Courtesy of Pam Martens
Actress Louise Linton and Husband, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Check Out His Signature on Newly Minted U.S. Currency
The Trump administration has been the gift that keeps on giving to billionaire Charles Koch’s vast network of political front groups known as the Kochtopus. Its democracy-smothering tentacles have wrapped themselves around everything from the U.S. judicial system, to elections, to climate change, higher ed, news dissemination, and how laws are made in Washington and at the state level. (See related articles below.)
Charles Koch’s wealth, and that of his brother, David, derives from their majority ownership of Koch Industries, one of the largest private corporations in the world with major interests in fossil fuels, chemicals, paper products, and commodities trading. Forbes puts their net worth at $51 billion each.
The Trump administration, now packed full of Koctopus operatives, has been rapidly running a playbook for the Koch machine: withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord – check. Tax cuts for corporations and the rich – check. Gut the Environmental Protection Agency – check. Make their ally, Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education – check. Gut Federal regulations – check. Build skepticism toward NATO – check. The list goes on and on.
Now comes another bonanza. On Monday the U.S. Treasury announced that certain types of tax exempt organizations (read Koch front groups) would no longer have to reveal the names and addresses of their donors to the IRS. That information has never been available to the public, but now it will no longer be available to the IRS in order for it to quickly detect patterns of fraud, illegal foreign donors inserting themselves into U.S. elections, or a mega-billionaire and his cronies potentially outspending an entire political party in an election.
In making the announcement, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin stated this in a press release:
“Americans shouldn’t be required to send the IRS information that it doesn’t need to effectively enforce our tax laws, and the IRS simply does not need tax returns with donor names and addresses to do its job in this area. It is important to emphasize that this change will in no way limit transparency.”
This is simply more of the Orwellian Reverse-Speak that the Trump administration has adopted as the official language in the executive branch, such as the recent “would” now means “wouldn’t” in the press conference with Putin.
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