Corporations

Wisconsin Surprise: Rachel Maddow and Others Concerned Walker Bill Could Hand State Assets to Walker-Supporter Koch

In a new revelation about Governor Walker's "Budget Repair" bill, the Center for Media and Democracy has learned that a provision of the measure allows the sale of "any state−owned heating, cooling, and power plant" and does this "with or without solicitation of bids."

Bag of moneyAnd just who could be a recipient of no-bid state sales of publicly-owned heating, cooling and power facilities? According to the Rachel Maddow Show and other outlets, that could be companies controlled by the brothers David and Charles Koch, owners of Koch Industries, and big financial supporters of Governor Scott Walker. The Koch brothers have also funded groups that are attempting to create a crisis atmosphere over the state's budget, leading up to the attempt to pass this bill that could result in the low-cost transfer of state assets to their company.

Kochs Behind Wisconsin Union-Busting Effort

Submitted by Anne Landman on

Charles (L) and David KochRick Ungar of Forbes.com draws a direct line from the Koch Brothers to the effort to kill public unions in Wisconsin. The Center for Media and Democracy, Mother Jones and other news outlets have already reported that much of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's campaign financing came from the Koch Brothers. After successfully getting Walker elected, the plan to kill unions is next on the Kochs' To Do list. Koch-funded groups like Americans for Prosperity, the Reason Foundation and Competitive Enterprise Institute have all been openly hostile toward public sector unions. For those who still doubt that what is happening in Wisconsin is part of a coordinated, national attack on unions, on February 18, the executive director of the Wisconsin Public Workers Union sent a message to Governor Walker's office saying the union agreed to the cuts in pensions and benefits Walker seeks in his "budget repair" bill. The governor's response? No, not good enough. He is still holding out for nothing less than an end to collective bargaining rights for public unions. Why are the Koch brothers so keen on Wisconsin? They have major business interests in the state, including a coal company, six paper-related plants and a large pipeline network. Even worse for Wisconsin citizens, the Kochs have been laying off workers from their Wisconsin-based businesses even while deriving an extra $11 billion in income from their company, Koch Industries.

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Main Source: 
Forbes.com (blog), Februrary 18, 2011
Topics: 
Activism
Corporations
Labor
Wisconsin

Post- Citizens United, Crushing Workplace Democracy Can Crush American Democracy

UnionBustingWIIn the report Scott Walker Runs on Koch Money, the Center for Media and Democracy's Executive Director Lisa Graves pointed out how the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity helped elect Scott Walker as Wisconsin governor, and how his attack on public sector unions looks like a return on the Kochs' investment. While suppressing workplace democracy will certainly benefit corporate interests by allowing business managers to focus exclusively on increasing shareholder returns (and not getting distracted by employee demands for safe and productive working conditions), attacks on unions will also eliminate barriers to absolute corporate control of our political democracy.

The Looming Assault on UW-Madison

Op-Ed by Steve Horn, Madison, Wisconsin -- This is a story about Scott Walker and Biddy Martin's efforts to dismantle the University of Wisconsin-Madison. To complete the corporatization of the public's university is an important piece of what is happening both in Madison and nationwide. This story must be told before it is too late to save the university that belongs to the people of Wisconsin, and while democratic momentum is still on our side at the University, in Madison, and in the state of Wisconsin. Although seemingly specific to the UW, this is a case study about the future of public college education nationwide.

The Koch Connection in Scott Walker's War on Working People

Wisconsin's embattled Governor Scott Walker took large donations from Koch Industries in the run-up to the 2010 election that swept him into office. OpenSecrets.org reports that Koch Industries donated a total of $43,000 in two separate contributions -- $15,000 on July 8, 2010 and another $28,000 on September 27, 2010 -- to the Friends of Scott Walker Political Action Committee (PAC), to help get Walker elected governor.

An Illuminating Expedition to the World of the Uninsured

Remote Area MedicalAs Congressional Republicans seek ways to starve the new health care reform law of necessary funding -- and Democrats try to keep that from happening -- it's easy to lose sight of the reasons why reform was pursued in the first place.

