I’m proud to work with the Courage Campaign on the IssaWatch project where this was first posted.

As mentioned briefly on Monday, the Oversight Committee is gearing up for a Thursday morning hearing entitled “Waste And Abuse: The Refuse Of The Federal Spending Binge.” Over-capitalization and histrionics aside, the witness list marks Issa’s best attempt to date to assemble the ’27 Yankees of Obama administration critics to address the Oversight Committee.

It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise given Issa’s known ties to the broad network of Koch Brothers influence, but a number of the Koch’s heaviest hitters are represented here. Meanwhile, there’s no sign of anyone who might offer a perspective that doesn’t fit with Issa’s pre-established narrative of opposition to the Recovery Act.

The list of witnesses Issa’s assembled below the fold.

~ Gene Dodaro is the Comptroller General and head of the Government Accountability Office. The GAO is tasked with overseeing performance and accountability for the federal government. Dodaro is also currently in the middle of an Oversight investigation being spearheaded by Issa looking into whether the GAO destroyed evidence surrounding an amended report.

~ Dr. Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center has a long track record of pushing deeply conservative perspectives on spending, budget, and other fiscal issues. Her criticisms of the cost of health care reform is currently cited on the Koch Industries website, and she’s such a favorite of the Kochs that she was among the featured speakers at the Koch network’s June meeting in Aspen, where she helped outline the master plan through the election and into the future.

She can help provide some of her own introduction by way of her personal disclosure: “I work for the Mercatus Center and Charles Koch is the chairman of our board and one of our main donors.”

But it goes much deeper than that. The Mercatus Center was founded by Rich Fink — an executive vice president at Koch Industries, former president of Koch Foundations and currently the president of the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Fink also leads Koch Industries’ lobbying efforts in DC — which has spent more than $50 million to influence members of Congress in just the last five years according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And on and on.

In the years since Mercatus was founded, its host George Mason University has received more than $30 million from the Kochs.

~ Debra Cammer comes from IBM Public Sector. IBM put on a full court press in pursuit of ARRA funds, specifically around billions spent on providing the IT infrastructure to track and implement projects throughout the country. IBM put considerable resources into providing ‘bridge’ funding to help IT projects get off the ground and access ARRA support.

~ Vincent Frakes appears as the Federal Policy Manager at the Center for Health Transformation. This is a front-group for the health-care industry, insurance providers and other huge corporations used to oppose health care reform. It’s in his capacity at CHT that Frakes is also a featured member of the “Newt Team” — a network of organizational representatives that Newt Gingrich promotes for media appearances and speeches.

~ Also testifying is Thomas Schatz, President of Citizens Against Government Waste. That organization received particular attention back in 2006 from the Senate while they investigated the many crimes of Jack Abramoff. A Senate investigation found that Citizens Against Government Waste was among several organizations who played at the edge of the law with Abramoff:

The Senate report…states that the nonprofit groups probably violated their tax-exempt status “by laundering payments and then disbursing funds at Mr. Abramoff’s direction; taking payments in exchange for writing newspaper columns or press releases that put Mr. Abramoff’s clients in a favorable light; introducing Mr. Abramoff’s clients to government officials in exchange for payment; and agreeing to act as a front organization for congressional trips paid for by Mr. Abramoff’s clients.”

CAGW is also notorious for providing astroturf cover to a wide range of corporate interests — including big tobacco, Merrill Lynch and Exxon-Mobil.

~ Finally, Andrew Moylan is the Vice President of Government Affairs at the conservative National Taxpayers Union. The Kochtopus has provided thousands to the National Taxpayers Union over the years, and Charles Koch was once a member of the NTU board of directors. Like CAGW, NTU has also received tens of thousands from big tobacco.

And so, for two hours on Thursday morning, American tax dollars will be spent on a hearing brazenly designed to tell Darrell Issa that he’s right. It won’t explore the many benefits of Recovery projects, nor respond to the struggles of Issa’s own constituents here in California. Instead of working to create jobs, it will be a two-hour, taxpayer-funded party to implicitly criticize President Obama and his administration. But what we need is a plan. We need jobs. This isn’t that.

