Those of you who follow The BRAD BLOG closely may know that I’ve been working in the background, for a number of weeks, on an exclusive series concerning the billionaire Koch Brothers, the co-owners of the nation’s second largest private corporation, the oil and chemical conglomerate Koch Industries. They are also massive funders behind much of the Rightwing political disinformation machine. The articles, as I can now reveal, cover audio I’ve obtained as recorded from inside their super-secret, super-confidential, invitation-only Summer Seminar held in late June at the tony Ritz-Carlton Beaver Creek Resort near Vail, CO (seen above).
Among this year’s attendees, in addition to hundreds of corporate baron billionaires and millionaires, were GOP public officials such as current Republican Presidential front-runner Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) and Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL).
It appears the brothers went to extraordinary measures, particularly on the first night of the event, to assure that none of the uninvited would ever know what went on inside or even who the first night’s keynote speaker actually was.
Nonetheless, a few of their closely guarded secrets are about to spill out.
The first of my two articles in the series is finally published at Mother Jones today.
Part 1 focuses on the opening and closing remarks, as heard on tape, by billionaire brother Charles as he raises still more undisclosed political money and rallies his troops in advance of the 2012 Presidential election — or “the mother of all wars” as he’s heard describing it. On the first night, Charles welcomes his “great partners” to the event, alludes to President Obama as “Saddam Hussein” and proceeds to list — by name — those “partners” who have donated more than a million dollars to the Koch Foundation political causes over the past year. So much for the post-Citizens United “anonymity” that Koch exec Kevin Gentry, the emcee for both evening’s dinners, informs patrons they can “help protect.”
The full audio and text transcript of Charles’ opening and closing remarks are posted here.
Today’s article also details remarks, several rather noteworthy I think, made by the Kochs’ closing night speaker, Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox “News.” The Fox host tells the crowd of corporate titans, among other things: how he got his job at Fox (it had to do with the FL 2000 Presidential election debacle, he claims); how he “sometimes” gets in “a little bit of trouble at Fox” when he’s too tough on Republicans, and; what he believes the Second Amendment to the Constitution is really for. You’ll have to read the article and/or the Napolitano transcript excerpts for the full details.
Finally, today’s report at Mother Jones describes some of the extraordinary security measures taken by the Kochs to try and ensure that nobody outside the dinner pavilion at the Beaver Creek Resort in Bachelor Gulch would ever know the identity of the GOP public official who delivered the keynote address on opening night. To this day, neither the official’s own constituents nor his own local media seem to have any idea that he’d ever even left the state to pal around with the Kochs, much less offer their opening night’s headline address.
In tomorrow’s report, we’ll reveal the identity of that headliner and detail his stem-winder of a keynote! But for now…
• Part 1 of my exclusive report at Mother Jones…
• Complete audio & transcripts of Charles Koch’s opening & closing remarks…
• Transcript excerpts from Judge Andrew Napolitano’s closing night speech…
Enjoy!
UPDATE 3:56pm PT: Has been a busy day over her for some reason. CNN’s just aired a not-bad story on the above (including a quick appearance by yours truly), and I’ll be on MSNBC’s The Ed Show tonight, late in the 10p ET / 7p PT hour. Ironically, I’ve been on Fox and CNN many times in the past. This will be my first appearance ever on MSNBC. Go figure.
After trying for days to get comment from the Koch’s on Charles’ “We have Saddam Hussein, this is the Mother of All Wars we’ve got in the next 18 months” remark, they’ve finally decided to respond now that the story is out and not, um, reflecting very well on them, it seems…
Jake Tapper of ABC News was the first to publish a reply from the Kochs today:
Ellender goes on to say, according to Tapper, the “Saddam” comment was “taken out of context…As is typical by far-left groups, these reports attempt to make more false claims about Koch.”
Not sure what “far-left group” he’s referring to, nor what “false claims” are being made. As to the quote being “taken out of context,” Charles Koch’s complete, unedited welcoming and closing remarks (when he repeats the same meme of a “mother of all battles” meme) were posted in full — both audio and transcript, along with the original story right here. You can decide for yourself if any of those remarks was taken out of context.