For a reminder, lawmakers might want to spend a few hours in Nashville this weekend. I'm betting they would behave differently when they got back to Washington on Monday.

If they arrived in Nashville by Friday afternoon, those legislators would see an ever-growing line of cars and trucks outside a locked gate at McGavock High School. At midnight, the gate will be opened, enabling the occupants of those cars and trucks to camp out in the parking lot for hours, maybe even days. Many of these folks will have driven hundreds of miles to receive care from doctors and nurses and other caregivers volunteering their time to treat as many people as possible before they all pack up and go home Sunday evening.

Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools

The cost of K–12 public schooling in the United States comes to well over $500 billion per year. So, how much influence could anyone in the private sector exert by controlling just a few billion dollars of that immense sum? Decisive influence, it turns out. A few billion dollars in private foundation money, strategically invested every year for a decade, has sufficed to define the national debate on education; sustain a crusade for a set of mostly ill-conceived reforms; and determine public policy at the local, state, and national levels. In the domain of venture philanthropy -- where donors decide what social transformation they want to engineer and then design and fund projects to implement their vision -- investing in education yields great bang for the buck.

AT&T Sued for Fraudulent Data Usage Billing

Submitted by Anne Landman on

IPhone moneyA class-action lawsuit filed against AT&T alleges the company routinely overstates web-server data traffic on its monthly bills by 7 to 14 percent, most notably for IPhone users. Plaintiffs allege that AT&T "bills for phantom data traffic when there is no actual data use initiated by the customer." Independent consultants report that they bought a new IPhone and disabled every possible source of data connectivity they could possibly find on it, yet within ten days their account had logged 2,292 KB of data usage on the phone. The suit says, "This is like the rigged gas pump charging you when you never even pulled your car into the station." Plaintiffs allege breach of contract, unjust enrichment, fraudulent and unfair business practices. AT&T intends to defend itself vigorously against the suit, and that "Transparent and accurate billing is a top priority" for the company. 

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Main Source: 
TGDaily.com
Topics: 
Corporations
Ethics

Big Oil's Massive Diesel Injection

Submitted by Steve Horn on

Drill rigThe Marcellus Shale lies are unraveling daily right before our eyes. T. Boone Pickens, for example, was on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show on Thurs. Jan. 27 to hype up the Pickens Plan. Yet, this is what the Pickens Plan will get us on a weekly, if not daily basis. The New York Times reports:

Drilling service companies have injected at least 32 million gallons of diesel fuel underground as part of a controversial drilling technique, a Democratic congressional investigation has found. Injecting diesel as part of hydraulic fracturing is supposed to be regulated by U.S. EPA. But an agency official told congressional investigators that EPA had assumed that the use of diesel had stopped seven years ago ...The letter said they had not been able to determine whether the diesel injections threatened groundwater. The service companies told Waxman's staff they did not know how close their frack jobs were to sources of drinking water, saying their clients, the well operators, would have that information. Of the total figure, 10 million gallons was 'straight diesel fuel,' according to the letter, while another 22 million gallons was products containing at least 30 percent diesel.

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Main Source: 
New York Times, Jan. 31, 2011
Topics: 
Corporations
Energy
Environment

Only People Can Vote -- Only People Should Finance Campaigns

Guest piece by Greg Colvin, Campaign for America's Future

Introducing the Citizens Election Amendment, Version 1.0.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Citizens United case exactly one year ago tomorrow, saying that the Constitution gives Corporations influence American elections with unlimited spending, people have been asking "how can we amend the Constitution to put this right?"

In this country, each person has one vote, no matter whether you are rich or poor. And it is illegal to buy or sell a person's vote. So why do we allow electoral influence to be bought and sold? Why has politics in America become a commodity in an economic marketplace, where the richest corporations, business associations, unions, and individuals can buy enormous leverage on the outcome of our elections?

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