Between The Lines - Connor Gibson: Billionaire Koch Brothers Investing Heavily in Climate Change Denial University "Research" (Week Ending Oct. 10, 2014)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

You can also listen to full unedited interview segments from Counterpoint, which are generally available some time the day following broadcast.

Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.

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Billionaire Koch Brothers Investing Heavily in Climate Change Denial 'Research'

Posted Oct. 1, 2014

Interview with Connor Gibson, researcher with the Greenpeace investigation team, conducted by Scott Harris

The massive September 21st People's Climate March in New York City, and dozens of other cities and towns around the globe, sent an unmistakable message to world leaders that a growing majority of the planet’s population are concerned about the destructive power of climate change and want governments to take substantive action. However, while many nations have set targets for reducing carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases that cause global warming, the United States government has been virtually unresponsive to the urgent call by a majority of the world’s scientists that imposing new regulations on industry are essential if we are to avoid global climate collapse.

A major obstacle to passing legislation in Washington that would address climate change are the nation’s fossil fuel industry, which uses their money and influence to prevent the passage of new regulations while promoting research that claims climate change science is a myth, or exaggerates the dangers we face.

One of the most active family-owned corporations opposing action on climate change are Kansas billionaires Charles and David Koch, owners of Koch Industries. The Kochs have given tens of millions of dollars to groups that deny climate change science, undermine policy solutions to the problem, and attack subsidies for clean energy competition while preserving handouts to fossil fuel companies. The activities of the Koch brothers who are heavily investing in university research is the focus of a new report from the environmental group Greenpeace, titled: "Koch on Campus, Polluting Higher Education." Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Connor Gibson, a researcher with the Greenpeace investigation team, who summarizes some of the key findings of his group's "Koch on Campus” report.

CONNOR GIBSON: Basically from my research on Koch Industries and its billionaire owners, Charles and David Koch, they fund groups that deny the science of climate change or block policies and regulations that solve the problem. It became impossible to ignore some of their political activity on campus. Your listeners might remember that in 2011, Florida State University had a controversy around the Charles Koch Foundation giving a multimillion-dollar grant which came with strings attached, where they had veto power over certain professors that were nominated for the positions Charles Koch was funding – you know, indirect control of the type of curriculum that would be advanced. That has been since proven and reproven in a series of leaked e-mails and whistle-blower professors.

But there's a much larger mission by Charles Koch in particular to infiltrate the higher education system. My research suggests that he has funded about 250 universities to a total of $50 million since 2005, with the majority of that happening in recent years. Back in 2005, Charles Koch was only funding seven schools and at this point, he's funding about 250, according to their website. So schools like George Mason University in Virginia, Florida State University, Clemson in South Carolina, West Virginia University, these are schools that are heavily funded by Charles Koch. And what we've seen from certain contracts suggests to us a dire threat to academic freedom. You know, if the Charles Koch Foundation has any say in what professors are hired, whether it's a "wink-wink" agreement or whether it's explicitly written in the contract, that's entirely inappropriate, according to experts of academic freedom.

So to me this is an extension of our research on the Koch Industries' pollution of the environment into their pollution of educational curricula.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Connor, I wanted to ask you about differentiating legitimate funding for academic research and the kinds of research that you exposed in this report, "Koch Pollution On Campus." Certainly, you can have conservative, or liberal, or folks in the middle politically who do fund academic research that they have sympathies with. But what is it that you see different here with the Koch brothers that you feel crosses the line between legitimate academic research by disinterested parties and what the Kochs are doing?

CONNOR GIBSON: There are a few red flags that come with the Koch grants and this is very much consistent with Charles Koch's reputation as being very astute with his investments. He expects a return on the things he has been investing in and that appears to be true with universities. As far back as 1974, we have a speech from Charles Koch as the chairman of a group called the Institute for Humane Studies. Now that's a group he still chairs, and that's one of the two groups I mentioned at George Mason University. In his speech in 1974, Charles Koch made it very clear that business leaders should only be funding academic institutions that are willing to carry forward broad business interests. And that seems to be exactly what he's done in the contracts that the Charles Koch Foundation has signed with these economics departments and business departments mostly. They're written in certain code words for teaching the kind of ideology that has made Charles Koch as rich as he is. Things like "economic freedom" – those words are actually written into the contract with Clemson University in South Carolina. "Economic freedom" is a political concept that Koch-funded thinktanks – the Heritage Foundation in D.C. and the Fraser Institute in Canada – they measure economic freedom around the world and it tends to correlate with countries that have lax labor laws and low regulations and low taxes on corporations, things that Charles Koch favors. And this is what Clemson professors are supposed to be teaching if they're funded by Charles Koch.

So, that certainly is a red flag and you don't need to take Greenpeace's word for it. I would say, refer to the American Association of University Professors. They're kind of a clearinghouse on the concept of academic freedom and are willing to validate that these grants by the Koch Foundation have put academic freedom in the cross-hairs.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Connor, maybe you could go into some of the important debates that have developed on campus relating to Koch funding? Has there been a backlash among students who are becoming aware through your report and other sources that the Koch brothers are influencing the curriculum of their education?

CONNOR GIBSON: Concerned professors and students at Florida State University first started making a big deal about this in 2011, when the contract was reviewed by a faculty senate and they found it was inappropriate. And that became a major media story that is actually resurfacing this year as students are working to limit the influence of the Charles Koch Foundation at their school in Florida State. But there are other schools that have been vocal about this, too. In fact, fairly recently, George Mason University students just wrote a letter to their president asking for a meeting, asking for transparency to be provided about the contracts between Koch and their school, because they don't what kind of control Charles Koch might have at George Mason. But he does operate two think tanks at George Mason University that were founded by the Kochs and their executives at Koch Industries. As long as other school, Kansas University, I read, is now calling for transparency on the agreement with the Koch brothers. And just this year, the City University of New York, in Brooklyn rejected a multi-million offer from the Koch brothers because they were afraid of this kind of control.

For more Greenpeace investigations, visit research.greenpeaceusa.org.