Around 400 companies have withdrawn from Russia.
Their services, their businesses again, in part of punishing Putin for
this invasion in Ukraine.
There's one in particular that hasn't, well, there's a few that haven't.
I mean the other day we talked about how papa john's in some form or
fashion also hasn't.
But this particular one you might not be surprised by.
It is coke industries and Dave Robinson is the president and
C E O of coke industries.
He did issue a statement talking about the reasons behind it and did start with
a little bit of a condemnation for Russia and what they were up to.
So the horrific and abhorrent aggression against Ukraine is an affront to humanity.
It violates our company's values and principles which are grounded in
the fundamental truth that the system most conducive to human well being,
progress Civility.
And peace is one based on respect for the dignity of the individual, the consistent
rule of law and the right to freely exchange goods and services, wow nice.
It also goes on.
The statement continues on how they won't be doing much about all these horrible
things that are going on.
Koch company, Guardian Industries operates two glass manufacturing facilities in
Russia that employ about 600 people.
We have no other physical assets in Russia and
outside of Guardian employ 15 individuals in the country.
Now, while Guardians business in Russia is very small part of koch, we will not walk
away from our employees there or hand over these manufacturing facilities to
the Russian government so that they can operate and benefit from them.
There's a report by Bloomberg in 2011,
it did reveal that they also flaunted some of American sanctions against Iran.
So different country with some sanctions and they went around those as well.
So the billionaire Koch brothers allegedly made a ton of money off of sales of
petrochemical equipment to Iran.
They dodged the US trade ban using foreign subsidiaries.
The company allegedly engaged in illicit payments in africa India and
in the Middle East from 99 to 2003,
I had to pay more than $400 million dollars in fines.
The report quotes an employee saying that managers taught them how to steal and
cheat.
The technique was called the Koch method.
[LAUGH] It's like they have a name for it.
So specifically some of these organizations that receive the funding
from the Koch brothers, the Koch industries are also towing this company
line because obviously so there's a nonprofit that's funded by Charles coke.
It's called stand together and dan caldwell tweeted this out.
The stand together Community supports targeted sanctions against Russia in
response to his immoral invasion of Ukraine.
We also believe that sanctions are legit legitimate tool of statecraft.
However broad based economic sanctions rarely achieved their desired policy
outcomes.
So how can you support them also Dan he's the Vice President for
foreign policy for them as well.
And the President of the American Institute for
Economic Research which is another Koch funded organization.
They echoed again with this message, the United States can and
should do very little for Ukraine.
Ai President Will Ruger said, Ukraine simply doesn't matter to American
security or our prosperity on the issue of sanctions.
Ruger suggested that they make it much harder actually for us to stand down
because Putin does not want to quote, appear to cry uncle to this pressure.
Also further, there's concerned veterans for America,
that's another organization is funded by Koch brothers and they said this.
I urge you to exercise and
encourage restraint as American response to Russia's immoral invasion of Ukraine.
We should avoid actions that may aggravate the situation further or
have damaging repercussions to the American prosperity.
There's so many tentacles and lines and connections from Koch industries to some
of the other companies that their funding and also work with.
That this handy little image here shows us exactly how many different connections
those are.
I could explain it to you, but I'd have to first look deeper into it for
the next 45 minutes to an hour, but that's how many angles they have at this.
>> So let's just translate for you guys, right?
Because they speak in horse crap and I'm a decoder of it.
Okay, so they say, the horrific aggression of the Russians is just terrible and
then they speak out of both sides of their mouth.
And they send their political groups to go out and say as jr just read you Ukraine
doesn't really matter, it's not worth getting involved in.
And at the end they say now remember let's remember the most important thing
is American prosperity, which by the way means their own prosperity.
They don't mean your prosperity, they mean, no, even though Charles Koch
is one of the richest people on the planet, his greed is endless.
He's like the Ukrainians are getting murdered,
I don't care at all, I care about my prosperity,
I need another billion on top of my, what is it he up to 48 billion?
34 billion, what difference does it make?
Hey, Hey Charles monster Koch, when is it enough?
Dude, you're in your 80s, what are you gonna do with it?
So you're gonna, how many Ukrainians are gonna die?
So you can make an extra couple of bucks.
So then they get into the horse crap about, there's some sanctions work and
others don't, in other words, the ones that don't affect us,
we are fine with the ones that do affect us, hey that cost me 13 bucks.
Okay now, so do sanctions work?
Yes, now do they work all the time?
Absolutely not.
So where do they work?
They work in a, in a, in a country where it's not one dictator like Saddam Hussein
or Kim Jong because they're never gonna run out of caviar.
And they don't care about anyone else and
they don't work in a system where it affects everyone equally.
They work best when there is a group of people that have economic power,
that isn't just one person like oligarchs.
How do we know they worked in the past?
