Koch Fdn Chrls 2

---

SEE PJT 2025

Reddit - Please wait for verification KOCHWATCH 6 26

---

GGL 626

AI Overview

Joe Lonsdale, through the Abundance Institute and in partnership with Stand Together, champions an "Inclusive Abundance" economic framework. This movement actively pushes for regulatory reforms and technological acceleration across AI, biotech, and government administration to unlock human potential. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Key Initiatives & Stances

• FDA Overhaul: Lonsdale raised millions to fund an "AI-native strike team" of software engineers and data scientists to place inside the FDA, aiming to cut red tape and accelerate clinical development. [1, 2, 3]

• Abundance Agenda: Both organizations support an innovation-driven economy, emphasizing that society can grow by solving big problems rather than operating on a zero-sum mentality. [1, 2]

• Tech Advocacy: Lonsdale regularly advocates for American competitiveness, supporting policies that foster fast and inclusive growth across technology sectors. [1, 2, 3]

Related Platforms & Perspectives

• To learn more about this philosophy, read the Inclusive Abundance Primer or explore the Stand Together Economy Issues page.
• Read Lonsdale’s original op-eds on pushing for these changes on his Joe Lonsdale Substack.
• Hear ongoing discussions about these and other technology policies directly on the American Optimist Podcast. [1, 2, 3]

===

---

GOOD 2021 SUM

charles Koch’s “Uniter” Rebrand Strains Credulity After Funding Congressional Coup Supporter

By Alex Kotch

|

February 11th, 2021

ALEC, Climate, Democracy, Featured Investigations, Koch, News, Opinion, Trump

At 85, the most influential Republican political donor in modern U.S. history says he has some regrets. According to soft-ball corporate media interviews and a new book he’s written, billionaire industrialist Charles Koch wishes that his more than five decades of organizing and funding far-right, partisan politicians, advocacy groups, and academia had slightly less partisan results.

Koch’s latest media makeover strains credulity. The man spent his entire adult life, while helming one of the largest and dirtiest private companies in the nation, working to fundamentally alter society and move it towards his ideal: a libertarian utopia with low taxes, no unions, weak regulations, and unlimited corporate political spending.

Most recently, numerous House and Senate Republicans that he, his family, his company, and his political machine helped elect attempted to overturn the election just hours after hordes of Trump supporters mounted a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Koch’s efforts have had a tremendous impact on the country. His massive grants to ideological, free-market university programs have created a body of right-wing economics literature. His political advocacy groups have grown into a network as large as either major political party. The hundreds of state lawmakers he helped elect have gerrymandered legislative and congressional districts with partisan and racial bias, making legislatures and U.S. House delegations far more conservative than the states they represent. Elected officials and agency heads he has supported have cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy and struck down environmental regulations.

The sum of these many parts is a major, industrialized nation wedded to fossil fuels, without universal health care, and with lower taxes than most comparable countries, where Republicans govern the majority of its states, and right-wing ideologues occupy scores of powerful court seats.

Boosting Extremist Politicians

Koch’s success thus far still isn’t enough for him. As he perfected the pages of his latest book, trying to cast himself as a unifier and good-hearted philanthropist, his political operation poured tens of millions of dollars into election ads and canvassing operations for mostly Republican candidates. Many of those candidates would win their races and proceed to challenge the valid election of Joe Biden.

A recent CMD report found that Koch Industries was the biggest corporate donor to super PACs and other outside groups that spent money to help elect many of the 147 House and Senate Republicans who voted to overturn the election and disenfranchise millions of voters. In just these members’ most recent election cycles, Koch Industries donated nearly $14 million to those groups. Charles Koch’s Americans for Prosperity and its affiliated super PAC spent close to $18 million on ads and other means to help elect a number of members who attempted the legislative coup.

Koch Industries’ PAC also chipped in, making six-figure contributions to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the National Republican Congressional Committee, which spent to boost the election deniers in Congress. Charles Koch and five of his close family members each gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the NRSC.

As OpenSecrets found, Koch PAC was also the biggest direct donor to the campaigns of the election-denying members of Congress, having contributed over $930,000.

And, to make sure Republicans retained their Senate majority under Mitch McConnell, Koch’s Americans for Prosperity Action (AFPA) spent millions on one of the two Jan. 5 Georgia Senate runoff elections. AFPA spent at least $13.9 million on mailers, digital ads, door hangers, and canvassing in favor of incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue or opposing his challenger, Democrat John Ossoff. Perdue campaigned on the “Big Lie” of rampant voter fraud and encouraged other senators to vote against the election results, saying he would do the same if he was eligible to do so.

Part of the Koch election effort was run by the Libre Initiative, a project of Americans for Prosperity that has courted Hispanic voters for nearly a decade, which went “all-in on the Georgia runoffs,” according to The New York Times.

Along with AFPA, Libre Action spent considerable resources on canvassing, knocking on doors for vulnerable GOP incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina for nearly a year; Tillis won re-election. Tillis did not vote against the election results but, along with many of his Republican colleagues, supported Trump’s legal challenges and recount requests and expressed unfounded concern over the security of mail-in ballots.

As in 2016, the Koch political groups did not directly campaign for Trump, but its work for GOP senators helped him. “The turnout we do for Tillis is helpful to the president indirectly, because we’re turning out conservatives who are aligned,” said Libre Initiative Executive Director.

According to a Nov. 11 CMD analysis, 82 percent of state and federal candidates whom the Koch network backed in 2020 won their elections. Of the 439 candidates in whom the Koch network invested, only 19, or 4.3 percent, were Democrats. The network supported 19 U.S. Senate candidates, all Republicans, and 15 won.

Candidates the network has supported in recent elections include Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), the two election denial ringleaders in the Senate, and extremist representatives such as Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Andy Biggs (R-AZ), both Freedom Caucus members who voted against the election results and allegedly helped plan the Jan. 6 events with lead organizer Ali Alexander.

Funding Division

Koch’s new persona is that of a man who seeks to “build bridges” between political partisans in a deeply divided country. His record, up to this very moment, is that of a man who has fueled that divide by bankrolling hyper-partisan operations, think tanks, and media companies that spread disinformation and back radical right-wing policies.

At the structural level, Koch has long funded the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a pay-to-play network of Republican state lawmakers and corporate lobbyists that writes model bills that boost business profits. Over the years, ALEC has carried the oil industry’s water on climate denial and anti-environmental legislation, and promoted highly controversial “stand your ground,” anti-labor, deregulation, school privatization, and voter suppression bills.

ALEC President Lisa Nelson told a Center for National Policy crowd last year that her group drafted letters that lawmakers could send to their secretaries of state to cast doubt on their states’ election results, implying that this would be a way for them to overturn their constituents’ votes and instead pick pro-Trump Electoral College electors. ALEC members in the Pennsylvania state legislature went on to lead an effort to overturn their state’s electors, and numerous individuals associated with ALEC have ties to the events on Jan. 6 or to the “Big Lie” of voter fraud that fueled the insurrection.

Koch is also a major funder of ALEC ally the State Policy Network and its numerous members, which are right-wing think tanks that promote free-market, anti-labor, and pro-business policies, fight legal battles in favor of conservative ideals, and often have ties to Republican state lawmakers. One member, the Mackinac Center, promoted the “Operation Gridlock” anti-coronavirus restriction protest in Michigan where white militia members, who would later plot to kidnap and execute Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, recruited followers.

Several Koch-backed groups have been lying about voter fraud for years in a coordinated effort to lay the groundwork for voting restrictions that disproportionately disenfranchise Democratic voters. Some have advocated for purging huge numbers of voters from the rolls.

At the Heritage Foundation, which has received roughly $1 million from the Charles Koch Foundation since 2014, voter suppression advocate Hans von Spakovsky manages its Election Law Reform Initiative. Spakovsky recently argued that mail-in voting is ripe for fraud and has promoted the “voter-fraud myth” for many years. He was a member of Trump’s failed “election integrity” commission, which found no evidence of voter fraud in the 2016 elections.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation, which got roughly $4.9 million from the Charles Koch Foundation from 2014 to 2019, attacked mail-in voting this year as the pandemic raged, a tactic adopted by many conservative groups aimed to boost Republican candidates.

Ties to Far-Right Extremism

Several organizations that Koch funds have hired or promoted far-right extremists.

The Leadership Institute, a State Policy Network member that counts Koch as a donor and chairman emeritus, trains young conservatives and publishes Campus Reform, a website that attacks liberal university students, professors, and administrations as well as affirmative action and other policies it claims are illegitimate. Multiple Leadership Institute alumni went on to reveal themselves as overt white nationalists.

ALEC has a history of failing to denounce extremists in its ranks, including former Washington state chair Matt Shea. Even after Shea was accused of white supremacist domestic terrorism, ALEC never publicly denounced him nor cut ties with him.

The Heritage Foundation had Andy Ngo, a prominent propagandist for fascists, give a keynote speech about antifascists in 2019.

Koch may be walking back a small fraction of that funding for divisive groups. The Charles Koch Foundation’s 2019 tax return, obtained by CMD, shows that it did not fund The Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF), which finances much of the reporting that appears on the website of The Daily Caller, an extremely partisan website founded by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that often publishes dubious, Republican-friendly stories and has a history of employing white nationalists.

While Koch didn’t fund DCNF in 2019, his foundations provided 84 percent of the nonprofit’s annual revenue in 2016 and nearly 40 percent in 2017, giving close to $1 million in each of those years. In 2018, Koch’s largest media investment, nearly $750,000, went to DCNF.

Bankrolling Climate Change Denial

As the leader of an oil and gas empire, Koch has financed a vast climate change denial network for decades. According to Greenpeace, Koch family foundations poured over $145 million into 90 groups that have attacked climate science and policy from 1997 to 2018.

Pressure from Koch’s network on politicians and academics helped politicize climate science and radicalize Republicans on the issue. The result is a deeply divided America, where 72 percent of Democrats and those who lean Democratic believe that “human activity contributes a great deal to climate change,” while only 22 percent of Republicans and Republican leaners agree with this factual statement, according to a 2020 Pew Research Center poll.

Broader Network Even More Toxic

In addition to the outfits he directly funds, Koch has been a prominent funder of DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund, two connected charity vehicles that direct wealthy conservatives’ donations to the nonprofits of their choosing while hiding the donors’ identities from the public. The two funds, especially DonorsTrust in recent years, have bankrolled far-right, hyperpartisan organizations, even explicitly white nationalist hate groups.

A recent Center for Media and Democracy investigation revealed that DonorsTrust gave over $1.5 million to the white nationalist hate group VDARE in 2019, along with a smaller donation to the white nationalist hate group behind the American Renaissance publication.

Project Veritas, the frequently discredited sting operation led by James O’Keefe, gets significant funding from DonorsTrust. From 2014 to 2019, DonorsTrust gave $12.5 million to the group, representing a sizable portion of its revenue. During that time, Project Veritas worked with ex-spies recruited by Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who is the brother of Education Sec. Betsy DeVos, to infiltrate and smear liberal groups. Most recently, Project Veritas worked with a postal worker and promoted his false statements about alleged ballot-related malfeasance within the USPS and allegedly attempted to bribe a Minnesota man to falsely claim he was “harvesting” ballots for Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar. The group has “a cozy relationship” with the self-described “Western chauvinist” Proud Boys, a hate group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Far-right student group Turning Point USA, which has a history of hiring racists, is also a big beneficiary of DonorsTrust contributions, receiving over $1.5 million from the charity from 2017 to 2019.

DonorsTrust also finances discriminatory organizations and groups considered hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. According to a CMD report, DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund combined to give over $13 million to anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and anti-LGBTQ organizations from 2014 to 2018, including anti-Muslim hate group the Center for Security Policy and the anti-LGBTQ Alliance Defending Freedom.

The Middle East Media and Research Institute, an organization at the “inner core” of the nation’s Islamophobia network that “attempts to portray Muslims and Arabs as being inherently irrational and violent,” received over $600,000 from DonorsTrust from 2015 to 2019.

Other extreme groups that DonorsTrust has kept afloat include the alt-right-friendly Center for American Greatness and the Prager University Foundation, the nonprofit being online disinformation publisher PragerU, which produces online videos denying climate change, claiming that white privilege does not exist, and spreading white nationalist tropes.

DonorsTrust also bankrolls numerous voter suppression groups, including the Public Interest Legal Foundation ($600,000 since 2016), True the Vote ($150,000 from 2013 to 2017), the Judicial Education Project ($47.5 million from 2011 to 2018), and Judicial Watch ($218,000 since 2010).

:{

About Alex Kotch

---

---

gmail 11? 25

during this Trump administration, Charles Koch’s influence is everywhere. The fossil fuel billionaire funds a nationwide network of rightwing organizations, the most famous of which are probably American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the prolific incubator of rightwing legislation, and Americans for Prosperity, the libertarian-conservative advocacy group, whichlobbied hard for Trump’s recent mega-bill that gave tax cuts to billionaires. The Koch network spent millions helping launch Project 2025, and its donors and partners are all over the Trump administration. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, for example, is a Koch network donor.

