ExxonMobil, the Kochs and Israel are Pushing Washington To Partition Iraq And Syria

The currently stateless Kurds sit astride the Iraq-Syria border on land blessed/cursed with oil, other resources, and geopolitical significance. Is it any wonder that mega-corporations and their client states are looking to use the Kurds, stoke conflict, and exploit the situation?

Whitney Webb
By Whitney Webb
Geopolitics And Corporate Profits Push Iraq And Syria Towards Partition

Years before the U.S. illegally invaded and then occupied Iraq, plans were circulating within the Pentagon to partition the country along “sectarian” lines, with the express purpose of allowing the U.S. and its regional allies to better control oil resource production and movement within the Middle East. In Syria, the same narrative of partition

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US Labor Unions Push Back At Trump On Pipelines And Environmental Deregulation

As Trump wages a ‘shock and awe’ campaign of rolling back climate and environment-related rules, many organized labor unions are speaking out against projects like Keystone XL and the Dakota Access pipelines, which they say will bring environmental chaos and not many jobs.

Seth Sandronsky
By Seth Sandronsky
Jeff Holland takes a picture of some of the 300,000 computer-controlled mirrors that reflect sunlight to boilers that sit on 459-foot towers Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2014 in Primm, Nev. The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, sprawling across roughly 5 square miles of federal land near the California-Nevada border, will be opened formally Thursday after years of regulatory and legal tangles. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

WASHINGTON --- President Donald Trump claims that his energy policy creates high-wage construction jobs. Some of organized labor in the United States agrees with him, including North America’s Building Trades Unions, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest federation of unions. On Jan. 24, NABTU released a statement in

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House Passes Koch-Backed Bill Aimed At Opening Doors To Foreign Donors, Dark Money

‘The Republican majority believes the more hidden money in politics, the better,’ proclaimed a prominent Democratic opponent of the bill, which is likely to stall in the Senate or face President Obama’s veto.

Kit O'Connell
By Kit O'Connell
David Koch, Executive Vice President of Koch Industries, Inc., attends The Economic Club of New York, Monday, Dec. 10, 2012.

WASHINGTON --- Rather than following the lead of prominent advocates for campaign finance reform, the House of Representatives recently voted to make American politics less transparent than ever. The issue of the influence of so-called “dark money” on politics -- hidden, high-dollar donations made possible by reforms to campaign finance law like

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Hundreds Arrested At Democracy Spring Sit-In At US Capitol

Police announced they “ran out of space” for arrested activists, although they were peacefully gathered on the steps of the Capitol.

teleSUR
By teleSUR
Voting rights reform demonstrators stage a sit-in at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, April 11, 2016, urging lawmakers to take money out of the political process. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Police forces arrested over 400 people Monday in Washington, D.C., as people were peacefully gathered in front of the Capitol to protest against the role of money in politics and to demand voting rights. At least 10 buses were used to transport the people in handcuffs, while the police announced they "ran out of space" for arrested activists,

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Exxon And The Koch Family Have Powered The Climate-Denial Machine For Decades

New research shows that Exxon and the Koch brothers and other entities like them form the heart of the American climate denial machine.

Slate
By Slate
David Koch, Executive Vice President of Koch Industries, Inc., attends The Economic Club of New York

Right now, nearly every leader of nearly every country in the world is gathered in Paris for perhaps the most ambitious and meaningful negotiations humanity has ever undertaken. But if you haven’t heard much about it, you’re not alone. Summing up the climate change conference’s first day for the New Republic, Jonathan Katz was understandably

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Koch Brothers Two-Faced On Crime: The Hypocrisy Behind Their Calls For ‘Reform’

Despite their public support for reform, The Intercept’s Lee Fang writes, “Koch money continues to finance election-year efforts that promote tough-on-crime politics.”

MintPress News Desk
By MintPress News Desk
National Prison Strike

WASHINGTON --- Supporters of criminal justice reform have found an unexpected ally in their efforts to reduce America’s massive prison population: the notoriously conservative Koch brothers. Yet a new investigation suggests the billionaires still support “tough on crime” politicians whose policies contribute to the expansion of mass

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