For the record, we contacted the Koch’s several times, specifically asking about the “Saddam Hussein” and “mother of all wars” remark, seeking clarification. Instead of offering it, all they did was offer a link to a page at Koch Industries describing what the seminars are supposedly for. They did not reply to several follow-ups, as we continued to try and get clarification from them.
By the way, Tapper also reports that neither “the White House, nor the Obama 2012 campaign, nor Democratic National Committee had any immediate comment Tuesday when contacted by ABC News and asked about comments made by Koch referring to the 2012 campaign as a repeat of the Iraq War.”
Besides that, there has been tons of coverage of this story today, all over the net. Some, though not all of it, pretty good. Happy to see it.
Oh, and tune in tomorrow. Part 2 of this report is likely to cause a few waves as well. 🙂 — [Part 2 is now posted here.]
UPDATE 11:10pm PT: I’ve got a few more follow-ups now, including my appearances on CNN’s Situation Room today and MSNBC’s The Ed Show tonight and even a response, of sorts, from the White House to the entire fine mess. All now posted here…
Wow..just wow.Mother Jones..good journalism!
Amazing work, Brad. Congratulations!
Outstanding work Brad, we need to try to get you on Rachel Maddow or one of the only 3-4 Centrist news shows on cable TV so you can spread this story to larger group of viewers.
Their daughter-in-law is Betsy DeVos, whose brother is Eric Prince, co-founder of the infamous Blackwater mercenary firm.
Interesting how, in Blackwater = Murder, Inc.?, we covered the failure of the same mainstream media which Charles Koch claims are ninety plus percent against his cause to so much as mention the allegations made by way of sworn federal court affidavits from two former Blackwater employees of how Prince et al were implicated in murder, destruction of evidence, weapons smuggling, underage prostitution and corruption.
Go, Brad!
SCOOP the fake nooze. Keep it up and thanks so much for all your work on the vote fraud that removes our ability to participate in our government.
Ya know I’s love ya!
peasantparty @5. Any “evidence” for that widespread “vote fraud”? Or are you actually taken in by right-wing propaganda that is designed to disenfranchise millions?
Thanks for being misinformed. Good luck with worshiping plutocracy.
HOLY LANDRU! Brad you are awesome! What an amazing exposé! I figured from your teaser that this was big, but had no idea it was THIS big! Congratulations!
Canning@6 – Try reading 5 again, without the paranoia.
Great article. Now how about unequivocally calling for the removal of all private money from political campaigns so this kind of thing won’t be an issue anymore?
Are you kidding, Think About It?! Of course I’m in favor of publicly funded elections. Pay attention, chief.
Great! I was just wondering, considering you didn’t actually say anything to that effect.
By the way, I’ve responded on the other thread to your comment and Ernest Canning’s.
Well, Think About It, since you think The BRAD BLOG is doing such a poor job of focusing on what you think is most important, and how you think it should be said, why don’t you start your own blog and have at it.
Talk about trying to evade context!
Charles Koch said [emphasis added]:
Koch Industries COO Phillip suggests that “‘Mother of All Wars’ is a common phrase, frequently attributed to Saddam Hussein on the eve of the first Gulf War.”
“Next 18 months” and “this country” clearly do not pertain to the First Gulf War. The use of “mother of All Wars” in conjunction with the “next 18 months” and “this country” leaves no room for doubt — Charles Koch was referring to the pending 2012 electoral battle as the “Mother of All Wars” as what “we’ve got over the next 18 months.”
Ellender himself says, “the U.S. has been plunged into its own ’mother of all wars'” as part of his express reference to “record U.S. unemployment, continued economic decline, and loss of liberty.” Ellender’s remarks actually leave no room for seriously doubting that the Saddam Hussein reference was intended to apply to President Obama, whom Koch seeks to blame for our economic demise.
To claim otherwise is to ignore context.
By the way, why would Brad post his story on Mother Jones? Mother Jones is an obvious left gatekeeper blog along the lines of Daily Kos, Crooks & Liars, Huffington Post, Firedog Lake, MyDD, Joe Cannon’s Cannonfire etc. These blogs are part of the controlled opposition. Brad Blog which at least so far does not appear to be part of the controlled opposition, just merely a genuine blog with a bad case of tunnel vision and an inability to see the forest for the trees, would be wise to not have anything to do with the likes of Mother Jones or Cannonfire or any of the other discourse control blogs.
