Tuesday, September 6, 2011

HOT: Mother Jones Releases Secret Koch Brothers Tapes

Mother Jones has obtained a secret recording made at a private Koch Brothers plot fest held in June at a resort near Vail, Colorado. Reports MJ:
"We have Saddam Hussein," declared billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, apparently referring to President Barack Obama as he welcomed hundreds of wealthy guests to the latest of the secret fundraising and strategy seminars he and his brother host twice a year. The 2012 elections, he warned, will be "the mother of all wars."

Charles Koch would probably not publicly compare the president of the United States to a murderous dictator. (As a general rule, he and his brother don't do much politicking or speechifying in public at all.) But Mother Jones has obtained exclusive audio recordings from the Koch seminar, a private event that took place in June at a resort near Vail, Colorado.
Security was tight at the Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch on opening night of the weekend conference, which drew an estimated 300 guests, according to MJ. Audio technicians even set up outward-pointing speakers around the perimeter of the outdoor dining pavilion, according to sources, emitting static to frustrate would-be eavesdroppers.

"There is anonymity that we can protect," noted emcee "Kevin"—likely Kevin Gentry, a VP for the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation., Charles Koch named 32 individuals and families who had donated more than $1 million over the previous 12 months, yet because of loopholes in federal campaign law, their donations do not exist in the public record.

Charles Koch identified the following as contributing a million dollars or more (Note names spelt phonetically by transcriber of the tape):

The Camerons, John Childs, The Ciokas, The Cortopossis, Joe Craft, The DeVoses, The Farmers, Kelly Friedman, The Friesses, The Fullinwiders, The Gilliams, The Griffins, The Hamms, The Haworths, The Haydens, Diane Hendricks, The Humphreys family, Virginia James, The Levys, The Marshalls family, The Menards, John Moran, The Patricks, The Popes, The Schwabs, Paul Singer, The Templetons, The Traytellas, The Robertsons, Karen Wright, and Tom Rastin, and the principals with the Services Group of America


A transcript and 4 minute clip of the recording are here.

13 comments:

  1. Is it not blow to the 'liberty cause' to have Judge Andrew Napolitano there? I realize he has a career to build, but I confess I'm a little disgusted to see him hanging with this crowd. Would I be naive to believe he's simply 'keeping his enemies closer'?

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  2. Sean - I wondered the same thing when I heard he was going. What was the deal with that, anyway?

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  3. If you see his speech, he's not compromising anything.

    http://www.bradblog.com/?page_id=8701

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  4. Are you guys kidding? Don't you think Wenzel would go in a New York minute if he were invited? I sure would, so long as they knew I would blog about my attendance. (I would be fine if they said, "OK but you can't blog about what happens in here.")

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  5. John Menard! Reppin' my hometown, Eau Claire. The guy was rags to riches, went from selling lumber in a pole shed on N. Town Hall Rd. to 250 stores across the midwest. Seeing him in bed with the Kochtopus sort of shatters my Hank Rearden illusions, though.

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  6. Just because you go to one of these events does not mean you are evil. Some of these people are just ignorant and really think that the Koch brothers are good people. The Devoses are great people. Andrew Napolitano is a hero of the liberty movement and I'm glad he accepted this invitation because now he has a chance to influence these people.

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  7. Good for Napolitano. I hope he has some influence. This crowd leans libertarian, and we always seem to eat our own for whatever reason.

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  8. The DeVoses? Of Scamway fame? Uh, yeah, great people...

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  9. @Anon 12.37
    That you, Kinsella?

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  10. No, not Kinsella. Rich Devos is a good guy who made his fortune through private enterprise and has helped thousands of average people to become financially independent through Amway. There's no scam about it.

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  11. OK so I listened to the whole thing and there was nothing wrong or even mildly controversial on it. You people are seriously nuts.

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  12. Rachel Maddow referred to this secret July meeting this summer on her show on 29 June 2011 while talking about Florida Governor Rick Scott's imitation of Houdini and vanishing into Colorado in June of this year. Now we know what you were talking about near Vail.

    http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/06/rachel_maddow_rick_scott_koch_brothers.php

    http://www.linkedin.com/in/scottalanlink

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  13. Cold hard fact: virtually nobody's become financially independent through scamway. Read and learn:
    http://www.skepdic.com/amway.html

    Sorry. DeVos is a very powerful crook, and it's no wonder he wuvs the Kochtopus.

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