Tag: Transit

Yours Truly recently warned you about how the dangerous Koch Brothers’ real intentions behind their Constitutional Convention push is the elimination of Medicare and Medicaid. As if that is not bad enough, we now find out through an excellent New York Times piece that they are also actively derailing public transit projects by cities nationwide because such projects negatively affect their pocketbook(if that’s even possible ). This is greed beyond belief

Cities across the nation grappling with massive traffic jams, high carbon emissions etc have resorted to public transit as a solution. The simple reasoning behind this is that public transit, whether that be public buses or trains reduce the number of vehicles on the roads thereby reducing traffic jams, carbon emissions etc.

The Koch Brothers primary source of income is their refineries which produce among other things gasoline. The more vehicles there are on the streets, the more money Koch Brothers make (gasoline sales). Simply put, public transit is bad for Koch Brothers business and as such they are waging all out warfare against public transit projects nationwide, most of which benefit poor people.

In their war against public transit the Koch Brothers have enlisted the services of activists Americans for Prosperity, whose “grassroots” efforts according to the New York Times article, led to a No-vote on a Nashville, Tennessee public transit system that was previously considered a guaranteed Yes-vote. Needless to say the Koch Brothers pumped a lot of money into Americans for Prosperity for their “grassroots” efforts towards a No-vote.

A spokesman for Koch Industries, David Dziok, when questioned about this apparent conflict of interest not only denied that the Kochs have a financial interest in shooting down public transit projects, but also added the ridiculous statement that the Koch Brothers don’t control the activities of Americans for Prosperity, which they heavily fund–a totally bogus assertion.

The New York Times article also raises a very interesting point that caught Yours Truly’s attention and that is that Koch Brothers apparently have a data service called i360 which gives their activists(Americans for Prosperity) very accurate leads on the kind of voters to target to secure a No-Vote on public transit systems. Given the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal, Yours Truly is very curious as to how the dangerous Koch Brothers compiles this i360 list. Specifically, is i360 also a product of Facebook? Folks, rest assured that Yours Truly will dig into this i360 data service

Bottom line the dangerous Koch Brothers are a menace to Dems and poor people generally. They are not only planning on knocking poor people out of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security with their Constitutional Convention push, they also want to take away public transit.

For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out