http://campaign2012.washingtonexamin...d-company-cash

Yesterday, at a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., attacked U.S. companies that do business with Iran, singling out Koch Industries, despite the fact that Tester has taken money from companies that also did business with Iran.

"Recently I heard that one of America's largest companies, Koch Industries, was in the business of supporting Iran through energy development. Um ... if they are doing there are probably others that are doing it," Tester said yesterday.

Koch Industries issued the following statement in response to Tester's statement:

Koch Industries voluntarily decided several years ago to stop sales to Iran, which is the policy Senator Tester wants all U.S. companies to adopt. Our policy goes beyond what is required under U.S. law, which we urge Senator Tester, the DCCC, and the DSCC to notice. Senator Tester, while singling out Koch Industries as an example of a U.S. company that had done business in Iran through foreign subsidiaries, omitted the fact that he has accepted numerous campaign contributions from U.S. companies that are apparently either continuing to do business in Iran or that just recently stopped doing business in Iran.

Koch is correct. Tester took $2000 from General Electric and $8000 from Honeywell this year. Both companies have had well established business relationships with Iran.

Tester should clean his own house before trying to score cheap political points.

Whoops...

way to go
rs

We sell our product or service to a NEUTRAL country company. Completly legal & RAISES THE PRICE for more companies to hand out boneusus.

Why is it that the libs are obsessed with the Koch bros. The lib media; print, radio, internet, TV, have them in their crosshairs and have flogged them for years. What am I missing? Why the big focus on them?

Originally Posted by Heydick

Why is it that the libs are obsessed with the Koch bros. The lib media; print, radio, internet, TV, have them in their crosshairs and have flogged them for years. What am I missing? Why the big focus on them?

Probably to take the attention off of George Soros.

Darn... I thought this was going to be another thread about Al Gore.

Originally Posted by Heydick

Why is it that the libs are obsessed with the Koch bros. The lib media; print, radio, internet, TV, have them in their crosshairs and have flogged them for years. What am I missing? Why the big focus on them?

probably cause they need a scapegoat to point a finger at...if every business concern that did or does do business with iran or any other country under scrutiny ,then I'd venture to say we'd be looking at scores of others...

Agreed

Politicians are like underwear to big corporations. A little dirt or soiled slightly. " NEXT "

In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the world’s largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France. In less than a week, she discovered that the company had paid bribes to win contracts.

“I uncovered the practices within a few days,” Egorova- Farines says. “They were not hidden at all.”

She immediately notified her supervisors in the U.S. A week later, Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries dispatched an investigative team to look into her findings, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its November issue.

By September of that year, the researchers had found evidence of improper payments to secure contracts in six countries dating back to 2002, authorized by the business director of the company’s Koch-Glitsch affiliate in France.

“Those activities constitute violations of criminal law,” Koch Industries wrote in a Dec. 8, 2008, letter giving details of its findings. The letter was made public in a civil court ruling in France in September 2010; the document has never before been reported by the media.

Egorova-Farines wasn’t rewarded for bringing the illicit payments to the company’s attention. Her superiors removed her from the inquiry in August 2008 and fired her in June 2009, calling her incompetent, even after Koch’s investigators substantiated her findings. She sued Koch-Glitsch in France for wrongful termination.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-1...ran-sales.html

Dealing with Iran just scratches the surface:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...DCFQ1A74E9.DTL

Originally Posted by Treetop

Dealing with Iran just scratches the surface:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...DCFQ1A74E9.DTL

The issue here isn't about the Koch's doing buisness with Iran ... it's about a politician wagging his fingers at Koch for doing buisness with Iran while taking political donations from other companies that also do buisness with Iran.

Why don't you address that?

Originally Posted by logan5

The issue here isn't about the Koch's doing buisness with Iran ... it's about a politician wagging his fingers at Koch for doing buisness with Iran while taking political donations from other companies that also do buisness with Iran.

Why don't you address that?

Where is the expose' on GE doing business illegally with Iran? This claim, if true, doesn't make what the Koch Bros. did any less offensive. As far as Tester goes, he is from Montana and probably the most conservative Democrat in the senate. He voted against the jobs bill. Before you can dismiss his statements, you have to prove other companies dealings with Iran were illegal.

The metric of proving a corporation has been doing business illegally seems pretty hard to nail down. I think that is done on purpose, allows a politician to make declarations in the public sector about an "enemy" while not enforcing the actual declarations. As we know, Reagan "did business" with Iran as president, and Cheney and Rumsfeld both did business with Iran in the private sector.

The problem is accountability and in my opinion, neither GE nor the Koch bros. need to be trying to influence politicians, that should be illegal.

WHAT????

GE is not a American loving company? LIES!!!!

Well they build dangerous nukes for all countries. That seems ok & fair.

Originally Posted by Treetop

The problem is accountability and in my opinion, neither GE nor the Koch bros. need to be trying to influence politicians, that should be illegal.

The problem IS accountability and yes companies shouldn't be trying to influence polititians ... but I do not for a second belive it should be illegal to do so.

The key is not to make the practice illegal, but rather to make the practice ineffective.