Charles and David Koch are the mul­ti-mul­ti-bil­lion­aires who cur­rent­ly exer­cise strate­gic con­trol over the Repub­li­can Par­ty in the Unit­ed States, and, through a vast, labyrinthine net­work of foun­da­tions and dum­my cor­po­ra­tions (known to jour­nal­ists as the “Kochto­pus”), con­trol the Tea Par­ty move­ment, most of the key Con­ser­v­a­tive think tanks, and the pho­ny “Lib­er­tar­i­an” move­ment. Cana­di­ans have as much to fear from the Koch broth­ers as Amer­i­cans do. They have long been the prin­ci­pal con­sumers of Cana­di­an “dirty oil.” Their Pine Bend, Min­neso­ta facil­i­ties pipe it in to pro­duce pet­coke, a nasty pol­luter that is ille­gal in the Unit­ed States, then sell it to the Com­mu­nist Par­ty in Bei­jing. They have qui­et­ly acquired leas­es for 1.1 mil­lion acres of Alber­ta oil fields and have near­ly dou­ble the direct hold­ings that Exxon­Mo­bil has. In May, Koch Oil Sands Oper­a­tion of Cal­gary sought per­mits to embark on a mul­ti-bil­lion­-dol­lar tar sands extrac­tion oper­a­tion. [1] Read more »