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If you walk through the heart of Times Square today and look up at the 520 sq. ft. CBS superscreen on 42nd St., you’re going to be introduced to the largest oil company you’ve never heard of: Koch Industries.

If you walk through the heart of Times Square today and look up at the 520 sq. ft. CBS superscreen on 42nd St., you’re going to be introduced to the largest oil company you’ve never heard of: Koch Industries.

Consumer Watchdog is running a 30 second commercial parodying a Coca Cola advertisement on a Times Square superscreen that challenges Koch (pronounced ‘Coke’) Industries, “the largest oil company you’ve never heard of,” for its record of environmental degradation, political influence peddling, Tea Party funding and climate change denial.

Koch is the largest private company in the United States, a major polluter, and the principle funder of climate change deniers and the tea party. Recently, the Koch brothers made a $1 million contribution to California’s Prop. 23, which would roll back the most comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions caps in the nation.

We’ve put together a page documenting Koch’s egregious track record at the newly redesigned Oil Watchdog. Koch was named one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. The Koch family foundations have contributed over $48 million in grants to climate opposition groups since 1997 and funneled over $17 million to organizations that “educate,” train, and organize the Tea Party.

Koch Industries is not yet a household name, but in the world of right wing, anti-environment politics, Koch has become an uber-brand. Koch stands for climate change denial, global warming, cash-register politics and propping up the Tea Party.

Every American should know about this company and what its owners stand for. They are dangerous and a threat to our democracy. Given their checkered past, it’s amazing that they’ve managed to stay under the radar for so long. With the help of our superscreen, we’re going to try to put an end to that.

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Posted by Jamie Court, author of The Progressive’s Guide to Raising Hell and President of Consumer Watchdog, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to providing an effective voice for taxpayers and consumers in an era when special interests dominate public discourse, government and politics. Visit us on Facebook and Twitter.

If you think the Tea Party represents real people who are mad as hell about real issues, you might want to know that it just had its first rally under the Beverly Hills sign over the weekend.

I found out about the rally when I showed up for a 10 o’clock news debate and singer Pat Boone was on the other side dressed in his “Beverly Hills Tea Party” sweater. If you want to know what the Tea Party’s really about, listen to Boone croon about the “free market” and “deregulation” like it’s a new idea.

If you think the Tea Party represents real people who are mad as hell about real issues, you might want to know that it just had its first rally under the Beverly Hills sign over the weekend.

I found out about the rally when I showed up for a 10 o’clock news debate and singer Pat Boone was on the other side dressed in his “Beverly Hills Tea Party” sweater. If you want to know what the Tea Party’s really about, listen to Boone croon about the “free market” and “deregulation” like it’s a new idea.

The patriotic Americans who dressed up like Henry Lee at the rally want us to remember the founding father’s cautions about government power, but their agenda in 2010 is only to turn back the clock to Reagan era deregulation and the Wild West free market that brought us the financial meltdown.  

You have to be a wearing a Beverly Hills Tea Party sweater to be able to say the free market will save us with a straight face–just watch Boone do it.

The sad thing is that these angry people are being taken advantage of by old boy petroleum magnates like the Koch brothers who are simultaneously funding the Tea Party and trying to repeal California’s greenhouse emissions cap. Boone says he never heard of them. I don’t think he’s lying, but that means his head is stuck so far into the landscaping behind his mansion that he can’t see beyond its wrought iron gates.

He’s certainly not seeing what the rest of us are: good people who can’t find a job and are living out of their cars with no food to eat or other shelter to sleep in. All thanks to deregulation on Wall Street. Only the government can help them, but the Tea Party wants to straightjacket it so that it can no longer act to lend a helping hand.

Across America the Tea Party may look like Main Street, but in Beverly Hills you can see where its plan will take us: back to Reagan, Pat Boone, and the policies that play to the interests of folks who can afford homes and office space near Rodeo Drive.

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Posted by Jamie Court, author of The Progressive’s Guide to Raising Hell and President of Consumer Watchdog, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to providing an effective voice for taxpayers and consumers in an era when special interests dominate public discourse, government and politics. Visit us on Facebook and Twitter.

