Response from Senator Martin to ALEC Inquiries
http://www.kochfacts.com/kf/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Response-from-Senator-Martin-to-ALEC-Inquiries.pdf [PDF]
SENATOR STEVE MARTIN (VA-11)

Based on some significant misrepresentations about how bills become law and a desire to silence conservative voices various leftist groups have been attacking a conservative voluntary membership organization (ALEC) that is used by conservative legislators as a resource for limited government/free enterprise/competitive market based solutions to issues arising in the 50 states.

Trolling for Dirt on the President’s List
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304070304577396412560038208.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet
WALL STREET JOURNAL — Kimberley A. Strassel

Political donations don’t come with a right to privacy, and Mr. VanderSloot might have expected a spotlight. Then again, President Obama, in the wake of the Gabby Giffords shooting, gave a national address calling for “civility” in politics. Yet rather than condemn those demeaning his opponent’s donors, Mr. Obama—the nation’s most powerful man—instead publicly named individuals, egging on the attacks. What has followed is the slimy trolling into a citizen’s private life.

Mr. VanderSloot acknowledges that “when I first learned that President Obama’s campaign had singled me out on his ‘enemies list,’ I knew it was like taping a target on my back.” But the more he’s thought it through, “the public beatings and false accusations that followed are no deterrent. These tactics will not work in America.” He’s even “contemplating a second donation.”

Letter to the Editor
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/opinionletters/960896-263/keystone-xl-letter-got-firms-attention.html
NASHUA TELEGRAPH – Grady Semmens, TransCanada Corp.

“. . . contrary to Ms. Trivilino’s letter, Koch Industries is not one of our customers.  It would be a shame if Americans did not receive the benefits of Keystone XL if the project is not approved.”

Our Flint Hills Resources Pine Bend Refinery in Rosemount, Minn., was built in the 1950s specifically to handle heavy Canadian crude oil. Koch purchased controlling interest in the refinery in 1969. Today, Pine Bend is one of the safest and cleanest refineries operating in theUnited States and in the top quartile for energy efficiency.  Pine Bend is also among the top processors of Canadian oil in the U.S. and a leader in providing cleaner-burning fuels including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, propane and butane as well as other petroleum products such as asphalt. The Canadian oil we process is shipped to the refinery via pipeline systems that have been in operation for decades.

Canadian oil is a critically important resource for the United States. A stable and friendly trading partner, Canada is the United States’ number one supplier of imported oil, and has about 15 percent of the world’s oil reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia. Canada’s oil sands will be developed – if not for the U.S., then for other countries.  The U.S. is the most efficient and environmentally responsible transportation destination for Canadian oil.

Finally, with regard to the Keystone XL pipeline, Koch Industries has no financial stake in the proposed project and we are not party to its design or construction. We are not a proposed shipper or customer of oil delivered by this pipeline. This was verified by TransCanada’s CEO in a November 2011 statement.

But the assertions of Ms. Cutter’s that we omitted were not about Koch at all.  Rather, as we explained to the columnist, those points were about an ad produced by Americans for Prosperity, an entirely separate organization to which Koch is but one of tens of thousands of contributing members.  Days before our rebuttal appeared, AFP had released a thorough, line-by-line debunking of all the points that she had made about them.  Here is a link that we provided the Post, although it did not appear in the piece.

The Post also cites an article from the New Yorker magazine by liberal advocacy journalist Jane Mayer that contains the unsupported opinion that AFP is “micromanaged” by Koch.  But Koch plays no role in the day-to-day operations of AFP, facts that both we and AFP have made clear publicly on many occasions and to the Post directly.

Finally, the columnist agrees with the characterization that Koch is somehow “secretive” — a pejorative that the New Yorker piece advanced and Ms. Cutter dutifully repeated.  That’s a slur that feeds the conceit that journalists are examining some supposed nefarious activity.  But Koch has always been candid and vocal in our advocacy on public affairs issues that we care about.  All of our political contributions are made public as required by law.  Koch is a privately held company but it’s perfectly normal for any kind of company to keep its proprietary business discussions private.  But so too are Washington Post editorial meetings and Obama campaign phone logs.  The columnist cites a fundamentally flawed and dishonest Bloomberg Market’s Magazine report that calls Koch “obsessed with secrecy” and yet Bloomberg itself is a privately held company, as are millions of others that adhere to standards of disclosure similar to Koch.

We stand by our rebuttal and urge readers to view it themselves and come to their own conclusions.

Reporter Steve Peoples passed along the Obama campaign spin that Romney should stand up to “extreme voices” in his party. Soon after, the same Steve Peoples wrote a story on Obama strategy that waited until paragraph 16 to note the extreme voice of Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod telling reporters in a conference call that Team Obama was ready for criticism from “the Karl [Rove] and Koch brothers’ contract killers over there in super PAC land.”

Obama’s Chicago politics: Thuggery, not civility
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/obamas-chicago-politics-thuggery-not-civility/515066
WASHINGTON EXAMINER – Michael Barone

In the 2008 campaign cycle, he promised to take public financing for the general election. He broke that promise when it became apparent he could raise far more money on his own. During much of this cycle, he’s been criticizing Republican super-PACs as a perversion of the political process. But when he saw that Republicans might be able to raise as much money as Democrats, he broke that promise too and authorized Cabinet members to appear at fundraisers for the super-PAC headed by his former deputy press secretary.