Connor Gibson is an independent opposition research consultant specialized in climate change deniers, fossil fuel lobbying, deceptive public relations, dishonest front groups, dark money, and all-things Koch. He founded Grassrootbeer Investigations after spending a decade at Greenpeace USA. I’ve been lucky enough to work with him, and I wanted to ask him how the Koch network’s influence is playing out now, during this time of unprecedented handouts to the billionaire class.

*Meaghan: Why have you devoted time to researching the Koch network?

Connor:Throughout my career, I’ve been paying attention to political spending that prevents policy solutions related to environmental protection and climate change. Koch Industries – the oil petrochemical industrial multinational conglomerate that’s headquartered in Wichita, Kansas – has been and remains a massive opponent to climate and environmental policies and regulations.

Corporations know exactly what to expect from their return on investment in politicians. For that reason, financial disclosures related to political spending are extremely important for identifying basic problems with our democracy.

The same exact logic can be applied to any interest group, whether it’s the pharmaceutical or insurance industry. These companies that sell these products are often not concerned with the impact that their product has on the consumer. They’re concerned with making money. In fact, as we know well enough now, corporations are legally mandated to maximize profits to shareholders, often at the expense of a healthy population. So, I take great interest in using the financial paper trail as key data points, examining the lobbying and donor disclosures, the behavior of politicians that are affiliated with these donors, to help make a case that perhaps there’s a quid pro quo arrangement.

Pledge your support

*Meaghan: In this Trump era, all the corruption is such a brazen caricature of itself. Can you tell me how Koch spending fits into the oligarchy we’re seeing now?

Connor:Citizens United is 15 years old, and exceptionally rich people spending money is the new normal now. Charles Koch, I think, is still a unique case for a few reasons.

Charles Koch, as a political actor, is focused on many other issues, but his infrastructure – his nonprofit fleet, as I call it – is still unique in that it is totally centered around his privately controlled corporation, and his top executives are the people that are running the nonprofits in this network. We’re talking about a multi-billionaire-dollar network at this point.

What Charles Koch has built is also completely unique in terms of its structure, its sophistication, its scope and scale. Somebody who’s getting a lot of scrutiny, like Leonard Leo, who has been massively influential in terms of the Supreme Court, in terms of the Trump administration’s priorities, does not control nearly as much money as Charles Koch.

The Koch fleet is something like 27 nonprofit organizations that are regulated by the IRS. There are a handful of other organizations, PACs and super PACs, that are regulated by the Federal Election Commission. These are Koch-controlled groups, not just groups that they’re funding. That fleet was worth $8.4 billion in assets as of 2023, that’s the latest data that’s available, and that network spent a gross sum of $1.5 billion as of 2023. Money is also circulated between these Koch groups and there’s a dizzying mess of transactions where one group is granting to the other and maybe even granting right back. But, ultimately, it’s money going out the door for politics and policy fights that Charles Koch wants to see.

Koch is also unique in terms of his influence. The Koch apparatus is built around a for-profit company specifically, and that for-profit company has been very politically active for decades. There aren’t many corporations out there whose executives have been that neck deep in politics for so long.

*Meaghan: What’s an example of something that Koch and his allies have gotten with that spending?

Connor:The Koch network was over the moon about getting the tax bill with tax cuts passed by the Republican Congress during Trump’s first term. That was worth many untold billions of dollars for somebody like Charles Koch and every owner or major shareholder of a major corporation.

Super rich people got a great return on their investment for their efforts to support the Republican Congress, as well as getting their people on Donald Trump’s cabinet. The Kochs having such permanent infrastructure really allows them to adapt to those changing political winds and continually be opportunistic.

In general, the recipients of the Koch’s dark money funds, including front groups, can serve as independent validators, which is really important for their donors. The tobacco industry innovated by getting doctors to smoke and wage a public relations campaign against the facts of the harms of cigarettes. The oil companies, coal companies, car companies, did the exact thing when they hired a cohort of bozos, through consulting firms and subcontractors, to go on TV and say, “I am a scientist, and climate change is not a problem.” That’s still happening. So, being able to anonymize the money trail that pays for that is worth it for these companies.

===

We unraveled the $122 million web of climate denial, political extremism, and Trump ties to Project 2025

Mapped: How 6 Billionaire Family Fortunes Fund Project 2025 - DeSmog

As scrutiny of Project 2025 continues to grow, defenders of the Heritage Foundation-led initiative, which would reshape federal governance and give the next Republican president unprecedented new powers, say it’s the criticism — not the 922-page plan itself — that’s too extreme.

In a piece published last month, Fox News cited prominent conservatives who feel there’s “nothing radical” about the endeavor. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has accused detractors of “panic-mongering” and tried to reframe Project 2025’s sprawling “Mandate for Leadership” blueprint as more boring than scary — a milquetoast white paper that simply “melds the work of some 400 scholars and analysts from an eclectic mix of center-right groups.” This echoes Heritage’s insistence that Project 2025, while conservative, is anything but fringe.

But the findings from DeSmog’s recent investigation into Project 2025’s funding sources tell a very different story. Our wide-ranging analysis of public financial disclosure forms found that the groups on Project 2025’s advisory board — whose experts largely helped to draft the plan — are heavily funded by just six family fortunes. Since 2020, foundations linked to these billionaire families have contributed over $122 million to Project 2025 groups, including at least 290 individual donations to 49 nonprofits that contributed to the Mandate for Leadership documents or are on the initiative’s advisory board. We’ve mapped the funding ties between the billionaire families and the Project 2025 individuals and organizations in an interactive graphic, below.

Groups that received funds from the six family fortunes are far from the political mainstream, according to DeSmog’s analysis, including entities that actively deny the science of anthropogenic climate change — as well as organizations that have been classified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. DeSmog’s review also uncovered additional ties between the six families and the Trump/Vance ticket, though both candidates have tried to distance themselves from the initiative in recent months. Indeed, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein — the billionaire founders of the Uline packaging company, whose charitable donations tie them closely to Project 2025 — are among the former president’s biggest donors.

Project 2025 styles itself as populist, moderate, and far from the politics of Washington. Heritage Foundation President Kevin D. Roberts hails it as a plan for the perennially downtrodden, hard-laboring folks “who shower afterwork instead of before.” Its funding sources — elite, extreme, and closely tied to the Trump campaign — suggest exactly the opposite.

The Donors

Though the Mandate pledges to “prioritize the economic prosperity of ordinary Americans” and pry influence away from “America’s corporate and political elites,” the funding that produced it comes from the upper echelons of the billionaire class.

And not just any billionaires. The six family dynasties providing significant support to Project 2025 — Bradley, Coors, Koch, Scaife, Seid, and Uihlein — all have long histories of fighting for financial and environmental deregulation. Three of the six families have promoted climate denial consistently enough to appear in DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database, which tracks the people and organizations doing the most to undermine decarbonization efforts.

They include oil and gas magnate Charles G. Koch and his Koch Family Foundations; the Scaife Family Foundations, which tap vast wealth from the Mellon aluminum, oil, and banking fortune; and chemicals-and-electronics industrialist Barre Seid, whose recent, record-setting $1.6 billion gift to a nonprofit controlled by Federalist Society co-chair Leonard A. Leo has been a major source of Project 2025 money.

While the Heritage Foundation suggests a diverse conservative coalition gave rise to the Mandate for Leadership, the six family fortunes’ giving patterns were remarkably similar. Of the 49 Project 2025 groups, 37 percent received funding from at least three of the six families. 70 percent of the 49 groups received funding from at least two of the families. (In a few cases, the donations were to sister 501(c)4 lobbying arms that share offices and staff.) The average donation was over $420,000.

*Related:See DeSmog’s coverage of Trump Megadonor Tim Dunn’s Plan That’s More Extreme Than Project 2025

Links to Climate Denial

For decades, oil and gas magnate Charles G. Koch and his late brother David fought vigorously for environmental deregulation, including by supporting groups that sow doubt about the science of manmade climate change. Foundations linked to Koch gave at least $9.6 billion to 15 Project 2025 groups since 2020. But four of the lesser-known families — Bradley, Scaife, Seid, and Uihlein — gave even more, and all six family fortunes helped to fund Project 2025 groups that have denied the science of manmade climate change.

Of the 10 groups that the six families funded most heavily, seven are in DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database. That includes more than $11 million to the Heritage Foundation; $8.3 million to Turning Point USA, which has provided a platform for well-known climate deniers like Alex Epstein; and $4.6 million to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which in 2015 published an op-ed claiming warming is “obviously not initiated by the burning of fossil fuels”. In total, foundations linked to the six families gave to 15 Project 2025 groups with entries in DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database.

That wasn’t the only form of extremism DeSmog uncovered. Four Project 2025 organizations that received donations from the six billionaire fortunes since 2020 are classified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a leading civil rights watchdog group. These include the Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBTQ group that received over $1.6 million in donations from Bradley and Koch; The Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigrant group that received $650,000 from Scaife; Eagle Forum, an anti-government and anti-immigrant group that received over $100,000 from Koch and Uihlein; and Family Research Council, an anti-abortion group that received $25,000 from Seid.

Of the six billionaire families, only Coors-linked foundations — run by heirs to the Coors brewing fortune — did not donate to at least one SPLC-designated hate group.

Links to the Trump Campaign

For months, Donald J. Trump has publicly disavowed Project 2025, claiming to know nothing about the initiative. That stance conflicts with subsequent media reports, including resurfaced video of the former president and current Republican presidential nominee saying, as a keynote speaker at a 2022 Heritage Foundation event, that Heritage would “lay the groundwork & detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.” The Washington Post reported that Trump flew in a private plane to the event with Heritage President Kevin Roberts.

Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, has also been the subject of intense scrutiny for numerous ties to Project 2025 — including writing the foreword to Roberts’ forthcoming book. DeSmog’s investigation also uncovered numerous ties between Vance and Project 2025 advisory groups, including a previously unreported 2017 keynote speech at a Heritage event.

But while the candidates continue to downplay any Project 2025 connections, one link is unavoidable: a billionaire family that heavily supports Project 2025 groups is among their campaign’s biggest donors, according to Federal Election Commission data.

In May, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, the founders of the Uline packaging company, each donated $5 million to Make America Great Again, Inc., a super PAC supporting Trump’s reelection. That’s not including the more than $48 million Richard contributed to Restoration PAC, a pro-Trump political action committee, last quarter alone. Restoration PAC has spent over $12.9 million this year on political advertising, including ads supporting Trump and attacking his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Since 2020, the Ed Uihlein Foundation, which is run by the Uihleins and named in honor of Richard’s father, has donated at least $13.4 million to 13 different Project 2025 groups.

The map below is interactive. Click on a donor to see the groups it funded with dollar amounts, or a nonprofit to see which of the six family fortunes made donations.

[GFX]

---

---

AN 525 COMM DR

A letter that a group of 20 far-right House Republicans released earlier this week as part of a campaign in support of slashing Medicaid appears to have been authored by the head of a research institute with ties to the Koch network.

Politicoreported Friday that "digital metadata embedded in a PDF copy" of the letter that was circulated inside the House of Representatives "lists the author as Brian Blase, president of Paragon Health Institute."

InfluenceWatch notes that in 2021, Paragon received a nearly $2 million donation from Stand Together, "a right-libertarian funding organization that acts as the umbrella organization for the political network that is largely funded by right-leaning businessman and political donor Charles Koch."

Paragon recently urged federal policymakers to require states to conduct more frequent eligibility checks for Medicaid recipients in a purported effort to root out improper payments. Health policy advocates say such a change would make it more difficult for eligible enrollees to keep their Medicaid coverage.

The letter signed by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and other House Republicans aligns with Paragon's objectives, claiming that "political abuse" of Medicaid "is helping to bankrupt the federal government" and calling for "structural Medicaid reform" in the party's forthcoming reconciliation package.

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

Tony Carrk, executive director of the watchdog group Accountable.US, said in a statement that "you'd be hard pressed to find a more shameless example of congressional Republicans taking their cues from special interests at the cost of the American people than Chip Roy copying and pasting a letter directly from... special interests."

"This remarkably blatant kowtowing to conservative billionaires is a sad reflection of the congressional Republicans' willingness to make devastating cuts to Americans' healthcare to pay for lower taxes for the richest," said Carrk.

The letter was released as congressional Republicans grappled internally with how and how much to cut Medicaid as they seek to offset the massive projected costs of another round of tax breaks for the rich.

Earlier this week, as Common Dreamsreported, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said he would not accept more than $500 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next decade. Cuts of that magnitude would still be the largest in the program's history and would strip health coverage from tens of millions of people.

ref

A letter signed by 20 hard-line House Republicans calling for deep cuts to Medicaid in the GOP’s domestic policy megabill appears to be written at least in part by a conservative think tank with ties to top Republican leaders.

