Colin Taylor, Occupy Democrats.

The Koch Brothers have joined forces with progressive activists to push for a series of major criminal justice reform bills that is seeing a rare show of bipartisan support in Congress.

The New York Times, Congress, lobbyist and legislators all claim this is significant liberalization of US criminal justice laws since the beginning of the drug war,” aiming to reduce unnecessarily severe sentences and streamline the criminal justice process.

After reading bill with the added Koch amendments, this has prompted a wave of suspicion from criminal reform activists and progressives around the nation.  The bill would create confusion, added litigation, and drastically weaken countless federal statutes including those that play an important role in protecting the public welfare including consumers from unsafe food and medicine.”

The Koch interest is believed to stem from lingering anger over a 2000 case when the company was charged with 97 counts of violating polluting laws, when they decided to vent 91 tons of a chemical called benzene into the atmosphere, which is known to cause leukemia. The company ended up having to pay a paltry $20 million for their crimes. Instead of doing the obvious thing and simply adopting honest business practices, the Koch Brothers have thrown their weight behind getting the laws changed and regulations lifted, funding a right-wing crusade against climate science and the EPA. Now, in a particularly insidious fashion, they are trying to make it harder for them to be persecuted for their devious crimes by sneaking it in with a bill that would actually help people.

Editor’s note: Colin Taylor’s original post has been removed from Occupy Democrats’ web site. For further reading, I suggest: Koch Self-Interest in Criminal Justice Reform, Exposed – PR Watch.