In the newest episode of the Cato Institute soap opera, the Kochs have sent out an email blast to alumni of their scholarship programs explaining their reasons for suing Kathryn Washburn, widow of shareholder William Niskanen.

Via ThinkTanked Blog (WaPo), an excerpt. The full email is at the link:

Why now for such a dispute?

We can all agree that the timing is extremely unfortunate and that at this critical time our efforts should be directed to advancing the principles that allow a free society to prosper. And Charles Koch and David Koch went to great lengths to avoid this dispute. Their efforts were numerous, sincere, and went literally up to the last minute.

The disagreement over the shareholders’ agreement has been going on for years with Charles Koch and David Koch receiving several proposals from Cato’s officers to dissolve the agreement. Charles and David consistently declined these proposals because they feel the shareholder structure is important to preserve donor intent. At the unfortunate passing of one of the four shareholders, Bill Niskanen, some issues came to the forefront with discussions about how his shares should rightfully be disposed.

Charles Koch and David Koch, mindful of how this dispute could be a distraction to Cato and its mission at this critical time, sought to resolve the issue, or alternatively, to table the issue for a year or longer.

· They proposed a standstill agreement to delay any discussion on the shareholders agreement, and to delay any shareholder meetings and maintain the current board of directors, for one year or longer.

· They proposed third party mediation.

· They proposed alternative corporate structures for the other side to consider.

All of these efforts were rejected, and Cato’s other shareholder demanded that a shareholders’ meeting be held on March 1 where a new party (Ms. Washburn – Bill Niskanen’s widow) would be named a shareholder and new directors would be named.

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As information continues to come to light about the attempted hostile takeover of the Cato Institute to make it into a tool of their political empire, the plan both confirms and exposes the ultimate realization of the Powell memo, which set out to create an indestructible infrastructure to support and sustain the far right as the dominant political force in this country. There was only one purpose to this infrastructure: Consolidation of political power to benefit business in the name of "free enterprise."

As we now know, that infrastructure extends from right wing radio networks to non-profits like Citizens United and Americans for Prosperity. Although the Cato Institute was funded with Scaife, Olin and Koch money, it has managed to remain true to libertarian principles in their purer form.

But no more. With the death of one of the founding board members and shareholders, the Kochs have made a move to pack the board with their ideological counterparts and take majority control of Cato in order to use it as an "ammo shop" for AFP, as Susie wrote about Sunday.

Dave Weigel has more details:

“They said that a principle goal was to defeat Barack Obama,” remembered Levy. “The way David [Koch] put it was, ‘We would like you to provide intellectual ammunition that we can then use at Americans for Prosperity and our allied organizations.’ AFP and others would apply Cato's work to advance their electoral goals.”Levy asked them: “What gives you the impression that [Cato isn’t] providing intellectual ammunition?” He says now: "I never got a satisfactory answer. The only answer that makes sense was that Cato needed to be more responsive to their needs. We would take closer marching orders. That’s totally contrary to what we perceive the function of Cato be.”

Cato’s leadership didn’t respond to this directive, nor did they change anything about the think tank. The Kochs began to change it for them. In February, they nominated 16 people for four slots on Levy’s board. Levy and others were aghast at some of the names. One nominee, Tony Woodlief, a former leader of several Koch-funded groups, had blogged in the past about “sanctimonious libertarians” who refused to get serious about policy. “Libertarianism in practice largely consists of a homogeneous group of people talking to one another about a narrow set of things that matter most to them (legalized drugs, lower taxes), and hoping that the rest of America will wake up and elect them to office,” he sneered in a 2002 post. “The majority of Americans are not, in fact, ‘live and let live’ types.” John Hinderaker, a lawyer and founder of the blog PowerLine, had backed the Iraq war and called George W. Bush a “man of extraordinary vision approaching to genius.

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Back in June of this year, Governor Rick Snyder and the Republican legislature in Michigan were fiercely debating ways to limit government contributions for public pensions and health care costs. One of the strategies was to switch the public contribution from a fixed percentage of premiums to a fixed dollar amount, and that initiative ultimately passed in September.

For 2012, school districts could not spend more than a fixed amount for health insurance, or else they would have to opt for an 80/20 percent cost-sharing plan where teachers paid 20 percent with the district picking up the 80 percent. This law was passed in advance of contracts being negotiated for the 2012 year, so that they would have to include it as part of the negotiation. In other words, the legislators tied unions' bargaining ability in a knot.