There’s a name that’s becoming as ubiquitous in dirty oil politics  as Coke cans are in greasy spoons. And it’s pronounced like the soft drink, but spelled Koch. Koch-heads now on the radar include Carly Fiorina, the Tea Party and Proposition 23.

There’s a name  that’s becoming as ubiquitous in dirty oil politics as Coke cans are in greasy spoons. And it’s pronounced like the soft drink, but spelled Koch.

The New Yorker definitively exposed the gas and oil tycoons known as the Koch brothers. But who are the latest Koch-heads to wear the brand with pride?

•   Carly Fiorina

•   The Tea Party

•   The Proposition 23 campaign

Fiorina: The California Senate candidate recently aligned herself with the dirty-energy brothers by ramping up her courtship of the Tea Party in Northern California and the Central Valley. She also just gave a  mealymouthed endorsement of Proposition 23, the California ballot initiative aimed at killing the state’s climate-change law, known as AB32.

In return, Fiorina is getting some ka-ching from Koch Industries. The company is listed as a host of a  fund-raiser for her at Republican senatorial campaign headquarters in D.C. tomorrow.

Tea Party: The recent New Yorker exposé by Jane Mayer put David and Charles Koch on the political map by uncovering their early and continued funding of Tea Party organizations. In fact, the piece makes a good case that the Kochs invented the Tea Party movement.

Proposition 23: The Kochs’ $1 million contribution to the Prop 23 campaign aligns with their oil interests, and their ferocious denial of global warming. They’re longtime and usually unnamed funders of the climate-change denial industry, according to a Greenpeace report a few months ago.

All of this helps explain why Tea Partiers were out the other day supporting poor little Valero, the Texas company (and owner of two of California’s dirtiest oil refineries) that’s the top funder of Proposition 23.

So the Koch-heads among us are now visible, even if it isn’t always stamped on their foreheads.

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Posted by Judy Dugan, research director for Consumer Watchdog, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to providing an effective voice for taxpayers and consumers in an era when special interests dominate public discourse, government and politics. Visit us on Facebook and Twitter.

When Californians angry about oil companies’ attempt to repeal the state’s greenhouse gas emission cap went to confront the oil refiner  behind Prop 23’s power play, they found the Tea Party in their way.

When Californians angry about oil companies’ attempt to repeal the state’s greenhouse gas emission cap went to confront the oil refiner  behind Prop 23’s power play, they found the Tea Party in their way.

What’s an angry populist movement that’s supposed to represent real people doing defending oil companies?

It’s a question the New York Times could have answered in its otherwise excellent editorial today, The Brothers Koch and AB 32. Petroleum magnates Charles and David Koch fund both Prop 23’s greenhouse gas cap repeal and The Tea Party.

While the Tea Party is voicing authentic anger, the money fueling it is coming from petroleum magnates who simply want to profit and pollute at the expense of the rest of us. The Tea Party in California has become Big Oil’s army. Not very populist to me.

If you believe Kansas oil and gas tycoons want to save California jobs through Prop 23, you might as well join The Tea Party. I debated a Tea Party pooh-bah on LA’s NPR station KPCC yesterday. All there is when you strip away the angry talk is a Reagan-Bush plan to deregulate everything.  

That’ why Consumer Watchdog is airing a JumboTron advertisement in Times Square, the largest public square in America, that raises the question: “Are You Mad As Hell? But Think The Tea Party Is Insane?”

The commercial, created by Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films, calls upon those who believe in progress to use their anger to get the change they voted for. It is insane to let oil companies repeal greenhouse gas emissions caps, and it’s insane to turn the reins of government over to people who would destroy it.

Progressives need to start speaking up and raising some hell. The power of the government is our collective will to deal with the corporate abuses at the heart of the 2008 election. We cannot allow the Tea Party or anyone else to exploit the public’s anger in order to rob us of our ability to deal with the corporate greed and corruption that pisses us off most.

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Posted by Jamie Court, author of The Progressive’s Guide to Raising Hell and President of Consumer Watchdog, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to providing an effective voice for taxpayers and consumers in an era when special interests dominate public discourse, government and politics. Visit us on Facebook and Twitter.