Our vote on the 1% has been vigorous since it started last week, with thousands of people rating nominees representing Wall Street, dirty energy, war profiteering, and more. We're going to make videos exposing the ones our audience thinks are doing the most to exploit the 99% -- and so far, the most unpopular of the bunch are media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the democracy-crushing Koch Brothers.

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Our vote on the 1% has been vigorous since it started last week, with thousands of people rating nominees representing Wall Street, dirty energy, war profiteering, and more. We're going to make videos exposing the ones our audience thinks are doing the most to exploit the 99% -- and so far, the most unpopular of the bunch are media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the democracy-crushing Koch Brothers.

Murdoch, whom we've dubbed "the Propagandist," has a net worth of about $7.4 billion and uses his right-wing media empire to put ideology over truth. One commenter at our voting website assailed him for using "sensationalism, fear, lies, and distortions to achieve" his ideological ends.

The Koch Brothers, "the Puppeteers," are familiar to Brave New Foundation fans who have seen our Koch Brothers Exposed campaign, which details how their factories spew obscene amounts of pollution while giving them the wealth (about $50 billion) to bankroll groups fighting worker rights, climate change science, and Wall Street regulation.

We've got a lot of great (or rather, awful) nominees, but these two are in the lead because, as commenter Sharonc put it, "they foster and enable all the other people on the list." On a rating scale of "ho-hum" to "pure evil," our audience has given both Murdoch and the Koch brothers an average rating of"pure evil.

Who else do you want us expose? Which financial fraudster? Which big polluter? Which union buster? Which hedge fund operator? Tell us by rating our nominees.

Here's who's now rounding out the top ten -- for now:

• Dick Cheney (Halliburton/White House):  Did business with brutal regimes in Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Burma--then became Vice President and took a massive payday from his former company.
• Rush Limbaugh: Spews racist bile while making about $1 million a week.
• Erik Prince (Blackwater/Xe): Oversaw mercenary force that killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.
• Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs): Touted mortgage deals while privately betting $10 billion they'd fail.
• Rob Walton (Walmart): Busts unions and underpays workers yet has net worth of $21 billion.
• Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase): Defrauded customers on mortgages, then took $25 billion bailout.
• Paul Singer (Elliott Hedge Fund Management): Buys poor countries' defaulted debt for cheap and then forces full payment, plus interest.
• Angelo Mozilo (Countrywide Financial): deceived investors into buying risky "subprime" mortgages, leading to thousands of foreclosures and contributing to the recession.

The vote is far from over, though. Nominees like Darrell Issa, Pete Peterson, and Hugh Grant (the Monsanto CEO, not the English charmer) are nipping at their heels. But we can expose only the worst ones. Who will it be? Tell us.

Authors Website: http://bravenewfilms.org/

Authors Bio:
Robert Greenwald is a producer, director and political activist; the founder and president of Brave New Films, a new media company that uses moving images to educate, influence, and empower viewers to take action around issues that matter. Under Greenwald's direction, Brave New Films has produced a series of short political videos, including the Fox Attacks and Real McCain campaigns. One of the more notable Real McCain videos focused on McCain's Mansions; after Brave New Films produced this video, McCain notoriously said he was not sure how many houses he owned and a media firestorm ensued. In total, Brave New Film's short videos have been viewed over 45 million times in the past two years, inspired hundreds of thousands of people to take action and forced pressing issues into the mainstream media.
Robert Greenwald's Brave New Foundation is currently producing Rethink Afghanistan, a groundbreaking documentary being released online in real-time; the film features experts from Afghanistan, Pakistan and the U.S. discussing the United States' flawed strategy in Afghanistan. In August of 2009, Brave New Films launched Sick for Profit, a campaign that focuses on the exorbitant amounts of money made by health insurance companies' CEOs. Within one week, the campaign's first video was viewed over 100,000 times. Recently, Brave New Films also launched Senator Sanders Unfiltered, a two-minute weekly show in which Senator Sanders shares his views on an array of critical issues for our country.
In addition, Greenwald is the director/producer of several documentaries: "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers" (2006), an expose of what happens when corporations go to war; as well as "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" (2005), detailing the retail giant's assault on families and American values; and "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" (2004), about the right-wing opinion factory known as Fox "News". Millions of viewers have seen these films via grassroots "house parties" and independent online DVD sales, a groundbreaking method of alternative distribution. Greenwald also executive produced a trilogy of political documentaries: "Unprecedented: The 2000 Election" (2002); "Uncovered: The War on Iraq" (2003), which he also directed; and "Unconstitutional" (2004).
Prior to his documentary work, Greenwald produced and/or directed more than 55 television movies, miniseries and feature films. Greenwald's films have garnered 25 Emmy nominations, two Golden Globe nominations, the Peabody Award and the Robert Wood Johnson Award. He was awarded the 2002 Producer of the Year Award by the American Film Institute. He has been honored for his activism by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California; the Liberty Hill Foundation; the Los Angeles chapter of the National Lawyers Guild; Physicians for Social Responsibility; Consumer Attorney's Association of Los Angeles; Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy and the Office of the Americas.