This legislation was just part of a multi-pronged attack on unions and public education in general. Other bills have been passed along party lines changing tenure rules and criteria for firing teachers, allowing outsourcing of teachers in charter schools, changing union dues rules, attacking collective bargaining, lifting limitations on state payments to cyber schools, and even lifting anti-bullying rules.

It's not an accident that this is happening in Michigan. Michigan, after all, is the home of Betsy and Dick DeVos, ardent opponents of all public schools. They aren't afraid to throw millions at that goal, either. One of her very favorite charities, along with her pals the Kochs, is the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Ostensibly a think tank, Mackinac is a non-profit organization which exists to write, lobby and serve as advocate for right wing dream legislation.

Emails published on Monday by the Michigan Education Association clearly show that Mackinac was coordinating with Republican state legislators in Michigan to not only limit teachers' collective bargaining rights, but they were also deeply involved in the policy surrounding health care costs. In one email from Jack McHugh, Mackinac senior legislative analyst and editor of MichiganVotes.org to state Representative (and chair of the House Education Committee) Tom McMillin with copies to several other Mackinac policy wonks, McHugh says this:

I personal think 20 percent is OK, because it changes the employee incentives (and we do believe in incentives!)

But a hard cap is OK too.

Do we care who runs the operation? Maybe, for this reason: Our goal is outlaw government collective bargaining in Michigan, which in practical terms means no more MEA.

I'm reminded of our calls to eliminate ISDs [Internal Service Departments] (and Ruth's work to expose them): The legislature keeps giving them more things to do, making it ever more difficult to abolish them.

Mackinac's stated purpose and programs on its 990 filing are as follows:

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The Center for Media and Democracy has the whole story on Herman Cain's smoking campaign dude, Mark Block. For a guy who claims to be savvy about business, Cain sure did hire a sleaze to run his campaign. Here are some of Block's prior associations with Koch-funded organizations.

Friends of Herman Cain - This is the PAC created to fund Cain's campaign.

Scott Sidney is the PAC's Director of Advance Operations. He previously worked for Americans for Prosperity in Wisconsin, and he has been listed as a representative of Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin in presentations on organizing "Taxpayer TeaParties" against health insurance reforms as well as stating that he has been a "consultant" to Tea Party groups.

Even though FOH did not officially register until May 2011, it was listed as a creditor on Prosperity USA's financial documents in February 2011. The report lists accounts receivable "Due from FOH" for over $40,000 in Cain's travel expenses and for Apple Computer iPads. The PAC began raising and spending money in January 2011.

CREW has filed a complaint with the FEC about this. It's particularly notable because Mark Block has engaged in dealings like this before, dealings that barred him from politics for three years.

Prosperity USA

On July 31, 2010, the corporation filed an amendment with the state to change its name to "Prosperity USA, Inc." At that time, "Mark. J. Block" was listed as the president of the corporation. The organization's latest filing from July 31, 2010 shows Block to be president of the organization. He is currently listed as its registered agent on the State of Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions website.

Prosperity USA's known spending on Mr. Cain's campaign expenses appears to have occurred in January or February of 2011, well after the period Mr. Cain became a "candidate" within the meaning of Code section 501(c)(3), in the view of the Center, and after Mr. Block became his campaign's chief of staff.

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Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.
-George Orwell, 1984

Evidently Koch Industries believes in stopping Thoughtcrime before it starts, by simply laying it down to their employees this way: You Will Vote This Way, Or Else.

Via The Nation:

The Nation obtained the Koch Industries election packet for Washington State—which included a cover letter from its president and COO, David Robertson; a list of Koch-endorsed state and federal candidates; and an issue of the company newsletter, Discovery, full of alarmist right-wing propaganda.

Legal experts interviewed for this story called the blatant corporate politicking highly unusual, although no longer skirting the edge of legality, thanks to last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which granted free speech rights to corporations.

Here's some of what they said in that "election packet":

As Koch company employees, we have a lot at stake in the upcoming election. Each of us is likely to be affected by the outcome on Nov. 2. That is why, for the first time ever, we are mailing our newest edition of Discovery and several other helpful items to the home address of every U.S. employee.