Mobbing May Day
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/scalliwag/201205/mobbing-may-day
PSYCHOLOGY TODAY – Barbara Oakley, Ph.D

The Occupy movement seeks to make things fair for everyone, not by allowing people to flourish with their natural talents, but rather by focusing on and tearing down anyone who has more—more talent, more industriousness, more intelligence and, often as a consequence of these natural qualities, more possessions . . . Beware the mob that advocates fairness. History shows that the results are often not pretty.

America Live With Megyn Kelly
Fox News
May 8, 2012

To the Editor,

Tom Ehrich’s derogatory statements about Kansas [Morning in Middle America, April 24] include the usual distortions elites use to convince themselves that life is even more bleak and broken in other parts of the country than where they live.  If Mr. Ehrich thinks the bustling and orderly Kansas Motor Speedway is an “end of empire circus” I wonder what he makes of the New York City subway system?

Ehrich’s dismal impressions after a weekend in fly-over-country ring hollow to those of us who live here but his characterization of Koch as “sanctimonious evangelicals” seeking to limit freedom and opportunity is outright fantasy.  For more than 50 years Koch has been outspoken and consistent in our support of liberty’s expansion and of greater opportunities for all.  Aside from supporting every American’s right to worship (or not worship) as they please, Koch takes no position on any particular religious belief, never mind proselytizes for one.

What Ehrich fails to report about Kansas is that the people of this state enjoy a growing economy, an unemployment rate 25% lower than the national average and some of the best public schools and quality of life in the country. Kansas has half the crime, more people living above the poverty line and a lower overall tax burden than Mr. Ehrich’s home state of New York.

But the troubling things Ehrich claims to have observed in our state – vacant storefronts, empty parking lots, and economic decay – are not a Kansas or a New York problem but a national tragedy. What Ehrich is seeing is the nationwide evidence of years of fiscal irresponsibility and rampant growth of government at the expense of private enterprise.

We share Ehrich’s concern about the future of our nation but we put our faith in hard work, personal responsibility and accountable government — values straight from the Kansas heartland.

Sincerely,

Melissa Cohlmia
Director, Corporate Communication
Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC

This is not the first time the Obama campaign has chosen dishonesty and invective over principled discussion as many others have pointed out. We will not be intimidated or silenced by the President and his allies. It is essential that we exercise our constitutional right to speak out on reckless fiscal policies, irresponsible over-regulation, and the critical role of economic freedom and individual liberty in restoring the growth and vitality of our country.

We have posted the following rebuttal to expose the Obama campaign’s dishonesty:

Despite pronouncements from the Obama campaign that its rhetoric would become more “positive”, senior Obama advisor David Axelrod’s comments to reporters on May 7 reveal that the campaign continues to stoop to the lowest forms of invective.  Mr. Axelrod described Koch as “contract killers over there in super PAC land.”

Koch has not contributed to any super PAC organizations as yet in this election cycle.  Our criticisms have been directed at policies of this administration that have looked to big government solutions and have led our country to unsustainable debt.  We believe that economic freedom and free markets are the best means to advance societal progress. When the president’s campaign singles out individual, private Americans and compares them to hired assassins, it demeans the public discourse and does a terrible disservice to our democratic process.  Americans deserve a serious conversation about the immense economic challenges facing our country and instead the Obama campaign is delivering only insults and personal attacks against private citizens for exercising their constitutional rights of free expression.

In the past, the president and his allies have been swift to denounce public figures that use the language and imagery of violence in the discourse.  We would urge the president to take responsibility for Mr. Axelrod’s remarks and set a better example for his campaign.

Mr. Pickens has stated that he is standing up for the American people by lobbying Congress for the passage of the NAT GAS Act. However, as The Atlantic reported, the NAT GAS Act is a scheme to get tax breaks from the government – in the form of another government subsidy – in order to increase the number of natural gas-powered tractor-trailers and heavy trucks on U.S. roads. What’s less well-known is that Mr. Pickens is the major shareholder in BAF Technologies, self-described as “the leading provider of natural gas vehicle systems and conversions in the U.S.”

Mr. Pickens is a savvy investor and we respect his experience in the energy industry. He understands the laws of supply and demand – that when demand for natural gas vehicles goes up, so will natural gas prices, and that price hike will benefit his substantial investments in natural gas markets and related businesses. If enacted, Mr. Pickens stands to benefit richly from the NAT GAS legislation at the expense of American taxpayers.

Overregulation, subsidies, and cronyism distort the marketplace and result in higher energy prices for every American. We do not believe government should be picking winners and losers in the marketplace based on the industries or products it chooses to subsidize. Government has a terrible record in doing so – both here and abroad. History shows us that the free market, driven by consumer choice, is a far better way to allocate resources.  The Center for American Progress, a partisan activist group closely aligned with President Obama to which Mr. Pickens contributed $453,250 in 2008 and 2009, has joined in Mr. Pickens’ attack on Koch.  This is additional proof that Mr. Pickens’ position is nothing more than cynical cronyism that is totally contrary to free-market principles.

Members of Congress who have consistently opposed this misguided legislative cronyism should be commended. Their efforts to stop yet another subsidy from being foisted on the American taxpayer are laudable.