factory
The third, lesser-known Koch is Brother William, now principal of
Oxbow Carbon. The name itself gives environmentalists the heebee-jeebies.
To keep the tar sands gunk flowing through the Keystone pipeline, the
worst of the tar must be extracted and processed as "petcoke," stuff
so filthy and toxic it is illegal to burn in the USA. So Billy Koch
sells the compressed filth to China and Mexico.
And Billy's bro's have joined the "petcoke" game too. David and Charles'
subsidiary, Koch Carbon, already pulls the gunk from the current
Keystone pipe where in Detroit it's accumulating in piles bigger than
the pyramids.
Here's a photo of Koch's coke wafting over Detroit's city parks.
Which explains why the Koch's political front operation, Americans
for Prosperity, named approval of the XL Pipeline the number one
priority for the Trump presidency.
KochDon'tCare
When TrumpCare breathed its last, the President blamed Democrats for
its untimely demise.
A stunned by-stander, Democratic Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, went
for
it:
"We'll take credit for that."
Sorry, Nancy, you can't.
Because it was the Kochs' brownshirts, the self-styled "Freedom Caucus,"
that, in a bestial assault, crushed a sitting President and their own
leader of Congress, Paul Ryan. The thugs' secret weapon: heavy bags
of cash, Koch cash.
Kochs front groups, including Americans for Prosperity (the XL
promoter, promised unlimited funds to any far-right Congressman who
would vote against the bill. The Kochs' Freedom Partners Executive
Director told members of the uber-right Congressional Freedom Caucus,
"We will stand with lawmakers who keep their promise and oppose this
legislation" with a "seven-figure" war chest. In the old days, that
was called "bribery." But today it's called, "Koch."
Blow-hard Trump threatened them, but Koch's money protected them.
The Kochs don't want ObamaCare, TrumpCare, nor any care at all for
Americans that add to their tax bill. Call it KochDon'tCare.
Billionaires versus Billionaires
But keen observers of TrumpCare would note that it was not really a
health care bill, but a tax bill--specifically, a tax cut of some
$157 billion that has been charged to the richest Americans to fund
ObamaCare through a 3.75% tax on passive investment income--that is,
money earned, not by working, but by speculating.
Because behind the public creator of the bill, Speaker Paul Ryan,
stood Ryan's number one funder, a billionaire known as The Vulture.
The Vulture, aka Paul Singer, makes all his money by nasty methods
excoriated even in the Wall Street Journal.
In Trump's weird psycho-babbling press conference last month, he
said, "So I want to thank Paul Singer for being here and for coming
up to the office."
Reporters scratched their head, not knowing who this "Singer" is nor
why Trump brought it up.
Now, you know what that was about.
Singer makes all his money from speculation income. The Ryan-Trump
"healthcare" bill was first and foremost a tax cut for Singer, likely
worth billions to The Vulture (and more to his cohort including
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin).
But to the Kochs, this tax break is nearly worthless. So, behind the
curtain, this was a fight of billionaires versus billionaires.
The Kochs, having built up their army of useful idiots--the
Koch-funded Tea Party and Freedom Caucus, won this one. (Hey, no hard
feelings. The Vulture still dines with the Kochs in Vail and donates
to their super-PACs.)
Sure, let's breathe a sigh of relief that, with ObamaCare momentarily
saved, we won't have more amputees begging in the subway, meth
addicts croaking in New Hampshire and my bank account emptied for my
next heart surgery.
It's not Trump's victory that portends fascism--it is the bending of
Trump by the hands of the poisonously greedy Brothers Koch that
brings the fascist corporatist state one day closer.
And that is nothing to celebrate.
e-max.it: your social media marketing partner
Love Gregg Palast. Still need to get to his book, Best Democracy
Money Can buy. It is waiting in my cue.