This Discovery features election-related information about how government decisions affect us, and about the proper role of business in society (creating value). Charles Koch's editorial reminds us why it is the policies and actions of politicians -- not their personalities or political parties -- that matter most. To help set the record straight, we've also included an informative reprint from the Washington Examiner.

[...]

For most of you, we've also enclosed a listing of candidates supported by Koch companies and KOCHPAC, the political action committee for Koch companies. Of course, deciding who to vote for is a decision that is yours and yours alone, based on the factors important to you. Koch and KOCHPAC support candidates we believe will best advance policies that create the economic conditions needed for employees and businesses such as ours to survive and prosper. [Emphasis added]

Well. I guess if I were walking in the shoes of a Koch employee I might be saying to myself, gosh...I guess I'd better vote the way they say or I won't have a job.

And then I'd burn their damn packet and vote the way my conscience dictated. But not all employees are that bold or that engaged, so I'm sure this little mailing had its intended effect.

You should really read the whole packet. It's fairly amazing. The voter card for Washington "recommended" votes for Dino Rossi and Jaime Herrera on the federal side of the ballot and a whole bunch of Republicans on the state side.

Scott Walker and his good buddies will be testifying today before Darryl Issa's Koch Caucus -- er -- Oversight Committee. They've been called to Washington DC to testify about how effective their state budget measures have been and how the federal government should follow in their footsteps.

Press release:

Representative Issa is going to use this hearing to try and sell the House Republican budget to the American people. His “experts” are going to try trot out all sorts of facts and figures to say that jobs will rain from heaven only if billionaires pay fewer taxes, businesses keep their tax subsidies and loopholes and if workers lose their right to a voice on the job.

• The House Republican budget puts nearly the entire burden of reducing the deficit on senior citizens, students and working families.
• House Republicans proved in the government shutdown debate that their budget priorities, like Governor Walker’s in Wisconsin, isn’t about creating jobs or fiscal responsibility but about ideological and political crusades.
• Rep. Issa is not interested in what is ailing the states; he just wants to do what he does best - paying back his corporate CEO friends and punishing his political opponents.

Go ahead and click through on that image at the top. That'll give you a sense of the number of committee members that are recipients of Koch "largesse."

Also, this. One of the witnesses on one panel is from the National Right to Work Committee. The NRWC is, of course, the far-right funded think tank (and I use the term loosely) that works solely to union-bust wherever possible. It was started with Koch funds, but it's funded by lots of donors now, including the Bradley Foundation, the Walton (WalMart) Foundation, and others. Every respectable right-wing foundation sends about $30,000-$50,000 per year over to them. If they want to be sure they're anonymous, they give via the Vanguard Charitable Trust ($175,000 in 2009) or Donors' Trust.

Additional testimony will be heard from the Cato Institute's Andrew Briggs and the Heritage Foundation's Desmond Lachman. What a panel, eh?

If we were to ask these witnesses -- all of them, including Scott Walker -- to wear their team colors, they would all be in blue and black warmup suits with the Koch company name all over them.

As an extra added bonus, here's the story of how Scott Walker and David Prosser quietly reversed water quality regulations in the middle of the budget battle last month in order to allow Koch to dump more phosphorous in Wisconsin's water. Wonder what that does to the taste of beer?

I'm the editor of Progressive Congress News Transit & Urban Development feed. This is the first in a weekly series of topical posts on cities and the roads & rails that connect them.

Trains are a highly-developed, widely-used, and very popular form of transportation -- a strange choice of culture war for the right. Yet hatred of trains, especially ones that run on time, is a pronounced theme of Mrs. Rand's Bible of selfish economic wisdom. After decades of gestation in Hollywood development hell, Atlas Shrugged Part I will soon star star Vice President Joe Biden as Dagny Taggart, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood as Hank Rearden, and Florida Governor Rick Scott as Wesley Mouch.

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So it seems Charles Koch wrote an editorial while I was away. An editorial for the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, where he spends an entire column saying a whole lot of nothing. An editorial where he misstates facts, figures, and twists up truth into his weird alternate reality.

I feel compelled to respond to him.

Dear Charles Koch,

In your March 1st editorial, you make the following statements:

Years of tremendous overspending by federal, state and local governments have brought us face-to-face with an economic crisis. Federal spending will total at least $3.8 trillion this year—double what it was 10 years ago. And unlike in 2001, when there was a small federal surplus, this year's projected budget deficit is more than $1.6 trillion.

