Apparently in the Monopoly game of liberal argumentation, invoking the name of Koch … is treated like drawing a Get Out of Fail Free card. — Yours truly, here, here and here
WRAL decided to report on a legislative roundtable exploring issues surrounding North Carolina’s renewable energy portfolio standards (REPS) mandate.
It chose to let its reporter attempt a passive-aggressive inference of invalidation (it’s clear she could do no better) by reductio ad hominem, coming perilously close to paranoia.
Call it what you like, it’s a poor excuse for journalism. Especially when the key disclaimer — “WRAL News parent Capitol Broadcasting Co. owns a solar farm” — comes at the very end, rather than the beginning of the piece.
Right-o: Tonight, a recipient of cronyism objects to criticism of the very same cronyism. News at 11.
Here are excerpts from WRAL’s report, which has more repetitions of “Koch” than a 1980s afterschool special:
The event was sponsored by the American Energy Alliance, the political lobbying arm of the Institute for Energy Policy, a conservative think tank funded by Charles and David Koch. The event moderator was Tom Pyle, president of the AEA and the IEP, and a former Koch Industries lobbyist.
Much of the money the Koch family has made has been through petrochemical fuels. According to a Pro-Publica investigation in 2014, the Kochs have used a trade group known as Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce to funnel money to a long list of conservative nonprofit groups, many of which defend the fossil fuel industry against public policy initiatives favoring renewables. …
Another panelist at the event was Ryan Yonk, an assistant professor at Utah State University’s Institute for Political Economy, a free-market think tank that also has strong ties to the Koch brothers.