Rep. Chip Roy of Texas led the letter and promoted it publicly but digital metadata embedded in a PDF copy circulated inside the House and obtained by POLITICO lists the author as Brian Blase, president of Paragon Health Institute.

Blase served on the White House National Economic Council during President Donald Trump’s first term. He and other conservative health wonks launched Paragon in 2021, and it has rapidly gained influence in GOP policy circles. Former Paragon staffers are now top health aides to Speaker Mike Johnson and President Donald Trump.

According to tax records gathered by InfluenceWatch, Paragon has received seven-figure donations from groups linked to high-profile conservative activists Charles Koch and Leonard Leo.

The push from Roy and his fellow hard-liners to enact massive “structural” reforms across Medicaid comes as centrists and even some more conservative-leaning members have raised concerns about cutting too deeply into the program. Trump is also wary of slashing the program but has signaled he supports some efforts to curb spending.

The letter urges House Republicans to pursue “meaningful” reforms to the safety-net health program: “If the House budget reconciliation package does not include structural Medicaid reform that achieves desired Republican outcomes, we will be setting up massive tax increases and benefit cuts in the future,” Roy & Co. wrote. “For once, Congress should stop procrastinating, using excuses, and finally fulfill the Republican agenda.”

Asked if Blase was in fact the document’s author, Paragon spokesperson Anthony Wojtkowiak said in a statement that the group “sent a list of Medicaid reform principles to policymakers.”

“It appears that the excellent letter by Chip Roy and colleagues incorporated some of our ideas,” Wojtkowiak said, noting the group frequently works with lawmakers on policy issues.

A Roy spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

xitter https://x.com/chiproytx/status/1918039017955926054

eli crane and clyde Stutzman mary miller mark harris scot perry keith self, andy fucing ogles, eric burlison sheri biggs barry moore Byron donalds, clay higgins, gosar, any biggs, andy harris MD, josh brecheen, Michael cloud, ralph norman

---

---

May 2, 2024 rww

• Evan Vorpahl @ True North: True North Issues New Research Report Detailing Who Is Targeting State Courts to Limit Freedoms

True North is issuing a new research report shining a light on those men–Leonard Leo, Dick Uihlein, Charles Koch, and Jeff Yass–and right-wing groups targeting state courts and other levers of power to change the rules and limit our freedoms. This new report also documents how Leo used the Federalist Society to target state supreme courts and the judicial selection process in order to advance his agenda, and more.

---

---

50 pt leAD HUBRIS?

11 23

an

ahead of the Iowa caucuses in January, GOP mega donors who are looking to replace ex-President Donald Trump as the leading 2024 GOP nominee are "starting to run out of time" — but not giving up hope, according to a Wednesday Axios report.

Some mega-donors, like Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus are certain the MAGA hopeful will prevail, though Trump is not his first choice.

"There are people I've spoken to that are still sitting on the fence, that don't know what to do," Marcus said to ABC News, according to Axios. "They dislike the person Trump, but they recognize that the talent is there."

Additionally, in a recent op-ed for Real Clear Politics, he wrote, "Let's face it: Donald Trump is going to win the nomination."

However, other major Republican donors are looking to help ex-South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley take Trump's place.

Axios points out "Deep-pocketed establishment donors have been lining up behind Haley," such as GOP mega-donor Ken Griffin who said earlier this month that he is "actively contemplating" supporting Haley, and JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, who "has had private conversations with her."

Furthermore, "Americans for Prosperity Action, the leading political arm of the Koch network, said that Haley "will have the full weight and scope of AFP Action's unmatched grassroots army and resources," according to the news outlet.

Narrative Strategies founding partner Ken Spain emphasized, "The hope is this is increasingly becoming a two-person race with [former UN ambassador Nikki Haley] ... as the establishment alternative. It's still long shot, but a bet worth placing if you're an anti-Trump big money donor."

:{READ MORE:'Blatantly unconstitutional': Nikki Haley ripped for 'fascist' proposal to outlaw anonymity on social media

*Axios' full report is available here.

---

---

https://truenorthresearch.substack.com/p/how-one-rich-dude-targeted-colleges

4 parts

charles Koch Set His Sights on Funding Who Teaches College StudentsandWhat They Teach

By Caroline Jones and Lisa Graves for True North Research and the BOLD ReThink

Quick Recap.America’s student debt crisis is the partial result of public policy preferences pushed decades ago by free market fundamentalists like Milton Friedman and Charles Koch, as described in ourfirst installment.

Oursecond installment demonstrated how Friedman and Koch advanced an anti-government agenda that has resulted in saddling generations of Americans with student loan debt.

Ourthird installment revealed how Koch’s first non-profit advocated for public universities to cost a lot more for students to attend, embraced student loans to cover higher costs due to slashing public subsidies, and urged corporate colleges.

This week, we detail how Koch sought to capture universities to train brigades of students and scholars in his free market fundamentalism. This includes his attack on the notorious “Powell Memo” for not going far enough to ensure that the corporate view of America is taught at universities and to secure a cadre of academics to attack government (that is, democratic) regulation of corporations.

Koch Attacked Government over Control of What Students Learn and Who Teaches Them — as He Sought that Power through His Wealth

Some of the pamphlets published or reprinted by Charles Koch’s Center for Independent Education (CIE) attack potential methods of “state control” over education made possible by public funding.

Tactics, such as teacher selection and dictating curriculum, are also methods that Koch and his dark money network have sought to implement as part of their efforts to capture education.

One example of the critique of “the state” came from Dr. Benjamin A. Rogge—amember of the Mont Pelerin Society alongwith Charles Koch, Koch’s lieutenant George Pearson, Milton Friedman, and F.A. Hayek. Rogge contributed a piece warning that“[t]o expect those who provide the subsidies to refrain from interfering with the operation of the schools is to make a demonstrably weak assumption." Friedman credited Rogge with organizing the lectures that became the foundation for Friedman’s book Capitalism and Freedom, which attacks the idea of public universities and schools.

Echoing Rogge, Koch’s right-hand man George Pearson also warned against public funding of education asserting that “extensive interference into these critical areas of teacher and textbook selection is cause for deep concern.” For additional information on such attacks on the public interest, see Nancy MacLean’s book, Democracy in Chains, and check out the writings of In the Public Interest.

Charles Koch Wanted to Create a Cadre of Professors to Teach What He Wanted Taught

Elaborating on the tie between education funding and ideological outcomes, Koch himself said in 1974: 

"[T]he development of talent is, or should be, the major point of all these efforts. By talent, I mean those rare, exceptionally capable scholars or communicators willing to dedicate their lives to the cause of individual liberty."

Koch urged business leaders to stop providing general support to universities without requiring the funding promote a corporate agenda of advancing “free market” ideology on campus:

"[W]e should cease financing our own destruction and follow the counsel of David Packard, former Deputy Secretary of Defense, by supporting only those programs, departments or schools that contribute in some way to our individual companies or to the general welfare of our free enterprise system."

In that 1974 speech, which researcher Connor Gibsonhelped uncover, Koch claimed that “business has consciously assisted the government in destroying the free market.” 

This speech was given during the second term of GOP President Richard M. Nixon, a few months before he resigned in disgrace. The Libertarian Party had been launched in 1971 in response to Nixon’s price controls in a period of inflation. Koch-funded groups in the 1970s also denounced new protections for our environment that sought to constrain corporations.

Koch’s 1974 speech was part of a meeting he organized titled “The Anti-Capitalist Mentality” at the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS). IHS was founded in 1961 by F.A. “Baldy” Harper to advance libertarian theories more radically than the Foundation for Economic Education by, for example, calling all taxes “theft,” despite the democratically approved constitutional amendment authorizing income taxes.

Charles Koch began supporting IHS in 1964, and took over IHS in 1973 after Harper died. Koch was a fan of Harper, who had written a piece called “Why Wages Rise” thatKoch said changed his life. In it, Harper claimed that wages rise due to worker productivity, not due to public policy changes like the national minimum wage or negotiations by labor unions. 

Harper’s claim in that pamphlet, which Koch’s CIE later promoted, has been utterly debunked by the reality lived by American workers for years. Wages have indisputably stagnated despite massive increases in worker productivity. That productivity has netted massive payouts to executives and corporate shareholders, while workers’ benefits have been slashed and huge companies increasingly outsource work to contractors with no benefits at all. Despite such abject failure, Harper’s theories live on through Koch’s decades of infusion of cash to IHS as a vehicle for Koch to get right-wing theories about our economy and the role of our government mainstreamed.

At that meeting, Koch also asserted that:

“Anti-capitalist feelings in the United States are probably more virulent today than ever before. Yet the effort to stem this challenge to our traditional economic values have been ineffective. It is crucial that we understand what is happening, why the defensive efforts have floundered, and what approach, if any, would succeed.”

The Powell Memo.Koch also expressly criticized the“Powell Memo,” a blueprint for expanding corporate power in American democracy, which was written by tobacco lawyer Lewis Powell to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

This was before President Richard Nixon named Powell to the U.S. Supreme Court. His confirmation was opposed by the NAACP due to Powell’s role in helping white parents get state funding for private education for their kids to avoid the racial integration ordered by Brown v. Board of Education. (For more details on this point, read Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s series of speeches about Powell, starting with this one. You can also read the documentation from John Conyers’ Senate testimony on behalf of the NAACP against Powell here.)

Powell used his perch on the nation’s highest court to engraft his personal views of corporate “rights” onto constitutional law. (Learn more about the memo here in Charlie Cray’s analysis for Greenpeace in 2011.)

Powell’s memo was secret at the time, until columnist Jack Anderson broke the story about it in September 1972, after Powell was confirmed to the Court. That memo is now infamous for urging new structures to advance corporate power over public policy and throughout American society. It specifically urged leveraging the money controlled by CEOs to reshape higher education, the courts, policymaking, and the media.

Using feverish rhetoric, Powell claimed socialism was spreading and that, in the middle of the Nixon administration, no one in America had less influence in Congress and on public policy than businessmen. That was not true then, and it is even less true now 50 years later.[nice grfx]

Koch and similarly-minded right-wing millionaires, like weapons merchantJohn M. Olin and the foundation in his name and Joseph Coors of the eponymous beer fortune, were allied in spending significant sums on the defense of the free enterprise system. 

Powell’s memo urging CEOs to defend free enterprise also praised his fellow members of the Mt. Pelerin Society Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek, along with the Institute for Humane Studies, for providing solutions to what he calls decades of anti-capitalism in the U.S.

Koch’s Own Blueprint for Creating Cadres at Universities to Advance His Worldview.Here are some additional excerpts from Koch’s speech about the Powell Memo and higher education. (You can read Charles Koch’s full speech on this at True North’s KochDocs.org. Also, check out this modern rejoinder to the Powell Memo.)  

Koch asserted that the business community must first recognize a “fundamental error” of the Powell Memo, which Koch said was the assumption that most in the business community even supported their radical “free market” idea of capitalism and that “there currently exists a free market to be defended and preserved.”

He also made these dramatic assertions (emphasis added):

“First, we have allowed the free market to be blamed for fostering economic crises when, in fact, a free market did not even exist at the times the crisis occurred.”

“Second, we have supported the very institutions from which the attack on free markets emanates. Although much of our support has been involuntary through taxes, we have also contributed voluntarily to colleges and universities on the erroneous assumption that this assistance benefits business and the free enterprise system, even though these institutions encourage extreme hostility to American business.”

“Third, we have accepted the concept that the corporation has a broad social responsibility beyond its duty to its shareholders… Yet the businessman has come to believe that ‘he is defending free enterprise when he claims that he is not concerned ‘merely’ with profit, but also with promoting desirable ‘social’ ends. When the businessman does this, he is in fact preaching pure and unadulterated socialism.”

Koch also discused the mechanisms to get his worldview entrenched at universities, advocating “radical new efforts” (emphasis added):

“As I perceive the situation in which the pro-capitalist businessman finds himself today, there are basically four ways in which he can fight for free enterprise- through education, through the media, by legal challenges, and by political action…”

“[T]he educational route is both the most vital and the most neglected.”

“The important strategic consideration to keep in mind is that any program adopted should be highly leveraged so that we reach those whose influence on others produces a multiplier effect. That is why educational programs are superior to political action, and support of talented free-market scholars is preferable to mass advertising.”

“We desperately need to develop additional talent capable of doing the research and writing that undergird the popularizing of capitalist ideas...While business has sometimes shown an interest in establishing appropriate chairs at universities, there is so little first-rate talent available that this effort has often resulted merely in a shift of one of the few free-market scholars from one university to another.”

”Many things can be done to develop this talent: financing fellowships for graduate students to work under teachers sympathetic to the free market; sponsoring conferences where scholars and students gather to discuss the market economy; arranging publication and distribution of scholarly books; and ensuring that able students can find attractive opportunities as teachers or research scholars. But business must make its funds available for such purposes and use its influence to provide openings. I believe that this long-term, educational approach is absolutely necessary to restore the free enterprise system.”…

“The development of a well financed cadre of sound proponents of the free enterprise philosophy is the most critical need facing us at the moment. And this task is not impractical. As the Powell Memorandum points out, ‘business and the enterprise system are in deep trouble, and the hour is late.’ But the system can be restored if business will re-examine itself and undertake radical new efforts to overcome the prevalent anti-capitalist mentality.”