This is a direct consequence of the costs of two wars which until 2008, were not added to the balance sheets. Funny how you fail to account for where the deficits arose, but are quick to point to their existence.

Several trillions more in debt have been accumulated by state and local governments. States are looking at a combined total of more than $130 billion in budget shortfalls this year. Next year, they will be in even worse shape as most so-called stimulus payments end.

Ironic that you would give any credit to the stimulus for helping states, given the enormous funds you've laid out to criticize any lawmaker who supported it. What hypocrisy is this? State and local governments are looking at shortfalls because tax revenues have not kept pace with expenditures. This is not the fault of individuals living in those states or municipalities. It is the direct effect of the failure of corporations to pay their fair share to do business in states, and the failure of those same corporations to employ workers in those states, causing those workers to rely upon governmental safety nets to get them by while their jobs are outsourced to countries where corporate profits can increase.

For many years, I, my family and our company have contributed to a variety of intellectual and political causes working to solve these problems. Because of our activism, we've been vilified by various groups. Despite this criticism, we're determined to keep contributing and standing up for those politicians, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who are taking these challenges seriously.

Let's talk about your "activism", because it goes far beyond just political philosophy. You fund groups who actively seek to promote lies about the current President's place of birth, his legitimacy as a United States citizen, and undermine the mandate he received from voters in 2008. That's not "standing up" for anything.

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Koch Industries just gave the Yes on 23 campaign another million dollars via their front corporation, Flint Hills Resources. When added to Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp. contributions, a total of $8.2 million has been raised for a "Yes" proposition that really is a "No" proposition in disguise.

Consider this: 100% of the money to fund Proposition 23 comes from outside California. Oil companies inside California -- Chevron and Shell, notably -- have not funded this campaign. What is it about the underlying law -- California AB32 -- that makes corporations with stakes in Kansas and Texas want to spend as much as they can to defeat it? And how is it that libertarians with self-proclaimed strong belief in states' rights like David and Charles Koch are so committed to undoing a law that has no bearing on their state or their rights?

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As I watched the whole TSA swarm descend on the media and Internet over the past month, I was surprised at the violent reaction from the left AND right on airport screenings. Blowing this issue up right before the holidays seemed to be a Tea Party tactic from beginning to end, as far as I was concerned.

Mark Ames and Yasha Levine at The Nation contended in a post yesterday that the current publicity surge was orchestrated and magnified by organizations with ties to Koch Industries. With one exception, they list a solid trail that leads back to organizations with a vested interest in: a) discrediting government agencies and the TSA specifically; and b) discrediting the current administration's ability to handle national security. Unfortunately, they led off the article by trying to link up John Tyner ("Don't Touch My Junk") with these organizations, and as many critics have pointed out, there is no "there", there.

Glenn Greenwald:

As for his standing accused by The Nation of suspicion on the grounds of his avowed libertarianism, consider what he wrote several weeks before the TSA incident. In a post responding to this question -- "When’s the last time you were seriously inconvenienced or injured by something that big government did?" -- Tyner wrote:

Gay rights [infringements], TSA body scanners, highway checkpoints, the PATRIOT Act, warrantless wiretaps, extra-judicial assassinations, indefinite detentions, inflation, etc. Don't tell me that (some of) these don't affect me. When one person's rights are trampled, everybody's are, and that's just at the federal level.

What a right-wing monster! If only Democratic Party leaders -- who support most of the serious rights infringements he condemns -- were this monstrous. Or consider what he wrote about the statements of Juan Williams and Bill O'Reilly which conflated Muslims with Terrorists: (read the rest)

Jeremy Scahill:

The article my magazine, The Nation, published about John Tyner is a shameful smear

While I tend to agree with his criticism of their opening focus on John Tyner, and particularly the authors' focus on personal details of Tyner's education and background as evidence of his bias, that should not automatically disqualify the balance of their article, where they list at least six other connections which are solid and easily documented.

The authors responded to Greenwald's criticism late Wednesday, writing:

We believe that Tyner is in all likelihood innocent in his motives, but our larger point is that his discourse and the movement that has embraced it is far from innocent. In focusing entirely on our characterization of Tyner, Greenwald ignores the larger thrust of our argument and the vast majority of the evidence assembled in the piece, leaving a distorted impression of it.

