{"id":8134,"date":"2011-10-03T11:16:31","date_gmt":"2011-10-03T16:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=8134"},"modified":"2011-10-03T11:51:54","modified_gmt":"2011-10-03T16:51:54","slug":"koch-brothers-flout-law-with-secret-iran-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2011\/10\/03\/koch-brothers-flout-law-with-secret-iran-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"Koch Brothers Flout Law With Secret Iran Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Bloomberg News<\/em> comes the story Koch Brothers Flout Law With Secret Iran Sales<\/strong><\/a>. My interest in the Koch brothers stems from their leading role in the right-wing politics of class warfare. They are mentioned numerous times on this blog. You can search for “Koch brothers”<\/a><\/strong> in the search bar above.<\/p>\n

There is some good news about the Koch brothers, sort of.<\/p>\n

\n

Integrity and Compliance<\/h2>\n

Koch Industries\u2019 political action committee, KochPAC, donated $50,000 to Texans for Rick Perry last year for his gubernatorial campaign, according to the Texas Ethics Commission. It has also donated to support Bachmann\u2019s congressional campaigns, Federal Election Commission records\u00a0show.<\/p>\n

The company tells all of its employees around the world that its top two values, which it calls Guiding Principles, are integrity and compliance. Koch Industries and its subsidiaries have won 436 awards for safety, environmental excellence, community and customer service and innovation since January 2009, Cohlmia says.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has recognized several of the company\u2019s units for their commitment to the workplace, the company says. Koch Industries has also supported charitable causes in Wichita and beyond, including the Kansas Special Olympics and Big Brothers Big Sisters. The company has also helped enlistees in the U.S. Army Reserve.<\/p>\n

Koch Industries has donated millions of dollars to the Nature Conservancy, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Reputation is Critical<\/h2>\n

David Koch has contributed more than $135 million to cultural institutions, including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York and the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of Natural History.<\/p>\n

Koch Industries zealously guards its public image.<\/p>\n

\u201cA company\u2019s reputation is critical to how it will be treated by others and to its long-term success,\u201d Charles Koch wrote in \u201cThe Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World\u2019s Largest Private Company\u201d (Wiley, 2007). \u201cWe must build a positive reputation based on reality, or others will create one for us based on speculation or animus and we won\u2019t like what they create.\u201d<\/p>\n

The illicit payments uncovered by Ludmila Egorova-Farines raised the specter of a new blow to the company\u2019s effort to improve its reputation following criminal convictions and civil penalties.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then there is lots of bad news. One item that I found striking was the following:<\/p>\n

\n

Twin Brother<\/h2>\n

The Senate held hearings in May 1989 after Bill Koch<\/a><\/strong>, David Koch\u2019s twin brother, told a U.S. Senate special committee on investigations that Koch Industries was stealing oil on American Indian reservations, cheating the federal government of royalties.<\/p>\n

Bill Koch had a long-standing feud with his brothers after his failed attempt to take over the company in the early 1980s. He sold his shares in June 1983 and later lost a lawsuit claiming he\u2019d been shortchanged.<\/p>\n

The Senate committee sent investigators to Oklahoma to secretly observe oil companies, including Koch, buying crude on Indian land. The federal agents hid in ditches, crouched behind scrub cedars and ducked behind cows to avoid detection by Koch Oil\u2019s purchasers, FBI agent Richard Elroy testified to the committee in May 1989.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Bloomberg News comes the story Koch Brothers Flout Law With Secret Iran Sales. My interest in the Koch brothers stems from their leading role in the right-wing politics of class warfare. They are mentioned numerous times on this blog. You can search for “Koch brothers” in the search bar above. There is some good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8134"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8144,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8134\/revisions\/8144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}