Koch also issued a broad-based attack on progressive public policies, asserting:

The Libertarian Party Emerges and Advances Koch’s Agenda.Nearly a year after this speech, Koch began looking for ways to maximize funding of the new Libertarian Party and by 1976, Koch had become the biggest underwriter of that new political party. It amplified his attacks on funding our government to advance the common good. Indeed, the Libertarian Party took credit for helping to foment tax revolts in the late 1970s (like California’s Prop. 13 and protests in Illinois and elsewhere) that limited state tax revenue and helped put pressure on reducing public subsidies for public universities. 

The Koch-funded Reason magazine and other entities he was bankrolling also helped advance that agenda. His brother, William, later claimed that Charles was using Koch Industries to subsidize his personal politics without the consent of the other major owners of the company, allegations Charles Koch denied. (Learn more about Koch Industries from the researchers at DeSmog Blog.)

However, some libertarians were so concerned with the amount of Charles Koch’s money dominating the movement’s outlets that it was they who dubbed his influence “the Kochtopus.” Democrats only started reckoning with Koch’s growing power three decades later and reprised that moniker, afterJane Mayer’s breakthrough article on the Koch brothers for the New Yorker in 2010. 

:{:{}:

}:

The Cato Institute also pushed for state budget limits and a federal balanced budget amendment. Koch launched Cato with George Pearson and the Libertarian Party’s Ed Crane in the mid-1970s as a rebrand of a foundation Koch created in his own name),

In essence, a growing array of Koch-funded groups started pushing to starve the state and federal governments in a variety of ways, which over many years have led to cuts how much the costs of public universities are subsidized by taxes. These diminished subsidies have helped fuel the rising spiral of student debt. That includes Koch’s Citizens for a Sound Economy, which was launched in the early 1980s and which spawned FreedomWorks and Koch’s Americans for Prosperity, which has opposed student debt relief and more while also pushing for the tax cuts Trump signed in 2017).

David Koch Became One of the Most Influential Politicians to Never Win Office.Charles Koch also found a home-grown agent for his electoral agenda in his brother David, who agreed to fund the Libertarian Party’s bid for the White House in 1980 by running as Vice President. David spentmore than $2 million of David Koch’s own money. That spending was made possible due to a loophole in the Federal Election Campaign Act created by the Supreme Court’s decision in Buckley v. Valeo,litigation that was subsidized in part by the Libertarian Party and its new big donor, Charles Koch.

The fact that the Libertarians would never win their campaign was not the point, nor was it the end of their message. Instead, the Koch-funded Libertarian Partyhelped amplify Ronald Reagan’s attacks on the role of government. The1980 Libertarian platform also built on anti-government sentimentfueled by the anti-tax revolts. The Koch-endorsed platform also pushed for the abolition of more several federal agencies along with the repeal of tax laws. The party’s platform also called for the privatization of all public schools. [pix]

Why Do These Kochian/LibertarianTheories Matter?At the beginning of the 1970s, withstate subsidies covering 65% of college costs in most states, higher education without massive debt was attainable for many low- to middle-income families in the U.S.

After pressures to limit public funding of higher education, federal student loans began togrow rapidly, with loan default ratesspiking in the 1980s. Even as college costs rose and family income stagnated, federal education subsidies didn’t fill the gap—in fact, the inflation adjusted value of the federal Pell grant for low income students actuallydecreased by 12% throughout the 1980s. 

Today, after nearly 50 years of ideological and political maneuverings by Koch and his anti-government allies, public subsidies coverless than 30% of the costs of higher education, in general. Meanwhile, student loan debt in 2020reached $1.56 trillion. 

The student loan debt crisis was not inevitable but it is a product of the kind of selfish public policy choices that have been pushed by Charles Koch in innumerable ways.

In next week’s final installment in this series, we will examine Charles Koch’s growing influence on campuses in the U.S. His agents have leveraged his donations to shape what is taught in universities and career paths for scholars aligned with Koch’s free market fundamentalism. Using many of the same tactics Koch’s lieutenant once warned against, Koch has seemingly exploited university funding gaps he and his allies helped create, and in their own words, now “the network is fully integrated.”

The Shot*

This week as Afghanistan fell, one Member of Congress wastouting the Taliban. Really. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) has been touted as a “Champion Woman” by the Koch-funded Independent Women’s Forum (IWF). IWF has also lauded Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, who was temporarily suspended from Twitter forspreading lies about vaccines. For more on Boebert’s claims regarding the January 6th insurrection,check out True North’s timeline here.

---

---

new 10 23 email

no lnx

‘Get the Right Cases to the Supreme Court’: Inside Charles Koch’s Network

Billionaire’s web of rightwing groups works to bring cases to court that could undermine core functionings of the US government

ED PILKINGTON AND NICK SURGEY

OCT 26

:

This article was produced in partnership with The Guardian

The Koch network, a web of rightwing groups cultivated by billionaire businessman Charles Koch and his late brother David Koch, is spearheading the attack on federal agencies and government regulations that dominates the US supreme court agenda this term.

The network has been working behind the scenes to bring cases before the court that, if successful, could undermine many of the core functionings of the US government. At least two of the biggest cases to be considered by the justices this term have been spurred by groups bankrolled and coordinated within the Koch universe.

Footage of an internal panel discussion between senior operatives from Koch entities held in the summer of 2022 reveals that the network has been quietly planning the current assault on the “administrative state”. The groups are seeking to exploit the supreme court’s new six-to-three rightwing majority secured by Donald Trump to dismantle vital executive powers.

Regulatory controls in their sights include environmental standards to combat pollution and the climate crisis, consumer protections against predatory lenders, and safeguards for workers’ rights. At stake is what the Strict Scrutiny podcast has called “the future of government as we know it”.

The footage, which is made public here for the first time, was obtained by the investigative watchdog Documented and shared with the Guardian. During the 37-minute panel discussion, legal strategists with several Koch-related groups expressed excitement that the new hard-right supreme court supermajority has created the potential for a concerted attack on the functions of federal agencies.

Jorge Lima, an economic policy strategist at the Koch network’s central coordinating group, Stand Together, said that the new composition of the court amounted to a huge “landscape opportunity, particularly on the administrative state. We’re doubling down on this strategy.”

Lima added: “Every dog has its day, and it’s a big day for the administrative state.”

Casey Mattox, a legal strategist at the main Koch advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, argued that the supreme court was now “primed for a real change in the law” on federal regulations which he said amounted to a “paradigm shift”. Mattox said: “That’s why we are partnering with organizations that can get the right cases to the supreme court.”

The effort appears to have born fruit. Two of the most significant cases before the court in the 2023-24 term, brought with the backing of Koch-linked organizations, attempt to rein back the government’s power to impose regulations on corporations.

The prominence of the cases underlines how the libertarian empire created by the Kochs is still a force to be reckoned with within US politics. Since David Koch’s death in 2019, and the Koch network’s decision to come out in opposition to Trump ahead of next year’s presidential election, the network has receded from public attention.

But the scope of Charles Koch’s reach remains formidable, as was demonstrated earlier this month when the 87-year-old told Forbes that he had given $4.3bn of his Koch Industries stock to Believe in People, a newly-created group named after his book of the same title. He has transferred a further $975m to another new entity, CCKc4, which carries the initials of his son Chase Koch.

The massive combined $5.3bn in donations, one of the largest acts of giving to non-profits in US history, will ensure that the Koch influence will continue to push the US to the right for years to come. Undermining government regulations is central to those ambitions.

Lisa Graves, the executive director of the progressive watchdog True North Research who is a long-time Koch watcher, said that Charles Koch has shown a “fundamental hostility to government regulation” since his early political writings in the 1960s. “This is the through-line of his career. His business operations have a substantial self-interest in assailing regulations that impede his profits.”

Koch Industries is a conglomerate of energy and chemicals companies that stand to benefit if controls on pollution, workers’ rights and other aspects of public governance are rolled back. The firm is the second largest privately-owned company in the US.

Among the big administrative state cases that the justices will be considering this term is Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo, which seeks to overturn a 40-year precedent set by the supreme court itself. Known as Chevron, the ruling allows federal agencies the flexibility to reasonably interpret laws without interference from the courts as they regulate critical parts of public life, such as the environment and public safety.

Experts have warned that if Chevron is struck down, it could be a recipe for legal and administrative chaos. “We are talking about rules that protect us in so many ways – truckers who are too tired to drive on the highway, unsafe workplaces, and pollution of our water and the air we breathe,” Graves said.

The case was nominally brought by a New Jersey herring fishing company that objected to being charged by a federal agency that monitors its catch to prevent over-fishing. Behind the challenge is a conservative group called Cause of Action, which is intricately tied to the Koch network.

The chair of Cause of Action’s board, Brian Menckes, is general counsel of the Charles Koch Foundation. Cause of Action’s executive director, James Valvo, who is acting as one of the fishing company’s lawyers in the case, is the former head of policy of Americans for Prosperity.

A second lawyer representing the company, Eric Bolinder, holds dual roles as a counsel for Cause of Action and Americans for Prosperity.

In 2021 Cause of Action’s entire income of $375,000 came from Stand Together, the Koch network’s coordinating group, Bloomberg reported. The groups are also physically close: Cause of Action and Americans for Prosperity not only share the same address in Arlington, Virginia, they occupy the same office – suite 700.

Bolinder was one of the panel speakers at the 2022 Koch discussion on the administrative state. He framed the plan to use the supreme court to launch a legal attack on regulatory government as a states’ rights issue.

“As the federal government grabs more and more power, particularly to the regulatory state, the states become less and less important,” he said.

The Guardian contacted Stand Together and Cause of Action for comment. Cause of Action did not immediately reply.

Gretchen Reiter, Stand Together spokesman, said that the Loper Bright case was seeking “to restore one of the core tenets of our democracy: that Congress, not the administrative agency, makes the laws. Cause of Action Institute – which filed the lawsuit in 2020 – is representing family-run fishing companies that the federal government is forcing to pay a tax that Congress never authorized, and that violates our constitution’s separation of powers.”

Last week, the supreme court accepted a second case also challenging the Chevron precedent, which has now been consolidated with the fishermen’s petition. Relentless v Department of Commerce was also filed by a group with intimate connections to the Koch network, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA).

The organization, which claims to “protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the administrative state”, was founded in 2017 with seed money from the Charles Koch Foundation. Over five years, it has received more than $5m from the Koch network.

NCLA’s president, Mark Chenoweth, previously served as in-house counsel for Koch Industries.

NCLA submitted an amicus brief last week supporting another major challenge to regulatory agencies that will be heard by the supreme court this term. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) v Jarkesy threatens to gut the enforcement power of the SEC by curtailing its ability to fast-track cases of securities fraud through its own in-house administrative law judges.

A ruling against the SEC could drastically reduce the ability of numerous government agencies to enforce environmental and other standards.

The footage of the Koch panel discussion obtained by Documented reveals that the NCLA has been secretly lobbying for the Jarkesy case to reach the supreme court. Mattox said that “NCLA brought a lot of value to that case”.

He went on: “You won’t see them actually directly litigating on that case, but they’ve done a lot of work behind the scenes, and that speaks to the way that our community adds value here, because when we partner with people we look for results, not necessarily for headlines and attention-grabbing.”

There is a further twist to the issue of Koch influence on the supreme court’s docket this term. Last month, ProPublica revealed as part of its expose of ethical breaches by some justices, that the right-leaning Clarence Thomas had attended at least two Koch donor events where funds were raised to forward the Koch network’s mission – which includes bringing cases before the court.

The attack on the administrative state is central to the work of Americans for Prosperity, which boasts of its years-long campaign to challenge what it calls the “out-of-control regulatory environment imposed by Washington”. It organizes bus tours around the country, directly relating “red tape” on energy infrastructure projects to the high cost of fuel at the pump.

This has taken place while oil and gas giants such as Exxon, BP and Shell have posted record profits, and the world has increasingly felt the impact of climate change. Americans for Prosperity calls itself “the nation’s premier grassroots organization”, but according to an independent audit report from 2021, 94% of the $112m in cash it received that year came from just two donors.

---

---

4 23 gmail patm

in 2021, a fleet of 27 organizations controlled by Charles Koch and other Koch Industries executives spent a combined net total of $656.8 million on political and charitable causes. 

This represents another consecutive year of record-breaking spending by Koch-affiliated nonprofit organizations, outdoing total net spending amounts of $524.9 million in 2019 and $639.4 million in 2020. These net totals account for expenditures between the groups, without double counting.

In this three-year period, Koch groups that are primarily focused on influencing American policy and politics accounted for more than 93% of the spending. Only 6% came from Koch foundations that predominantly support genuinely charitable causes—those that do not explicitly align with Charles Koch’s own economic interests or ideological policy goals. 