Nicely done Ernie! You go girl, slamming peasantparty who paid brad a complement and obviously misspoke. Would have been really easy to accept the compliment on behalf of the blog and maybe correct his error vice resorting to the typical Ernie “judge a book by it’s cover” attack. You sir define what’s wrong in our political discourse today.
Or maybe peasantparty was being deliberate and sarcastic, in which case nevermind.
This is Pulitzer-worth journalism (again) from our modern day Walter Cronkite, Brad Friedman. I’m over the moon to see The Brad Blog splashed all over CNN’s THE SITUATION ROOM w/ Wolf Blitzer (even if they DID follow it up with a piece on Madonna’s distaste for Hydrangias…)
Still, feels like I woke up in a different country, today, to actually see news on the news!
Way to go, Brad. Amazing work. I’m so proud of you there isn’t a Jewish enough word to describe it. Looking forward to seeing you on THE ED SHOW at 7:00!
“Our nation’s future will be determined in the coming months by the choices Americans make to address the serious economic issues facing our country.â€
Um, who do you mean by “our”, Mr. Koch-bot? I know, I know, they were at your meeting in Vail.
Actually, WingnutSteve & Rick H., upon a re-read I’ve concluded that Peasantparty’s comment was sufficiently ambiguous. If it was intended as a compliment (as opposed to sarcasm) then Peasantparty would have my most humble apology.
Perhaps, Peasantparty can enlighten us as to the real intent of his/her comment.
ThinkAboutIt @15 asks: “why would Brad post his story on Mother Jones?” Which is described as being part of the “controlled opposition.”
Answer: For the same reason Brad will appear on the Ed Schultz show on MSNBC. Because what he has to say is “news” which will reach a broader audience.
What you mistakenly assume is that Brad, and this blog, strive for some form of ideological purity. Brad Friedman, above all else, is a citizen journalist. His mantra is that it is not about Left or Right, but about right and wrong.
Whether stories appear here at The BRAD BLOG or elsewhere, the only controlling factor is whether they are based on verifiable truth.
If Brad and I share a bias, it is that, in a democratic society, the people are entitled to verifiable truth, especially when it comes to the actions of power brokers, like the Koch brothers, who can have such a profound influence on all our lives; the environment and the very survival of humanity.
Whatever it is they do at The Weekly Standard, it isn’t journalism.
Operating on the theory that the best defense is a good offense, John McCormack launches the bold headline Oops: Mother Jones Falsely Reports Charles Koch Compared Obama to Saddam Hussein.
Sounds like McCormack has evidence Brad Friedman and Mother Jones knowingly lied when Brad wrote “Charles welcomes his ‘great partners’ to the event, alludes to President Obama as ‘Saddam Hussein.'”
But, no, McCormack has no such evidence. Instead he quotes Ben Smith of Politico.com’s speculation that it is “possible to hear the transcript a bit differently: The word ‘as’ isn’t in the transcript, but as I [Smith] hear the (ambiguous) line, Koch is quoting Saddam here, not comparing Obama to him.”
McCormack then adds an unfounded speculation of his own: “it seems possible that the word ‘said’ may have been deliberately edited out of the audio recording.”
Yes, John McCormack, and it is “possible” that you are a paid-for propagandist who masquerades as a journalist.
But, then there’s Charles Koch’s actual words.
As noted above, the reference to the next 18 months belies the contention that Koch was merely quoting Saddam Hussein. Koch said “we have Saddam Hussein.” Does “we have Saddam Hussein [said]” make so much as grammatical sense?
The only reasonable inference to be drawn from we “have” Saddam Hussein in the context of the upcoming electoral context for the White House (the next 18 months) as the Mother of All Wars is that Charles Koch alluded that Barack Obama was Saddam Hussein.
By piling speculation upon baseless speculation and ignoring Koch’s actual words, The Weekly Standard merely proved that it is but another component of Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda machine.
psst Brad, don’t mention “election fraud”.
