Friday, September 30, 2011

Koch bros. alarmed by upcoming expose

This just breaks our heart. According to Salon, billionaire union busters David and Charles Koch are in a tizzy about an about-to-be published story chronicling their misdeeds in France. (France? We know. Why couldn't they focus on misdeeds here?)

Salon reports the brothers are rebutting the story even before it appears in reliably friendly (i.e., biased) publications: the Washington Examiner, the Daily Caller, and U.S. News and World Report. The Bloomberg story appears to focus on malfeasance or fraud.

According to Salon,
One of those episodes apparently involves bribery by a Koch subsidiary in France, according to the piece by Washington Examiner editorial page editor Mark Tapscott. He reports that "Bloomberg reporters have been trolling among former Koch employees overseas in search of disaffected voices willing to talk," but Tapscott suspects the story may be animated by bias against the Tea Party. And he notes that, "Koch USA officials say they were as surprised and angered as anybody else when they were first apprised of the bribery allegations, and moved as quickly as possible to get to the bottom of the situation and fix it."
As usual, Wonkette's Ken Layne sees the hilarious aspect to all this:
Archvillain stereotypes David and Charles Koch are reportedly furious because rival New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg’s media machine is reportedly about to publish some big scandal story that proves the Koch Bros. are even worse than previously thought.