A situation just like that was South Africa and after you put enough pressure
and sanctions on the wealthy of South Africa said no mas we've had enough,
it's cost us too much money, we're gonna change apartheid now.
Are they working in Russia?
In this particular case we just covered on the show yesterday,
Putin came out saying now the sanctions have devastated us.
Putin is saying it right and I need the Russian people to brace for
impact cuz inflation is going to be bad, our markets are hurt,
are you rubles and is in massive trouble but
let's stick together as Russians, it's all worth it for my glory.
I mean Russian glory, right?
So Putin himself is telling you how much it's hurting him and
how he's lost leverage.
We're hearing stories of how oligarchs are pissed at Putin, which is what you want so
they can put pressure on him to end it and here comes the coke method going.
Yeah, but it's putting sanctions on the Russians even though it's working, it
might save thousands of lives in Ukraine, it's gonna cost us 30 or 40 bucks.
And so are infinite greed says let them die and that's who Charles Koch is.
That's exactly the kind of monster he is Amy.
>> Yeah another role that this could play, in the peace talks really is
giving the power to be part of the negotiations, saying that, you know.
If you come to a peaceful negotiation,
then we'll lift the sanctions and that's another important aspect.
We need to look at this.
And then I'd like to ask I was thinking to myself why is this even a story?
And I think it comes down to because of the political influence that the Koch
brothers and and their business has in our political discourse in this country.
I mean, I was looking it up and since 1990 they have the final in over $72
million into campaigns with 14.5 million going into campaigns just this last cycle.
And that more than doubles when we talk about the money that they're putting into
lobbyists.
So it really goes back to really highlighting again, you know, the sickness
we have in this country and allowing corporations to act as individuals and
have a voice in our political system.
And it gives them much more power than they should have.
>> So Amy great point because why do we even care about the Kochs?
We only care not because like we care about one billionaires opinion.
No, because he buys half our politicians.
They're the largest political donors in the country.
All these people have insane conspiracy theories about, sorrows and
the counselor Zion runs the world and insanity, right?
No, the cocks, the mercer's the largest donors in the world to politicians
actually control the politicians cuz they give them literally millions of dollars
and they're not at all Jewish.
It doesn't have anything to do with insanity like that.
It has to do with the real world.
The real world is, they're greedy and they think, hey,
you know what I pay an american politician.
They're gonna do exactly what I want.
They're my dogs now, how do they know that through history?
And so if you don't know the Kochs originally made a huge part of their
portion, their fortune by stealing from native Americans.
They got caught, they were being investigated by the federal government and
that is when they first discovered this was decades ago.
The Supreme Court allows us to put money into politics and
they started buying senators.
One of the very first senators they bought was Bob Dole, who later not coincidentally
became the Republican presidential candidate against Bill Clinton, why?
Because he had the most money?
Where'd you get the money from the Koch brothers and
from Koch industries which are based in Kansas home state.
And shockingly enough, the senators that they initially contributed to help
dismiss the case against them.
They steal, they rob, they do the coke method and
then later they, by republicans and the republicans say,
we don't want to regulate Koch industries cuz that would be against freedom.
No, no, it's just the most obvious corruption you've ever seen.
It's basically our oligarchs.
People like Charles Koch saying you better not touch their oligarchs.
All of us corrupt people across the world are in this together no matter who dies.
>> There's been talk.
And I wondered this too, because as I hear it, when you talk about the people that
are actually on the ground stay in Russia Ukraine Belarus.
Cuz Belarus is part of some of those, some of those sanctions that we're talking
about at the first off the jump when it comes to the trade things.
So they're gonna feel the pain as well.
What about those people?
So I get what about those people that are affected cuz the Koch industries and
things like this will be the driver that allows them to buy more politicians?
I think they can pull these types of schemes, but
then there's people really on the ground that are affected and how much of a voice
do they really have when it comes to shouting at someone like Putin.
Hey, this is hurting you might want to change course.
How much does he really care?
And what limits does he have once that happens is the question.
>> Yeah, well, I mean,
I don't think Charles Koch cares about anything other than money.
And he's a terrible guy.
And but guys,
this isn't about one particular evil person or another, it's about the system.
So Amy is a candidate in Nevada, mainly Vegas area and
she doesn't take corporate Pac money.
In fact, she was one of the original just democrats.
And we did the rule about you can't take corporate Pac money cuz it corrupts,
corrupts by definition.
And here's most of the Republican Party taking that Charles coke money.
And if you're a Republican who's always so George Soros, he's super evil and
he's the one that's a puppeteer and controlling people.
Then why would you be in favor of Charles Koch,
being your puppeteer, moving all of your politicians around and
getting them to betray you, betray innocent people for their own profits.
Let's get all the money out of politics.
Then we don't have to worry about oligarchs here in America