Can The Koch Brothers Turn The L.A. Times Into The Volkischer Beobachter?

Whenever I go shopping for paper products I bring this handy list along:

Angel Soft® toilet paper
Brawny® paper towels
Quilted Northern® toilet paper
Soft n' Gentle® toilet paper
Dixie® plates, bowls, napkins, & cups
Mardi Gras® napkins and towels
Sparkle® napkins
Vanity Fair® napkins
Zee® Napkins
Georgia-Pacific® paper products, lumber and building products
INVISTA® products
Lycra® products
Stainmaster® Carpet

I stopped buying Quilted Northern and Brawny brands. They're part of the fascist Koch Bros Empire, which has been seeking to overturn democracy in America and spends hundreds of millions of dollars to do so. Now the Koch brothers are trying to buy up a media empire as well, since they claim the right-wing voice in this country isn't loud enough. The NY Times refers to them as "supporters of libertarian causes," rather than as fascists or even just John Birchers, which are much more accurate descriptions. And on Saturday, Amy Chozick at the Times reported on their plans to buy the Tribune Company's eight very influential regional newspapers, including the L.A. Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel and the Hartford Courant to help propagate their hateful ideology and recruit their puppet candidates.

By early May, the Tribune Company is expected to send financial data to serious suitors in what will be among the largest sales of newspapers by circulation in the country. Koch Industries is among those interested, said several people with direct knowledge of the sale who spoke on the condition they not be named. Tribune emerged from bankruptcy on Dec. 31 and has hired JPMorgan Chase and Evercore Partners to sell its print properties.

The papers, valued at roughly $623 million, would be a financially diminutive deal for Koch Industries, the energy and manufacturing conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., with annual revenue of about $115 billion.

Politically, however, the papers could serve as a broader platform for the Kochs’ laissez-faire ideas. The Los Angeles Times is the fourth-largest paper in the country, and The Tribune is No. 9, and others are in several battleground states, including two of the largest newspapers in Florida, the Orlando Sentinel and the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. A deal could include Hoy, the second-largest Spanish-language daily newspaper, which speaks to the pivotal Hispanic demographic.

Like Quilted Northern and all Koch products, all those papers should be completely boycotted if they're taken over to serve the cause of fascism.