An examination of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Federal Elections Commission (FEC) filings compiled by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) indicates that gross expenditures by Koch-controlled political and policy-focused organizations totaled $2.1 billion in the past three years of available records compared to $138 million in gross expenditures during the same period by organizations primary focused on charitable giving.

In 2021, the most recent year of IRS filings available, spending by groups CMD categorizes as charitable plummeted to a new low, accounting for only 4.4% of Koch’s overall nonprofit expenditures....

[table]

koch’s fleet continues to expand as well. Last year, staff members at Charles Koch’s organization Stand Together Chamber of Commerce founded a new 501(c)(4) organization called the Stand Together C4 Fund.

According to its IRS tax-exemption application, the new fund expected to raise $96 million and spend $78.2 million in the final quarter of 2022. The filing estimated that it would continue to raise between $90 and $100 million in both 2023 and 2024, and spend over $80 million each year.

Even before the advent of the Stand Together C4 Fund, Koch’s organizations continued to expand significantly. At the close of 2021, organizations that are ultimately under Charles Koch’s control had combined assets of $4.1 billion. This represents an increase of $1 billion over the previous year, and an increase of $2.7 billion since late 2019.

This marked expansion of Koch-controlled nonprofit organizations indicates that they are being positioned to be ever more major players in the realms of politics and policy.

Methodology

Revenue, Expenditure, and Asset Totals...

---

KOCH TUCKER INCUBATOR batasch

http://redgreenandblue.org/2023/03/15/climate-disinformation-daily-caller/

Climate disinformation is what the Daily Caller DOES | Red, Green, and Blue

Red, Green, and Blue

Related · Daily Caller has a fact checker! (But is now run by Koch-trained career disinformer Michael Bastasch) · No, Marc Morano, nobody wants a ' ...

as internal text messages prove what most have long known about Fox News (that it’s a conservative propaganda machine posing as a news outlet), it’s important to remember that these days, Fox is hardly alone. While Murdoch’s Fox and Wall Street Journal are the unquestioned Big Leagues of right-wing disinformation, there’s a whole set of bush league outlets serving as training grounds.

By Climate Denier Roundup

The Tucker Carlson-founded Daily Caller is one of the primary examples of how Fox and the Koch-funded climate change counter-movement are intertwined.

Back when they were mostly Koch-funded, Koch-trained Michael Bastasch was regularly running climate disinformation featuring Koch-funded climate deniers. These days, their funding has diversified a bit thanks to Carlson’s feud with Kochs, though giving the Daily Caller money still appears to increase the odds of the outlet writing favorable content about you.

But Bastasch** returned last year as Managing Editor of the Daily Caller’s non-profit tax dodge foundation, after a stint at Fox News writing for election-lie-spreader Laura Ingraham.

Since his return, we’ve been watching closely to note any changes, and at this point can say it definitely appears that Bastasch is using his position to spread climate disinformation through multiple channels at the Caller, not just the “Big Tent” opinion vertical we noted last week.

In the past, most of the Caller’s climate disinfo would come from just one or two employees who appeared to be tasked with turning press releases from Koch cronies into “news” as their job on the “energy” beat (like Thomas Catenacci, who now works for, you guessed it, Fox News).

But these days, attacks on climate change science, policy, and experts have become a feature of coverage across the website and its various staffers.

It really stood out between 5 and 7 p.m. last Wednesday, when the Daily Caller published a triple-play of climate disinfo: defending a fossil-fuel loving white supremacist, cherry-picking climate change from a US National security assessment, and attacked environmentalists organizing on TikTok to #StopWillow.

The first was from “news and commentary writer” Brianna Lyman, who provided a short write-up framed as criticism of Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), who “accused one of the witnesses of being racist.” Who, you might ask? Well, despite the fact that ‘who/what/where/why/when’ is a basic tenet of journalism, Lyman didn’t identify the person at the center of the House committee meeting, and in fact, described Bush as “criticizing the oil industry before turning her attention toward an unidentified witness.”

Which is an absolutely astonishing thing for a supposed journalist to write, because Congressional hearings are very easy to look up. Alex Epstein, one of the “so-called ‘energy experts’” called by Republicans, is who Rep. Bush called “a philosopher who has previously espoused white supremacist views,” before Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) interjected to try and censor her by calling for the comment to be removed from the Congressional record.

But naming Epstein would require doing actual reporting, and apparently all Lyman did was watch a video clip of the hearing (that she embedded in the story). If you’d like to see what real reporting of the hearing looks like, as opposed to someone running cover for a fellow traveler, Timothy Cama covered it for PoliticoPRO and named Alex Epstein right up front.

Roughly thirty-six minutes after Lyman’s article defending a racist was posted, the Daily ‘whoopsie we keep hiring racists‘ Caller published a piece on the US intelligence community’s Annual Threat Assessment. The headline of “reporter” Micaela Burrow’s coverage? “Intel Community Warns Fight Over Green Energy Tech Will Worsen Global Tensions.”

The 10-paragraph write-up quotes the assessment just twice to justify the story’s thrust that fighting climate change will somehow make the world more dangerous. That’s probably because the 40-page assessment only devotes 2 pages to climate, and then otherwise focuses on a bunch of things that the Daily Caller doesn’t spread disinfo about.

Finally, rounding out a very busy day for the Caller, “Associate Editor” Ailan Evans’ hit piece ran at 6:49, attacking the #StopWillow campaign on TikTok because one of the participating groups is funded by “a Swiss billionaire with a documented history of philanthropy and political donations, primarily to left-wing causes and candidates.” Though it’s dressed up as some sort of scandalous revelation, at no point does Evans attempt to explain how or why this is somehow bad.

But that’s the kind of training you get from the Daily Caller. Both Evans and current Fox Production Assistant Kendall Tietz were 2021 fellows of the Daily Caller’s American Journalism Institute, where they train the next generation of political hacks to pretend to be journalists.

So next time you hear about some bizarre disinformation, rank political propaganda, or shameless defense of racism on Fox News, remember that it’s not an accident, they’retrainedto be that awful. There’s a whole farm league of conservative propaganda shops like the Daily Caller — the frack-backed Daily Wire and Heritage‘s Daily Signal come to mind — and while they’d all oppose a Universal Basic Income as socialism, they’re proof that as long as would-be-journalists are willing to play ball for the highest bidder, they’ll never want for work.

---

ref jun 2019

just the other day we talked about how Tucker Carlson questioned who the climate culprits are on his Koch-funded Daily Caller website. So we’re reluctant to go back to that well quite so soon, but a new post on the Caller’s website cannot go without comment.

The story is a clip and rehash of one of Carlson’s recent segments on his Fox News show, in which he attacks Koch Brothers and questions their undue influence over the Republican party. In the clip, Carlson hones in on criticisms that the Koch brothers are libertarian and that their philanthropic aims don’t reflect the wants and needs of everyday Republicans.

yes, you read that correctly. Tucker Carlson, whose Daily Callerwebsite received 84%of its funding from the Kochs in 2016 and close to a million dollars in 2017, railed against the Kochs’ influence. Keep in mind the website with over a thousand Koch stories, few if any of which are anything but bootlicking.

That said, in 2017 Koch money only made up 38% of the Caller’s funding. Its trajectory does seem to be moving away from Koch money as its primary means of support. Perhaps the website really is trying to break free from the Koch’s funding, or at least dilute its funder pool so it’s not quite so obvious that they exist as a propaganda tool for the Kochs’ interests. It launched a subscription program back in April, inviting readers to become a “Daily Caller Patriot” offering access to special content and removing ads. The invitation includes a clip of Carlson talking about his crusade against “big tech” for “censoring” “conservatives” over the little tinsy matter of propagating hate speech that is radicalizing white terrorists.

And that’s a big part of Carlson’s new rant against the Kochs: targeting their upcoming work with the Anti-Defamation League to combat online hate speech. Since we know full well that the Daily Caller has quite a history of “accidentally” propagating white nationalism, perhaps that’s why Carlson is stoking division between himself and his followers and his Koch funders. If they’re anti-hate speech, odds are they’ll follow the lead of all the advertisers who have pulled their support for Carlson’s Fox program.

So maybe this new change in heart in response to the Kochs pulling away from supporting the website, and Carlson is pulling the old “you can’t fire me because I quit.” Back in November of 2018, Washington Post columnist Radley Balko wrote that Koch officials told him that “the Kochs and their foundations more generally find the Daily Caller abhorrent, and feel the same way about Tucker Carlson. One added that he was particularly troubled by the way the site objectives women as clickbait.”

And while the Koch donors Balko spoke to made it clear they saw their investment in the Caller to be aimed at training new journalists with free-market ideology, the lead investigative journalist at the Caller, per Balko, “doesn't inspire confidence.” Balko, who had previously worked with the reporter, Richard Pollack, wrote that Pollack is “a Trump toady” who “doesn't understand libertarianism” and is “a crappy journalist” who “isn't particularly smart.” But Balko conceded that Pollack’s “most marketable skill seems to be the ability to fool people into believing he has marketable skills.”

The same could be said for Tucker Carlson, and maybe the Kochs have finally realized it. Because as a millionaire funded by billionaires, it’s hard to comprehend why else Carlson would turn on his former patrons.

---

---

https://www.mediamatters.org/daily-caller/daily-caller-receiving-money-trump-and-gop-groups-while-its-subsidiary-participates

Daily Caller has been receiving money from President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and other Republican candidates and organizations for email list rentals while its Check Your Fact division participates in Facebook’s fact-checking program.

The Daily Caller is a right-wing publication with a history of promoting false information and hiring or publishing white nationalists and other bigots. In 2019, Facebook began partnering with Check Your Fact for the social media giant’s fact-checking program. Popular Information's Jugg Legum documented in March how the Daily Caller used “its role as a Facebook fact-checker to boost Trump and discredit a mainstream media outlet, Politico.”

Check Your Fact states on its “about us” page that it is “a for-profit subsidiary wholly owned by The Daily Caller, Inc. Majority owners of The Daily Caller, Inc. are co-founder and publisher Neil Patel and co-founder Tucker Carlson. The Daily Caller’s fact-checking team is funded by The Daily Caller’s general news budget, as well as revenue generated through advertising.” (Carlson sold his stake in the Daily Caller last month.)

Will Ragland, the research director for Center for American Progress Action, tweeted today:

After that tweet, Media Matters found that The Daily Caller has sent dozens of sponsored emailssince 2016 that were “paid for by Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint fundraising committee authorized by and composed of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. and the Republican National Committee.”

The Daily Caller has also received $40,213.75 so far this year from the National Republican Senatorial Committee for list rentals, according to Federal Election Commission records. It has also received $18,171.40 so far this year from the National Republican Congressional Committee for list rentals, according to FEC records.

The Daily Caller has sent numerous other sponsored emails for various Republicans this year. Those emails include Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-OH) reelection campaign; Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) reelection campaign; Bikers for the President political action committee; and the Senate Conservatives Fund.

The Washington Post and the Center for Media and Democracy wrote in 2017 about how The Daily Caller has received money from the Trump campaign for list rentals.

Here are four recent examples of The Daily Caller’s sponsored emails for the Trump Make America Great Again Committee: [screenshots]

==

---

why wd levin turn on him?!

mma 2 23

MARK LEVIN (HOST): The gunman had his prior gun charge dismissed by a George Soros-backed prosecutor in the name of racial equity.

By the way, the amount of death and mayhem that George Soros has created in this country as a result of getting these kinds of phony prosecutors elected is unbelievable.

And I have noticed that none of these news organizations, Maggie Haberman at the New York Slimes, Phillip Bump-y over there, I guess, at the Washington Compostand the rest of these frauds and fools, I noticed that they have no interest whatsoever in looking into this, none. But it's quite newsworthy. None.

And I noticed that George Soros always skates. He's the guy behind the curtain that's helped unleash mayhem and murder and rape in our cities. Why? Because he's the sugar daddy to all these radical left-wing groups that work with the media and work with the Democrat Party. That's why. He now works with Charles Koch, over there at the Koch Foundation.

---

---

an maya 1 23

For nearly half a century, billionaire Charles Koch has quietly funded, initiated, and supported efforts to dismantle democracy in the United States, two professors wrote for Progressive Magazine.

Nancy MacLean, the William H. Chafe distinguished professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University, and Lisa Graves, executive director of True North Research and a co-creator of the websites Koch Exposed and Koch Docs, detailed a seemingly never-ending list of ways one of the richest people in the world and his wealthy allies continue to “divide the American electorate.”

The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has long been funded by Koch and his late brother, David, has strategized on ways to enforce voter suppression efforts by passing voter ID laws – which began when Barack Obama was first elected in 2008.

READ MORE:How Koch Industries is fighting democracy both 'at home and abroad': journalist

Last year, the Center for Media and Democracy, for which Graves sits on the board, found that a handful of Koch-backed groups collectively spent more than $1 billion on the 2020 election.

One of the organizations, Americans for Prosperity, spent around $70 million leading up to the 2022 midterms, involving itself in over 450 races on efforts that heavily targeted swing voters.