On this point, I agree. Their article would have been stronger without any reference or only a mere passing reference to John Tyner. I don't believe anyone is arguing that the TSA is perfect, that their scanners are the best we have to offer, or that body searches are not a violation of civil liberties. I certainly am not. At the same time, these issues are not new. It isn't as though patdowns are a new procedure in effect as of this holiday. They've been doing them for years. So why now? Why when there are so many important issues on the table, is this one taking the center stage. Levine and Ames have the same question:

Here is what the article really said: Like many Americans, we found the TSA's intrusive procedures offensive and we are against the invasive pat-downs and attack on our civil liberties. This was a given in our article, and we stated as much. What our article did was look beyond the obvious surface, into possible reasons why this particular issue suddenly rose to forefront of the national debate, when dozens of other, more pressing issues are getting so little attention--people being kicked out of their homes and living on the street because of fraudulent foreclosures, a massive wealth transfer from struggling Americans to the financial sector, ongoing wars that are bankrupting the country and killing thousands, the attack on public education and so on.

They found enough connections inside and outside of Congress to warrant a report on it. Unfortunately, the gist of their findings has been lost in the larger anger over a) the tenuous linking to John Tyner; and b) the overall outrage over enhanced TSA screening procedures.

Here's what bothers me. This smelled like an overblown PR effort from the get-go. Again, I am NOT saying there aren't problems, but this happening right now when more people are flying home to family and friends for the holidays is not coincidental. It's just not. Now The Nation has linked the "OptOut" campaign to astroturf sources, but is still getting a complete smackdown by those who would ordinarily pay attention because...why?

The anti-TSA campaign began in early November, and gained traction just in the nick of time for Thanksgiving travel. Absent from the debate on the left side of the aisle was any discussion about where employees of the TSA stand with regard to unionizing (they have not had a chance to vote on a union to represent them yet); about the clamor for privatization despite the fact that privatization has failed once; whether those employees were properly trained and whether the actual stories told were factual or not. We know Meg McLain's was a complete fabrication. We know the guy headlined by Drudge actually cooperated with authorities.

So what is so unreasonable about linking up agendas with what certainly appears to be a well-timed and carefully crafted campaign? Isn't there a way to both acknowledge the issues inherent with these TSA screening procedures AND the idea that it's being capitalized upon for political gain?

To many, it seems to be a zero-sum game. If one doesn't choose to accept the premise that this entire brouhaha is an organic swarm commanding attention because of self-inflicted TSA incompetence -- malevolence, even -- from a government intent on invading every single aspect of our lives and killing the constitution, then in Greenwald's estimation we must be "centro-facist" (see below) party hacks falling into lockstep and yessing every move with no regard for facts, liberties, or any combination thereof. And that conclusion would exclude any possibility at all that there was, in fact, a PR push to make this a Very Big Issue at a time where a lot of people would be affected and view the TSA, and by extension, this administration in a negative light.

I do believe the TSA has bungled their handling of airport security. I do believe they believe they're doing what they're called to do, but doing it badly and without regard to people's rights. I also believe those errors were capitalized upon by people with agendas and money who set a PR machine in motion to score political points and ultimately political victories which also will disregard our rights and liberties. For Glenn Greenwald and others, this is less important than what the TSA is doing right now. He acknowledges the possibility that the six different instances cited by The Nation may have been true and factual, but for him, the mention and "smear" (his words, not mine) of John Tyner supercede any validity the other 3/4ths of their piece may have had.

It may be that several vocal opponents of the new TSA process are Koch-funded -- that wouldn't surprise me -- but that has absolutely nothing to do with Tyner, and The Nation, for which I have high regard, owes him an apology and retraction for the innuendo it smeared on him without a shred of evidence.

Nothing is absolute. It's likely that all dynamics are at work. Without the work of The Nation's reporters, we would be missing a piece of the larger picture. How are we harmed by that, and why shouldn't it be weighted with more than a passing nod tossed in a maelstrom of biting criticism?

Update and clarification: The term "centro-fascist" was one used by The Nation authors in their response to Glenn Greenwald. The phrasing I used made it appear to be attributable to him. I had originally quoted the authors' full quote using that term, and removed it to make the length readable. In so doing, it left that quote attributable to the wrong speaker.