#kochtopus

[wat3rm370n]

The Great Barrington Declaration set is injecting Palantir and the Kochtopus straight into the FDA.

Back in 2018 it was found that the Koch Foundation had a role in choosing faculty at George Mason Univ. Also home of, what a peach, Robin Hanson, ahead of even the Great Barrington Declaration in wanting to.. I guess Great Filter Americans into early graves in the pandemic.

Robin Hanson’s 2020 Viral Valentine Tweet

And by viral, I mean the pandemic, because the tweet itself was not very popular at all.

https://bsky.app/profile/jennycohn.bsky.social/post/3ltfstq6g7k2n

And now along with the Great Barrington Declaration set who have taken over our federal health, they are injecting Palantir, the Kochtopus, and AI slop directly into the FDA.. What could possibly go wrong? (spoiler: the project 2025 is to have everything go wrong in govt)

https://bsky.app/profile/jennycohn.bsky.social/post/3ltfopkcx7k2l

[canchewread]

Well, it seems like we’re on something of a “examining pro-establishment propaganda” kick recently, so I figured I might as well empty out the cupboard. Today’s passage is from a recent book that I don’t think has gotten nearly as much attention as it deserves outside of online library leftist circles - Roy Eidelson’s brilliant “Political Mind Games: How the 1% Manipulate Our Understanding of What's Happening, What's Right, and What's Possible.”

Although this specific passage focuses on the “false freedom” propaganda behind the “Right to Work” movement in America, the beauty of Eidelson’s book is that it examines twenty different disingenuous arguments commonly used to defend elite class interests at the expense of the poor and marginalized. Each technique is explored in terms of both underpinning theory and practical application, while Eidelson provides examples of these establishment con games in action, throughout the book. You could do a lot worse than this accessible, underappreciated gem - in many ways it’s “Manufacturing Consent for people who don’t have a humanities degree” but the book also moves beyond the Chomsky-Herman classic and into the headlines of the current “Trump” era of pro-elite/establishment propaganda. - nina

[wat3rm370n]

Anti-vax propaganda has been a deliberate campaign with loads of big money behind it.

Public health measures that have saved lives are not to blame for anti-vax sentiments; what happened is a disinformation campaign and a lack of a proper public health campaign against it.

And yet, Paul Offit wrongly blamed "lockdowns" for anti-vax disinformation operations funded by dark money. Seriously. Paul Offit has been peddling pure & simple right-wing lockdown revisionism. He's legitimizing the claim that public health measures are what have driven low vaccination rates. For “public mistrust” in healthcare or public health, he blamed social distancing, something he previously endorsed over all other mitigations including vaccines. Maybe he should recognize he’s part of the reason people don’t trust doctor pundits; because he has repeatedly undermined vaccines while he’s all over the map and inconsistent. Paul Offit also blamed masks as well with a little anti-mask woke-washing. And made it sound like recommending people test in 2020 for a dangerous disease that was killing people at an astounding rate and leading to freezer truck morgues was out of line and over the top. He also innuendoed that closing the schools was the wrong choice even though more children died after they re-opened the schools and dropped masks than in 2020.

I can't say I'm surprised because I haven't trusted Paul Offit in years because he's been trying to restrict the covid vaccines for years, and actually was outspoken in lobbying the Biden administration for even more narrow restrictions the Trump administration is doing now, and he's even undermined RSV vaccines too. But it's really bonkers level gaslighting in his blog now, because he puts this misinformation decoy in a piece that is supposedly criticizing right-wing nonsense and supposedly in opposition to Marty Makary and Vinay Prassad; but then Paul Offit reiterates and solidifies this assertion that public health measures early in the pandemic were the direct cause of anti-vax sentiments instead of debunking those right-wing nonsense claims. And stating the truth: that there was a dark money deep pocket fossil fuel connected campaign against all public health measures and a huge amount of money fueling anti-vax marketing.

So what is he doing here?

If you're not citing the huge anti-vax disinformation campaigns, you're doing science communication wrong. Why is Paul Offit legitimizing right-wing dark money funded propaganda? Are we really supposed to believe that Paul Offit doesn't read the news?

Not surprised Paul Offit doesn't listen to CDC ACIP meeting public comments. But I mentioned our own US DOD perpetrated anti-vax disinformation campaign in my public comment to the CDC ACIP committee in June 2024. And in October 2024 at the CDC ACIP meeting, my public comment mentioned then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his testimony about known anti-vax disinformation campaigns targeting all of North America.

[wat3rm370n]

Why are tycoons against public health? Follow the money.

“I’m an old-school journalist, I say follow the money. Because the greatest beneficiaries of their operations are the plutocrats that don’t want to pay any taxes and they don’t want any public services to the rest of us that cost them taxes, such as public schools, public roads, public libraries, public health. So they want to hold on to as much money as they can. Now the problem, when you run for office on that platform, as David Koch did in 1980 for vice president on a libertarian platform, nobody votes for you. Because they say why should we vote against having public health and public libraries. So what they do is come up with all of these distracting issues like trans kids using bathrooms that affect next to nobody in the entire country, and inflate them into national issues to distract people. And then once they get into power, as they did with Trump, they rewrite the tax code to benefit the plutocrats at the expense of everyone else.” — Anne Nelson on The Signal from the Bucks County Beacon, podcast, October 23, 2024

[wat3rm370n]

Koch industries pivots from Nikki Haley to propping up another loser candidate in Pennsylvania.

Americans for Prosperity spending $1 million on ad campaign for David McCormick • Pennsylvania Capital-Star

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey has sent out several fundraising emails mentioning this ad buy.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) Action, the conservative super PAC backed by the Koch organization, has launched a $1 million ad campaign in support of Pennsylvania GOP U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick. AFP announced the ad buy was made on Monday, one day after it said it was no longer investing in former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign. 

[wat3rm370n]

PAYDAY REPORT:

PODCAST: Koch Industries Using “Texas Two-Step” to Prevent Asbestos Victims from Going to Court

PODCAST: Koch Industries Using “Texas Two-Step” to Prevent...

This week, as part of our podcast, Payday Report spoke to Lori Knapp and her lawyer, Jon Ruschdeki, who have been involved in a 6-year lawsu

[azspot]

The conservative donor wants to get rid of ObamaCare, dramatically reduce the size and scope of government programs including social security, cut regulations, trim down the police state, end the public subsidization of green energy and scrap all government subsidies to corporations.

Why Koch won’t meet Trump

[azspot]

Today’s Republican Party is being revamped and torn asunder from contradictory directions. Almost all GOP candidates and legislators, even most presidential aspirants, espouse free-market, anti-government ideas like those pushed by the Koch network. But these honchos are not necessarily carrying voters with them. Many centrist voters do not want to cut education or gut the Environmental Protection Agency, while many right-wing voters care most about stopping immigration, outlawing abortions, and cutting back on what they view as government largesse for the poor. The core Koch agenda of bashing unions, slashing taxes for the rich, blocking environmental protection measures, and dismantling Social Security is not the top priority for many conservative voters.

What Jane Mayer's Dark Money Misses About Today's Radical Right