Soon after the election, Koch released Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World, a book in which he claimed he was ready for “a final act building bridges across political divides.” No more political involvement. MacLean and Graves noted that a few days prior to the book release, The Wall Street Journal published an article titled, “Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake.”

The book even contained phrases like, “Boy, did we screw up.” “What a mess!” “This is crazy! Are we going to have a civil war?” He had convinced the public that his time toying with democracy was over.

READ MORE:Charles Koch must be held accountable for his climate disinformation campaign

But, MacLean and Graves said that “mainstream news editors seemed to forget that” they were reporting on “a specialist in strategic disinformation, who had perfected the practice of deceiving the public during his network’s three decades of climate change denial” – a mastermind of finesse.

Even with that, what Maclean and Graves call Koch’s “most diabolical” move thus far, is how he bandwagoned the “white supremacist” reaction to nationwide civil unrest following George Floyd’s murder in 2020, by initiating a campaign that geared fear-mongering language towards the idea of teaching race in schools – also known as critical race theory.

The Koch network proceeded to fund organizations that actively fought against CRT, although a spokesperson from a Koch-funded group claims that is untrue.

Two examples of Kock-backed anti-CRT initiatives include ALEC’s financial support of a workshop titled “Against Critical Theory’s Onslaught,” featuring the main figurehead of anti-CRT rhetoric, Christopher Rufo in 2020; and when a coalition of Koch-funded groups including the Manhattan Institute and Heritage Foundation advocated against the idea of teaching race in schools in a published letter.

READ MORE:'That's oligarchy': Bernie Sanders batters billionaires over election spending

Aside from funding organizations that promote anti-CRT language, Koch also funds Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) and Independent Women’s Voice (IWV), which work in tandem to promote anti-trans language. For example, the groups created a “Women’s Bill of Rights” which asserts that trans women are not women.

MacLean and Graves wrote, “Just as Koch-funded operations weaponize and intensify racism to secure political power, they also exploit and escalate misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia by any means to boost Republican power.”

Despite his claim that he was removing himself from politics two years ago, it’s clear that with the success of a majority conservative Supreme Court, the continued push to control the bodies of women; anti-CRT, anti-trans, and other discriminatory laws that Koch’s behind-the-scenes funding and staunch support of those who can bring he and his allies' vision of a fully dismantled democracy to life presses on.

READ MORE:Koch keeps doing business in Russia as top journalist says family fortune came from Hitler: report

---

---

grassrootsbeer...Koch-Controlled Organizations Spent More Than $1.1 Billion During the 2020 Election Cycle

Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) series,Part 1 of 4!

Connor Gibson

Sep 7

I recently wrote a four-part barrage of articles on Charles Koch’s advocacy network for the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). I’m crossposting them here, with CMD’s permission: see part 2.

Part 1: Koch-Controlled Organizations Spent More Than $1.1 Billion During the 2020 Election Cycle

In the 2020 election cycle, 28 organizations controlled by Charles Koch, his family, and Koch Industries executives spent a combined $1.1 billion, primarily to influence public policy and politics in the U.S., and had net revenues of $2.7 billion.

By the end of 2020, the combined assets of these nonprofits totaled $2.8 billion, an increase of $1.5 billion from the beginning of the year.

Other comparably large conservative financiers such as the Bradley, Scaife and Searle foundations show significantly less in net revenue, expenditures, and assets.

Click image to open the interactive table!

These latest figures eclipse the political spending disclosed by Koch Industries, the company that serves as the engine for all Koch-controlled nonprofits. In comparison, Koch Industries spent only $22.4 million on federal lobbying and campaign contributions in the 2020 election cycle.

But Charles Koch's organizations regularly spend over half a billion dollars annually, with a total of $607.9 million in expenses in 2019, and $638.6 million in 2020.

In 2020 alone, Koch-controlled organizations raised over $2.2 billion dollars—more than four times what they collectively raised the previous year. Before 2020, the combined revenue of Koch-controlled nonprofit organizations never reached the $1-billion threshold, with $501.1 million in net revenue in 2019, and approximately $650 million in 2018.

In order to avoid any double-counting, these net revenue and net expense totals account for all grants and expenses exchanged between Koch-controlled organizations. Those payments can be viewed here:

Click image to open interactive table!

These calculations likely fail to account for the total policy and political spending overseen by Charles Koch since Koch Industries and a fleet of Koch-controlled limited liability companies (LLCs) do not disclose similar finances. In rare instances of disclosure, Koch Industries and members of the Koch family have been known to invest millions more in policy-influencing organizations.

Charles Koch's Return on Political Investments

Despite waning news coverage, Charles Koch’s donor network remains unique in terms of its size and its top-down control by executives of a single company.

Unlike large donor-advised funds that finance a wide array of charities and nonpolitical causes, the bulk of Koch's "Stand Together" cluster of groups has coordinated around election and policy priorities.

Charles Koch's political fleet played a significant role in steering the policy priorities of the Trump administration, due in part to its influence in staffing the former president's cabinet.Even though Koch told reporters he was so displeased with Trump that he might even support Democrats—a rhetorical trick he pulls every few years—the tens of millions of dollars his organizations invested in U.S. Senate and House races went almost exclusively to Republicans.

In addition to showing obvious partisan preferences, Koch has financed groups involved in extremist activity, including the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In 2022, Koch Industries is still financing many politicians who worked to invalidate the results of the 2020 presidential election, despite signaling to Politico that it would discontinue such support.

This political spending continues to pay off during the Biden presidency. Last year Koch exploited the Democrats' weak majority by undermining the comprehensive climate and infrastructure legislative package known as Build Back Better. The Koch machine also spent heavily to tank the voting and election reform policy known as the For the People Act, despite knowing full well that doing so went against popular sentiment across the political spectrum. 

Each of these counterattacks fed into another major priority for Koch: installing radical judges to the U.S. Supreme Court who are willing to do the bidding of the wealthiest people and corporations in the country. His astroturf organization Americans for Prosperity (AFP) spent "seven figures" on efforts to support the confirmations of Trump nominees Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney-Barrett—for a total price tag of between $3 and $10 million. 

This corporate-captured Supreme Court is already delivering victories to the Koch network. The Court supported an attack on IRS donor disclosure rules advanced by the AFP Foundation—the sister group of the organization that supported the confirmations of Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney-Barrett. Most recently, at the behest of a number of Koch-controlled or Koch-funded organizations and attorneys general, the Court struck down key aspects of the Environmental Protection Agency's climate change mitigation regulations.

The next two articles in this series will explore more about the rapid growth and evolution of Charles Koch's powerful political machine.

Methodology notes:

The figures reported here are drawn from the financials of 25 nonprofits regulated by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and three super PACs regulated by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Our calculations include money raised and spent by three Koch-controlled super PACs: AFP Action, Stand Together PAC, and Freedom Partners Action Fund, even though two of these (Stand Together PAC and Freedom Partners Action Fund) have been terminated. Asset totals for these FEC-regulated organizations were sourced from each super PAC’s reported cash on hand at the end of each year, based on year-end reports or termination reports filed with the FEC.

For the purposes of this article, "Koch-controlled" specifically means organizations under direct operational control of Charles Koch, his family members, or his fellow executives at Koch Industries. Most of these groups were founded by the Koch family.

Noteworthy groups heavily financed by Koch Industries or governed in part by Koch executives were excluded if they are not operated at the ultimate discretion of Charles Koch, his family, or his company. Among the many groups excluded are the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Cato Institute, the Kansas Policy Institute, the Independent Women's Forum, and the American Institute for Economic Research.

Our calculations exclude numerous Koch-controlled LLCs that are part of the network's overall political operations, such as i360 and Stand Together Communications (formerly, In Pursuit Of). Many expenditures to these LLCs are disclosed in the IRS 990 filings of Koch-controlled organizations and super PACs, but given that the revenue and expenditures of the LLCs themselves are undisclosed, those figures have been excluded.

While most of these organizations exist primarily to influence matters of policy or politics, groups such as the Koch Cultural Trust and others are involved in philanthropic activity. Some spending by the Koch Family Foundation (formerly known as the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation) relates to student scholarships for dependents of Koch company employees. The Stand Together Foundation finances many charities that are not inherently political, but are generally tied to Koch's ideology of limited government and unregulated markets. The Stand Together Foundation was born out of a crisis communications push following Koch’s poor public relations in the 2010s, a topic that will be examined in part three of this series.

---

connor g emil CMD

pt 1 https://substack.com/redirect/4dc75e64-2da4-4533-a381-7a9ba81848d5?r=1n6e6

...a previously unreported 501(c)(4) “social welfare” political nonprofit called CCKC4 received a giant cash injection of $1.2 billion in 2020, making it a potentially formidable political player.

CCKC4 is controlled by Charles Koch’s son, Chase Koch. Chase Koch is the president of Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), the venture capital subsidiary of Koch Industries.

The cash transfer increased CCKC4’s assets from $37 million in 2019 to $1.3 billion at the close of 2020, significantly exceeding the value of the other largest Koch-controlled nonprofits like the Charles Koch Foundation ($462 million) and Charles Koch Institute ($364 million).

The $1.2 billion received by CCKC4 represents over half of the $2.7 billion in combined net revenue received by 28 Koch-controlled nonprofit organizations from 2019-2020. Most of the organization’s massive cash injection appears to have been invested as a basis for the organization’s endowment.

CCKC4 presumably stands for “Charles Chase Koch 501(c)(4).” It has no website nor public presence. CCKC4 filed IRS 990s in 2018 and 2019, and received its determination letter confirming its tax-exempt status in May of 2020.

The group lists its purpose simply as “grant-making,” but it has only made two grants since coming into existence. In 2019, CCKC4 gave $10 million to the Charles Koch Foundation, of which Chase is a board member.

Unlike the majority of Koch-controlled 501(c)(3) nonprofits that cannot primarily engage in political activity, CCKC4 is a dark money 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization that can legally funnel up to half of its spending into political races. This indicates Chase Koch’s continued interest in political influence, contradicting his public relations push as he took on a prominent role at Koch Industries.

The group’s IRS tax filings list the $1.2 billion infusion as unspecified payments from individuals, $953 million of which was in the form of stock and other securities.

“The $1.2 billion funding of CCKC4 makes it one of the largest section 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations and a potential major player in political and policy circles,” said Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer in an email to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). Mayer is a law professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School.

The scale of the organization is unusual for a 501(c)(4) organization, but not unprecedented. Professor Mayer compared the organization’s sizable assets to $3.4 billion reported by Fund for Policy Reform in 2019. The Fund is one of many organizations linked to the liberal political financier George Soros.

“The decision by the Koch family and these other billionaires to fund 501(c)(4)s at this level demonstrates the important role that 501(c)(4)s serve as philanthropic and policy vehicles that are not subject to the limits on political activity faced by 501(c)(3) charities,” said Mayer, whose research expertise relates to politically active nonprofit organizations.

“It also demonstrates the importance of an obscure tax law change in 2015 that exempted gifts to 501(c)(4)s from the federal gift tax. Before that statutory change, it was uncertain whether the gift tax applied to such gifts,” Mayer said. “Gifts that exceed the annual gift tax exclusion ($16,000 per recipient as of 2022) generally count toward the exemption amount, and most very wealthy individuals use up the lifetime exemption through gifts to their children and other family members.”

CMD contacted a Koch Industries executive who serves as director of several Koch-controlled nonprofits for comment, but received no response.

CCKC4 routed $125 million to a Koch-owned LLC

IRS disclosures show that Chase Koch’s nonprofit circulates substantial amounts of dark money between limited liability companies (LLC) controlled by the Koch family.

CCKC4 paid $125 million to the Non-Profit 1888 Feeder Fund, LLC in 2020.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings indicate the Non-Profit 1888 Feeder-Fund has gross assets exceeding $2.1 billion as of May 2022. It is an asset allocation fund that manages diversified portfolios of investments, registered to operate in the states of Colorado, Delaware, and Kansas.

Professor Mayer noted the possibility that the $125 million sent from CCKC4 to the Nonprofit 1888 Feeder Fund could reflect the value of a specific investment the LLC is managing for CCKC4. “It is common for large investors to make their investments through LLCs that pool funds from multiple investors,” Mayer said.

The Non-Profit 1888 Feeder-Fund is one of several subsidiaries of 1888 Investments, LLC, which reported several key facts in recent SEC filings:

• It manages over $16.5 billion in assets for 60 clients.
• Its clients include 41 “high net wealth individuals.” It is unclear if these wealthy individuals include donors to Charles Koch’s political network.
• Its clients include 13 nonprofits, which are not specified. It’s unclear if these are only Koch family trusts, or if they include Koch’s politically oriented organizations like the Stand Together Chamber of Commerce or Americans for Prosperity. 
• It has 11 employees. Its employees and board overlap significantly with Koch Industries.
• Its most recent SEC investment disclosures show a total of $78.3 million invested in four publicly traded companies. $72 million of that total is invested in Blue Owl Capital.