To give the benefit of the doubt I’m thinking peasantparty may have meant election fraud rather than vote fraud. It’s a distinction that not everyone makes.
Wow…great work Brad.
As I have always said, if you are keeping a secret, it almost means you are doing something bad.
If these guys are really so worried about the overall condition of our nation, it’s common good, what’s with the secrecy, why not try to get as much media attention as possible?
great work Brad…and this does tie in to election fraud and voter suppression, these ALEC and Kochs are very much pushing the laws to disenfranchise voters
Riverat @23 wrote:
Maybe; maybe not.
What do you make of “SCOOP the fake nooze [sic.]” in the context of Brad’s “scoop” — breaking story about the secretive Koch seminar — in relation to the word “fake,” which implies that Brad’s story was either not real news, or that it was a diversion from something else, to wit: “voter fraud.”
Putting the two sentences together, I perceived that peasantparty was being facetious when he/she thanked Brad for his work on “voter fraud,” which work, as you know is exposing the GOP claims of “voter fraud” to be nothing more than a bogus excuse for “voter suppression.”
Now, I could have been wrong. But the words “fake nooze” suggest that I am not.
re:peasantparty @5–
My reading of that comment is that it’s sincere and peasantparty merely was merely innocently imprecise with the phrase “vote fraud”.
Brad my dude,
You looked good and sounded great on Ed tonight, although I would have liked about 57 more minutes of you. I hope somebody noticed how easily engaging you are. You’re a natural for that medium, besides being our secret national treasure. I’m all for letting the secret out of the bag.
love,
Dave
ps. you called Napolitano “Andrew” in your piece. (right next to his picture)
Hmm… On first reading I took “fake nooze” to mean the MSM who don’t report on a lot of important stuff that their corporate masters don’t want them to. But you could be right, it could be a drive by troll.
Ernie at @25,
I read the “scoop the fake nooze” to mean what it says. The news is mostly fake and Brad scooped them. Either I’m right and you misread the comment, or you’re right and I’m being my naive, innocent self, or….some other possibility, I suppose.
Thank you for illustrating how insane you and all the other left-wing, nut-jobs are!
To Think About It #15. Could you please elaborate further on your comment about a “controlled opposition?” You are lumping together utterly different types of media outlets. FDL is extremely anti-Obama and has turned its back on the Democratic party, including the “progressives” in that party and even Sen. Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist. Daily KOS, in contrast, is basically a Democratic party organ. Huffington Post is run by a closet right winger, Arianna Huffington, who sold out her bloggers and readership by merging with AOL. Mother Jones has been an organ of fearless, muckraking journalism, including Brad’s latest expose of the secret Koch brothers’ meeting. I am less familiar with the other publications you cite. Where is your evidence that these journalistic outlets represent, collectively, a “controlled opposition?”, in that they are so different from each other? And by maligning many leading organs of opposition to the nation’s rightwing turn, aren’t you in effect seeking to aide these right wing forces?
I just saw you on Ed and scooted over here to thank you for linking up a Koch holy summit with the little trip Perry took last June. Not that there was ever much doubt that he had been summoned to kiss the ring, it’s just that it had never officially been reported. Until that trip, Perry was definitely not running for POTUS. Of course, he left Colorado and flew straight to California to start his fund raising.
It’s morning and reading over that little controversial comment again I can easily read it with Ernie’s interpretation. So, I have no idea. and as we haven’t heard back from the author for further clarification…
I have seen “peasantparty’s” comments on other progressive sites and I think s/he was being genuine.
I offered what I though was a correction to Brad about Napolitano’s name cuz I thought I’d always heard him called “Tony”. Now I see that he’s sometimes referred to as Andrew and sometimes as Anthony. Is this some new phenomenon of which One-Step-Behind-The-Fun Lasagna is unaware? Do we all get multiple first names now? I don’t get it.
If memory serves me right, the DeVose family operates, among their many varied interests, a technology services company with a specialty in electronic voting machines. And their name came up in the Ohio 2004 election mess as having replaced, during election night, a hard drive on one or more vote counting tabulators.
It would be a great service to tie the names of the attendees with the services they perform for our corporate overlords.