David Koch has died
David Koch of the infamous (for a while, anyway) “Koch Brothers” has died at the age of 79.
As might be expected, the Times managed to publish a complete fabrication as part of his obituary there. As Steven Hayward writes at Powerline:
True to form, the obituary notice for David Koch in the New York Times today offers up yet another classic case study in media bias and ignorance:
“Three decades after David Koch’s public steps into politics, analysts say, the Koch brothers’ money-fueled brand of libertarianism helped give rise to the Tea Party movement, strengthened the far-right wing of a resurgent Republican Party and played a significant role in the election of Donald J. Trump as president in 2016.”
Typical. The Kochs hated Trump in 2016, opposed him vigorously throughout the entire nomination process (Vanity Fair ran a story in February 2016 entitled “Can the Koch Brothers Stop Trump?“), and have said more recently they are open to supporting Democrats in part because of their continuing dislike of Trump.
Hayward then points out that the Times has gotten rid of that erroneous sentence about Koch playing a significant role in Trump’s election. Someone at the Times must have been told it wasn’t just incorrect, it was egregiously and stupidly incorrect and needed to be dropped down the memory hole.
(Of course, they can be forgiven, because the story wasn’t about race—and after all, race is The Only Important Thing in America.)
David Koch was a philanthropist but his efforts were not just political. As the NY Post points out:
Koch, who fought prostate cancer after being diagnosed 27 years ago, donated a record $150 million to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2015 through the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation. The hospital named a cancer center in his name after getting its largest donation ever.
The Upper East Side facility is described as one that offers innovative outpatient and ambulatory care to cancer patients.
In 2013, he also gave $100 million — another record — to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, which has a building in his name…
He was a generous donor to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which named its ballet and dance theater in his honor after receiving $100 million in 2008.
Koch’s network also donated millions of dollars to promote charter schools through two groups, the Libre Initiative and Americans for Prosperity, to provide more opportunities to disadvantaged youths.
He was also a libertarian who gave a lot of money to causes on the right, and that’s why he was so excoriated by the left.
RIP, David Koch.
I am expecting an avalanche of ugly comments about David Koch from the left. I see the NY Times is leading the way.
Rest in peace.
What bothers me the most here is the “far right” thing, which I think means “to the right of Lenin”.
“He was also a libertarian who gave a lot of money to causes on the right, and that’s why he was so excoriated by the left.”
Because “progressives” hate it when rich people use their money to influence politics. You know, unlike, say, Darth Soros.
It has just been reported that Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg has pancreatic cancer, and has undergone three weeks of radiation treatment for it.
Let the wailing and hysteria on the Left begin!
David Koch was one of a small fraction of survivors of a runway collision, airplane crash at LAX. He narrowly avoided dying of smoke inhalation.
I think the left often flipped out over the Kochs because they were politically active and their net worth was significantly greater than Soros. But the Kochs had much of their wealth tied up in hard assets, factories and such; whereas Soros had nearly all of his wealth in cash and liquid securities. I am not sure, but I think Soros’ political spending always outstripped the Kochs.
Nothing I could ever think or say or write was going to have any effect on the Koch brothers or others of such superrich ilk so I’ve never really spent even five minutes at a time thinking about them. Or Bezos, Zuckerberg, and so forth.
I need some memory help here. Weren’t the Koch brothers somehow involved in trying to drive up the price of silver back a couple decades ago? They were trying to “corner” the market, whatever that might mean. Problem was, there was simply too much silver on planet earth. Gold went from $400 hundred an ounce to $1300 an ounce, while silver went from $12 an ounce to $12 an ounce, via a short trip up to $30 an ounce.
Or am I remembering the totally wrong?
Waidmann
Not the Koch bros. Think that was the Hunts.
Here’s a link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday
Sdferr,
Thanks for the memory jog. It was the Hunt brothers, not Koch brothers. Oops.
Waidmann
The WAPO is printing stories about the horrible Koch brothers. According to the WAPO they have an empire.
The silver speculators were the sons of a famous Texas wildcatter. They lost a lot of money in that venture in their attempts to capture the entire market. As regards Mr. Koch, not only did he make the donations referenced, but also made similar contributions to other cancer treatment centers at Johns Hopkins and MD Anderson in Houston. There is a major cancer treatment facility at Hopkins with the family on it.
The speculators were the Hunt brothers.
Koch(s) donated way way more to heath care facilities than to politicians.
As to their dislike of Trump, this is the personal dislike of one billionaire or two for another in the same class. It is all ego.
Support Democrats, you Kochs? Are you crazy? That is the ultimate way of buying the rope with which your enemies will hang you.
Note the following tweet from NPR, paid for with your taxes…
https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1164882874623021056?s=19
“David Koch along with his brother Charles transformed American politics by creating a network of secretly funded organizations that attacked Democrats and promoted conservative causes.”
The reality is that David Koch was a libertarian. He also supported abortion rights, drug decriminalization, gay marriage and a host of other social issues more normally associated with the left. This tweet is just plain character assassination… and with our tax dollars!
I wonder what they will say when George Soros dies…
This is in relation to Mr. Koch’s support of cancer research and hospitals, although I encountered it while tracking down many of the postings yesterday about Patrick Byrne’s bombshell revelations in re Spygate & Maria Butina. It is a personal account of his battle against cancer as a young adult — he was a terminal case at least three times, and recovered after heroic treatment and personal effort.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/08/22/patrick-byrne-describes-maria-butina-as-a-walking-fisa-virus-also-names-peter-strzok-bill-priestap-john-carlin-andrew-mccabe-and-james-comey/comment-page-2/#comment-7299539
If the link doesn’t get you to the comment (which is very long, because it is a transcript of a very long talk), then search for
Dell Mar says:
August 23, 2019 at 4:06 am
Patrick Byrne’s Heavy-Hitter Banquet Speech
I tried to find a direct link to the talk, but was not successful, so this is the best I can do.
Very much recommend reading the whole thing.
Then, if you are a die-hard politics fanatic, read up on the Byrne-Butina caper at Treehouse and elsewhere. J. E. Dyer had some good commentary.
Spygate gets worse and worse.
I knew people in Kansas who worked at Koch Industries. They would be given a problem, told to solve it. Solve it and move up.
I wish we had David Koch’s at every level of our federal government. Demand results.
RIP
Hope I can do a tiny fraction of what he has done to make life better.