Both 1888 Investments and the Non-Profit 1888 Feeder-Fund are subsidiaries of 1888 Management Fund.

1888 is the year that Charles Koch’s grandfather, Harry Koch, immigrated to the United States.Bloomberg was first to report on the company in 2016:

With little fanfare, the Kochs are building an operation called 1888 Management LLC to manage part of their personal wealth. Initially tucked inside the private Koch Industries Inc.,1888 has been quietly scouting for personal investments for the Kochs, whose money and influence have helped shape the modern conservative movement in the U.S.

The ultimate size of the parent LLC, 1888 Management, is unclear. Bloomberg reported that someone familiar with 1888 Management claimed it was managing over $2 billion in investments.

CCKC4 received $30 million from another Koch-controlled LLC, EFPRP Investments, LLC. The purpose of this transaction is not clear, and little public information exists regarding EFPRP Investments.

The arrangement between nonprofits and LLC’s allows donors to skirt nonprofit disclosure laws and spend more dark money on political causes, both domestic and international. The Koch-funded Philanthropy Roundtable advocates this strategy:

LLCs are not subject to annual distribution requirements; they give donors the latitude to invest in domestic and foreign for-profit ventures; they can be used to fund ballot initiatives, direct lobbying, political campaigns, and individual candidates; and they can be used to support foreign charities without the requirement imposed on private foundations to determine that prospective foreign grantees are the equivalents of Section 501c3 public charities.

The next article in this series will examine one large grant that CCKC4 made to an independent donor advised fund, which the Koch network appears to be using to further obscure its spending.

---

---

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/**2022/08**/30/charles-kochs-shape-shifting-influence-machine/

[docs]

charles Koch is unique among corporate CEOs. He controls a multibillion-dollar fleet of nonprofits that he and other wealthy business people have built into a massive influence machine over the past 20 years. This enables the Koch network to make a significant impact on U.S. courts, politics, and media, regardless of who is in the White House. 

This year, Charles Koch’s political influence apparatus is undergoing yet another round of restructuring, following its recent financial growth, expansion of organizations, and new dark money grantmaking arrangements.

The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) recently reported on the network’s ballooning revenues of $2.2 billion in 2020, the emergence of Chase Koch’s CCKC4 as a potentially major player on the U.S. political scene, and its use of the National Philanthropic Trust to hide its financial transactions.

Frequent shifts in structure often correspond with election cycles. The changes help keep Koch’s dark money organizational structure opaque, especially since IRS disclosure requirements are so antiquated that they lag behind real time by a year or more.

Most of Charles Koch’s advocacy and political organizations have operated under the Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, as of 2020, while the Charles Koch Institute (CKI) controlled most of the Koch funding vehicles. Several organizations in this Stand Together “family” have recently changed roles or started operating using trade names that differ from their legal names.

[docs]

:{:{}:

}:

:{:{}:

Table with 7 columns and 47 rows. Currently displaying rows 1 to 20.

Organization Name EIN/FEC # Status (2020) Type of Org Year Est. Prior Legal Names Trade Names

Americans For Prosperity 75-3148958 Active 501(c)(4) 2004 Concerned Veterans for America (2017 - present)

The Libre Initiative (2017 - present)

Generation Opportunity (2017)

Americans For Prosperity Action, Inc. (AFP Action) C00687103 Active Super PAC 2018 CVA Action (2017 - present)

Libre Action (2017 - present)

Americans For Prosperity Foundation 52-1527294 Active 501(c)(3) 1988 Citizens for a Sound Economy Educational Foundation (1988 - 2002) Concerned Veterans for American Foundation (2018 - present)

The Libre Initiative Institute (2018 - present)

Bill of Rights Institute 48-0891418 Active 501(c)(3) 1980

Capitol Leaders, Inc. 47-3438079 Active 501(c)(3) 2015 Freedom Partners Institute Inc. (2015 - 2016)

Cause of Action Institute 45-2805977 Active 501(c)(3) 2011

CCKC4, Inc. 83-3116152 Active 501(c)(4) 2018

Charles Koch Charitable Fund 85-4058882 Active 501(c)(3) 2020

Charles Koch Foundation 48-0918408 Active 501(c)(3) 1980 Charles G Koch Charitable Foundation (1980 - 2011)

Charles Koch Institute 27-4967732 Active 501(c)(3) 2011 Stand Together Fellowships (2022)

Chase Koch Foundation, Inc. 83-1697305 Active 501(c)(3) 2018 Chase and Annie Koch Foundation, Inc.

David H Koch Charitable Foundation 48-0926946 Active 501(c)(3) 1981

Institute for Humane Studies 94-1623852 Active 501(c)(3) 1985

John Quincy Adams Society 81-3308969 Active 501(c)(3) 2016

Knowledge & Progress Fund, Inc. 54-1899251 Active 501(c)(3) 1998

Koch Cultural Trust 48-0989992 Active 501(c)(3) 1986

}:

:{:{}:

p2

Organization Name EIN/FEC # Status (2020) Type of Org Year Est. Prior Legal Names Trade Names

Koch Family Foundation 48-6113560 Active 501(c)(3) 1955 Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation, Inc. (1953 - 2018)

Mercatus Center, Inc. 54-1436224 Active 501(c)(3) 1988 Center for the Study of Market Processes (1978 - 1999)

Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, Inc. 45-3732750 Active 501(c)(6) 2011 The Seminar Network Chamber of Commerce, Inc. (2018)

Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, Inc. (2014 - 2017)

Association for American Innovation, Inc. (2011 - 2013)

Stand Together Foundation 27-3197768 Active 501(c)(3) 2010 Stand Together, Inc. (2016 - 2018)

Public Notice Research and Education Fund, Inc. (2010 - 2015)

The Seminar Network, Inc. 46-3508366 Active 501(c)(3) 2013 Concerned Veterans for America, Inc. (2013 - 2015) Stand Together Trust (2019 - present)

The Seminar Network Trust (2018)

TSN Institute 47-3175931 Active 501(c)(4) 2014 CKI Policy, Inc. (2018)

Freedom C4, Inc. (2015 - 2017)

Stand Together, Inc. (2014)

Vela Education Fund 84-4185046 Active 501(c)(3) 2020

Yes Every Kid Foundation 84-3535275 Active 501(c)(3) 2019

Yes Every Kid, Inc. 83-3028208 Active 501(c)(4) 2019

Youth Entrepreneurs, Inc. 48-1187886 Active 501(c)(3) 2014 Youth Entrepreneurs Of Kansas, Inc. (2014 - 2016) Empowered, Inc. (2022)

Center for Shared Services Trust 45-2548548 Terminated 501(c)(4) 2011

Claude R Lambe Foundation 48-0935563 Terminated 501(c)(3) Pre-1986

Freedom Partners Action Fund C00564765 Terminated Super PAC 2014

Fueling U.S. Forward Inc. 47-5486414 Terminated 501(c)(6) 2016

---

p 3

Fueling US Forward Institute 46-2346050 Terminated 501(c)(3) 2013 Generation Opportunity Institute, Inc. (2013 - 2016)

LIBRE Initiative Institute, Inc. 45-4123383 Terminated 501(c)(3) 2011

LIBRE Initiative Trust 45-2686411 Terminated 501(c)(4) 2011

Market Based Management Institute 20-3669097 Terminated 501(c)(3) 2005

SG C4 Trust 27-2546536 Terminated 501(c)(4) 2010

Vets for Economic Freedom Trust 45-3593119 Terminated 501(c)(4) 2011 Concerned Veterans for America

YEM Trust 27-2936085 Terminated 501(c)(4) 2010 Generation Opportunity

---

}:

as part of the reorganization, CKI has moved its policy grantmaking operations into the 501(c)(3) Stand Together Trust and its educational programs into Stand Together Fellowships. As of 2020 (the most recently available IRS disclosures), Stand Together Trust was already increasing its role in financing groups that influence public policy. Formerly known as the Seminar Network, Inc., the Stand Together Trust slowly began granting funds to universities and policy-focused nonprofits in 2017.

:{:{}:

Historically, the Charles Koch Foundation (CKF) had been the largest grantmaking organization controlled by the Koch family, funding climate change deniers and other organizations that influence state and federal policy. In fact, CKF and CKI have been the two largest Koch-controlled nonprofits for most of the past decade, with assets of $462 million and $364 million, respectively, at the end of 2020.

In 2020, CKF focused most of its funding on university programs, which are key to Charles Koch's strategy of manufacturing long-term policy changes. That same year, much of his politically oriented grantmaking shifted from CKF to CKI.

Stand Together Communications Replaces "In Pursuit Of"

Stand Together Communications LLC is the Koch network's for-profit public relations agency. It was previously named In Pursuit Of, which discontinued its website in 2021. The staff at In Pursuit Of shifted into positions at Stand Together Communications, according to LinkedIn profiles.

Stand Together Communications received at least $38.4 million from the Stand Together Chamber, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), Americans for Prosperity Foundation, and Stand Together Foundation in 2020.

...

additionally, Stand Together Communications (listed as In Pursuit Of) received over $3 million from AFP Action, a Koch-controlled super PAC, during the 2018 and 2020 election cycles.

This shift of marketing operations to Stand Together Communications might also explain the apparent closure of G-P Studios, a media company affiliated with the Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia-Pacific. The G-P Studios website went dark in early 2022.

Youth Entrepreneurs Now Operates as "Empowered"

This year Youth Entrepreneurs, which was founded by Charles Koch and his wife Elizabeth in 1991 to give high school students business experience, has rebranded itself "Empowered."

The organization's new website and magazine share a vision of "building a community of change-making teachers rallied around the growth mindset." Favorite Koch buzzwords, like "value creation" and the idea that free markets are key to "well-being," remain central to Empowered's messaging. 

The longstanding focus of Empowered has been on student training programs and curricula. Archives of the Youth Entrepreneurs website show that its programs involved vetting and grooming teachers, and offering paid incentives for participating students:

A successful YE [Youth Entrepreneurs] teacher is an inspirational motivator and entrepreneurial thinker. We can assist the district to observe teaching styles and select the best fit for our nontraditional teaching style. [...] 

YE is traditionally taught as a yearlong high school elective course by teachers who have been trained on our curriculum. We offer students and alumni the opportunity to earn money for business, education or personal development purposes by participating in continuing education opportunities through YE Academy.

Recent examples of the Koch family's manipulation of education include lesson plans created several years ago by the Koch-controlled Bill of Rights Institute that whitewashed the history of slavery in the U.S. Many Koch-funded organizations have also contributed to the manufactured hysteria over the influence of critical race theory. 

Koch-funded professors have authored economics textbooks that include inaccurate information related to climate change, while others in Koch-funded economics departments have taught outright denial of climate change—venturing into a scientific discipline well outside their own areas of expertise.

Stand Together Ventures Lab, STVL3, and STVL6

Another new group is Stand Together Ventures Lab (STV Lab), a for-profit operation that invests in business start-ups and helps them get established.

STV Lab works in conjunction with two limited liability companies (LLCs) disclosed in IRS tax filings of Koch-controlled organizations: STVL3, LLC and STVL6, LLC, that provide capital for the start-ups. According to its website, STV Lab is "not affiliated" with Stand Together Ventures, another Koch-run outfit that works "to supercharge organizations who innovate and disrupt the status quo" around issues like education and "cronyism in government and business."

Stand Together Chamber of Commerce Controls Koch Advocacy

Although the network of Koch-controlled groups has been renamed multiple times, a single brand name is often used to refer to multiple organizations. 

Since 2011, a 501(c)(6) business league has served as the umbrella organization at the top of this network structure. That group is now known as the Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, after a 2019 rebranding. Many of Charles Koch's advocacy groups report to the IRS that the Stand Together Chamber is their "direct controlling entity," as detailed in the table below.

[docs]

control structure

Table with 2 columns and 49 rows. Currently displaying rows 1 to 20.

Organization Name Direct Controlled Entities

American Strategies Group, LLC CAVHOCO, Inc. (C-Corp)

Americans For Prosperity PRDIST, LLC

Americans For Prosperity Foundation Americans For Prosperity

CAVHOCO, Inc. (C-Corp) DBLDBL, Inc. (C-Corp)

KNSLT, Inc. (C-Corp)

THOCO (C-Corp)

Charles Koch Foundation STVL3, LLC

EFPRP Investments, LLC

VAPOR Investments, LLC

VAPOR II Investments, LLC

Non-Profit 1888 Management Fund, LLC

John Quincy Adams Society

Charles Koch Institute Charles Koch Foundation

Charles Koch Charitable Fund

Chase Koch Foundation, Inc.

Stand Together Foundation

TSN Institute

Stand Together Trust

CCKC4, Inc.

Web Media, LLC

:{:{}:

}:

when it was founded in 2011, theStand Together Chamber was briefly known as the Association for American Innovation. The group became the central fundraising nonprofit for the Koch brothers' annual gathering of ultra-rich donors and political operatives, which dates back to 2003. 

In late 2011, as the 2012 presidential election loomed, the organization rebranded itself Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce. It continued to operate under this name until the 2018 midterm election cycle, when it was renamed The Seminar Network Chamber of Commerce. Just prior to the 2020 presidential election cycle, the organization adopted its current title, the Stand Together Chamber of Commerce. 

During each of these rebrands, the network of organizations controlled by Charles Koch used colloquial names similar to the shifting names of the 501(c)(6) organization. The network was known as Freedom Partners, and then, The Seminar Network. Now, as part of the latest marketing effort, most of these groups have adopted the deceptively progressive-sounding Stand Together brand. 

For example, several organizations and LLCs under the Koch umbrella also use the Stand Together brand, including the 501(c)(4) Stand Together Trust, and LLCs like Stand Together Communications and Stand Together Shared Services. 

A short-lived super PAC named Stand Together PAC operated briefly from 2020–22 but was administratively terminated by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in March when it failed to file an end-of-year report.

To confuse matters, at least one Koch organization continued to operate in 2020 using an abandoned brand name: TSN Institute, an abbreviation of "The Seminar Network Institute." TSN Institute appeared to be in the process of draining its assets. 

Most of these groups and companies are not differentiated to the public, though the distinctions are made clear in their respective tax filings.

Americans for Prosperity, the LIBRE Initiative, and Concerned Veterans for America

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is the most recognizable brand controlled by the Stand Together Chamber. AFP is the 501(c)(4) political arm of its sister organization, the 501(c)(3) Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which was long overseen by its founding chairman, the late David Koch.

Other Koch-controlled campaigning brands like the LIBRE Initiative and Concerned Veterans for America used to be distinct nonprofit organizations. Now they are simply registered with the Virginia Corporation Commission as "fictitious names" for AFP, the AFP Foundation, and AFP Action, a super PAC regulated by the FEC.

...[doc]

FP Action Super PAC

Since AFP launched the super PAC AFP Action in 2018, it has spent tens of millions of dollars on independent expenditures and electioneering, including advertising and door-to-door canvassing. AFP Action replaced the Koch brothers' previous super PAC, Freedom Partners Action Fund, which shuttered in August 2019 after its remaining funds were transferred to AFP Action. 

As with Americans for Prosperity and the AFP Foundation, AFP Action acts as the super PAC for Concerned Veterans for America and the LIBRE Initiative. AFP Action’s FEC profile lists its alternative business names as CVA Action and LIBRE Action.

Mapping the Koch-Controlled Network

The visual below depicts the structure of Koch's nonprofit organizations since the most recently known changes, along with the companies and family trusts controlled by the Koch family (excluding most of the dozens of subsidiaries of Koch Industries).

Source material includes Schedules L, O, and R of these organizations' IRS 990 filings; business registries in Delaware, Kansas, and Virginia; the Stand Together website; and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings.

Given the need to rely on a patchwork of insufficient disclosures, this is likely a partial and outdated representation. The visual includes LLCs that are not discussed in this article. It is unclear if the many other LLCs in the Koch sphere formally interact with Koch-controlled policy and political nonprofits.

[very good grfx DL 922]

---

}:

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/charles-koch-climate-disinformation-campaign/

The U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee kicked off its investigation of the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long climate change disinformation campaign last fall by inviting top executives from BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell to testify about their role and subpoenaing their companies for internal documents.

This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.]

The committee followed up that hearing—during which the executives disingenuously denied funding such a campaign—with another hearing on February 8 focusing on the oil companies’ inadequate plans to cut their carbon emissions. The next round is slated to feature board directors from the same four oil companies testifying on their companies’ climate pledges,followed by testimony from social media companies and advertising agencies about the part they have played in manufacturing doubt about climate change.

But before the committee wraps up its investigation, it would be sorely remiss if it didn’t haul in libertarian industrialist Charles Koch, the Daddy Warbucks of climate disinformation, for questioning.

The 20th-richest person in the world with a net worth of $58 billion, Koch, 86, is the longtime CEO of Koch Industries, a conglomerate that owns oil refineries and pipelines; markets crude oil, coal, chemicals, wood pulp and paper; trades energy derivatives; and boasts annual revenues of $115 billion. The second-largest privately held company in the country, Koch Industries is one of the top 25 U.S. corporate water and carbon polluters, is a defendant in a climate accountability lawsuit brought by the state of Minnesota, and is continuing to operate its businesses in Russia while Koch-backed groups oppose U.S. sanctions imposed on the Kremlin after it invaded Ukraine.

Koch-controlled foundations donated more than $145 million to a network of 90 think tanks and advocacy groups from 1997 through 2018 to disparage climate science and block efforts to address climate change.Since the death of Charles Koch’s brother David in 2019, the Charles Koch Foundation has continued to finance this disinformation campaign, giving more than $17 million to 23 groups in2019 and 2020, pushing the Koch grand total north of $162 million. By contrast, the second-largest funder of climate disinformation, ExxonMobil, spent $39.2 million on some 70 denier groups from 1998 through 2020.

To maintain leverage on Capitol Hill, Koch Industries’ political action committee (PAC), affiliates and employees also contribute significantly more to federal candidates, party committees, outside groups, leadership PACs and 527 groups than their counterparts at BP America, Chevron, ExxonMobil or Shell. In the 2018 and 2020 election cycles, Koch Industries’ total outlay of $26.7 million was more than the $21.7 million the four oil and gas companies contributed collectively.

In addition, Koch Industries spent more than $38 million on its Washington lobbying operation during the last two full election cycles, from 2017 through 2020. That’s slightly less than ExxonMobil’s $40.98 million and Chevron’s $39.47 million, but the company enjoyed a distinct advantage over the two oil giants besides outspending them on campaign contributions: President Donald Trump’s transition team head, Vice President Mike Pence—a longtime Koch network veteran who played a key role in promoting the Koch-founded and -funded Americans for Prosperity’s “No Climate Tax” pledge when he was in the House—tapped at least:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}::{ 50 Koch network alumni to work inside the Trump administration. They included Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short. Egged on by Koch devotees both inside and outside the government, the Trump administration rolled back at least 260 regulations, including more than 100 environmental rules.

The Biden administration cleared out the Koch disciples when it took office and is in the process of rolling back the Trump rollbacks, but Koch and his donor network still hold considerable sway over the Republican Party. They will continue to spend hundreds of millions on Capitol Hill and, looking ahead to 2024, a number of Koch network stalwarts are considering a run for president, including Pence, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Florida Senator Rick Scott. The Koch network, with its toxic anti-government bias, will likely cast a long shadow over Washington for years to come.

Decades of Disinformation

For more than two decades, the Koch network has been diligently spreading disinformation to sabotage efforts to transition to a clean energy economy, more often than not by attacking proposed climate policies on economic grounds. Examples of its malfeasance are legion:

• To stop a version of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill in the Senate after it squeaked by in the House in 2009, Americans for Prosperity persuaded a critical mass of lawmakers to sign its “No Climate Tax” pledge, disingenuously calling the bill “the largest excise tax in history.” Since then, the overwhelming majority of legislators who have received campaign contributions from Koch Industries’ PAC and employees have rejected a carbon tax in amendments and nonbinding resolutions.
• To slow the exponential growth of solar power, the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council has armed utilities and state lawmakers with model legislation against net metering, which credits solar panel owners for the excess energy they generate and return to the grid, claiming that rooftop solar credits will drive up non-solar customers’ electric rates. The Energy Department, however, concluded that the credits will have a negligible impact on monthly electric bills.
• To undermine the widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), the Koch network has urged Congress to kill the federal income tax credit for EV buyers. “Congress should not be in the business of picking winners and losers by subsidizing one form of energy over others, regardless of its source,” Philip Ellender, Koch Industries’ president of government and public affairs, argued in a letter to Congress in October 2018. Never mind that the oil and gas industry has benefited from massive annual federal subsidies for more than 100 years.
• After succeeding in prodding President Trump to withdraw the United States from theParis climate agreement, arguing that the accord would threaten the “economic future of our country,” the Koch network is now spearheading a campaign to kill the Biden administration’s Build Back Betterplan, falsely claiming that it “is the biggest spending bill in American history.”

There are plenty of other examples, but the above sample illustrates the breadth of the Koch network’s reach. Charles Koch and his fellow travelers have played an outsized role scaring the public about the potential impact of climate solutions on their pocketbooks (but at the same time, theyspent more than $20 million to promote President Trump’s $1.5-trillion tax cutthat largely benefited corporations and the ultra-wealthy). By practically any measure, Koch is as consequential a disinformer as the four oil company executives who testified last fall before the House Oversight Committee combined.

Put Koch Under Oath

If the House Oversight Committee called Charles Koch to testify, it could, for starters, ask him about his views on climate change.

The executives from BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell who testified last October downplayed the central role human activity—mainly burning fossil fuels—plays in triggering climate change, but after much hemming and hawing they all conceded that global warming poses an “existential threat.”

Koch, for his part, has never acknowledged that climate change is a serious problem and rarely talks about it publicly. On the rare occasion when reporters broach the topic, he responds with… disinformation.

Koch’s most recent public comments about climate change came during lengthy interviews with the Washington Post in 2015 and 2016. Asked if he worried about climate change in an August 2015 interview, Koch replied that he believes “it’s been warming some” but added that “[t]here’s a big debate on that, because it depends on whether you use satellite measurements, balloon[s], or you use ground ones that have been adjusted.” Climate scientists, he added, “have these models that show it, but the models don’t work….”

In fact, all of the measurements Koch cited indicate that there has been a long-term global warming trend due to climate change. And, coincidentally, just a week before the Washington Post published the Koch interview, a peer-reviewed study found that globalclimate modelsare even more accurate than previously thought.

In August 2016, the Washington Post ran another Koch interview, during which he was asked if anyone could produce a study that would convince him “that carbon regulation is necessary to heed off disastrous global warming.” “Yeah,” Koch replied. “If we… use the scientific method rather than trying to shut down and shout down and punish anybody who wants to enter into debate about it…. If we’re all trying to find the truth of the matter, then I’m all for that.”

Notably, Koch did try to get to the truth of the matter in his own way a few years earlier. The Charles Koch Foundation donated $150,000 to Berkeley Earth, a nonprofit research institute founded in 2010 byRichard Muller, a physicist and self-proclaimed climate science skeptic, to review the temperature data that underpinned global-warming claims. Presumably to Koch’s surprise—and dismay—Muller announced in a July 2012 New York Times op-ed that his investigation verified that global warming is indeed real, is “almost entirely” caused by human activity, and is even worse than what the climate science community had concluded at the time.

It would be enlightening for the House Oversight Committee to ask Koch about Berkeley Earth’s findings, especially since after Muller announced them, the Koch network stepped up its campaign to characterize climate policies as being too costly, despite the fact that the consequences of failing to curb carbon emissions will cost infinitely more than taking preventive measures.

In late 2012, for example, the Koch brothers financed :{“bogus studies:(style="background-color:#ff9966ff"):}:” falsely claiming that state standards requiring utilities to ramp up their use of renewable energy would dramatically drive up electric rates.Six years later, in 2018, when the House was about to vote on a nonbindingcarbon tax resolution, Ellender—the Koch Industries lobbyist—took the same tack. “A carbon tax would make energy more expensive and raise the costs of consumer products and services on which people depend,” he wrote in a letter to the lawmakers. “It would also make U.S. producers less cost competitive, driving production and jobs to other parts of the world.”

The House passed the resolution, which stated that “a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy,” by a 229 to 180 vote. Nearly 70 percent of the representatives who voted for the resolution—159—collectively received more than $1.28 million in campaign contributions from Koch Industries PAC and employees during the 2018 election cycle.

Investing in Clean Energy While Trashing It

Koch’s jaundiced take on climate change would undoubtedly be welcomed by the 20 Republican members of the Oversight Committee, 14 of whom are climate science deniers. During the 2020 election cycle alone, Koch Industries’ employees and PAC gave more than $136,000 in campaign contributions to 18 of the GOP committee members, while their counterparts at BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell collectively donated $40,347 to 14 of them.

The committee members who are less beholden to the fossil fuel industry, however, should take the opportunity to press Koch about his company’s seemingly contradictory investments in sectors that his network is still trying to knee-cap, such as electric vehicles and renewable energy.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Koch Industries subsidiaries have invested at least $750 million in a range of battery technologies and battery-related raw materials, chemicals and recycling. Among the Koch conglomerate’s relatively new holdings are New Jersey zinc battery startup Eos Energy Enterprises and Canada’s lithium-ion battery recycler Li-Cycle Holdings, lithium development company Standard Lithium, and Lithion Power Group, a lithium-ion battery startup.

Likewise, Koch subsidiaries have jumped into smart grid and electric vehicle charging technologies. In 2020, Koch Engineered Solutions acquired Sentient Energy, a smart grid solutions company, and last year Koch Strategic Platforms invested in EVBox, a Netherlands-based electric vehicle charging station manufacturer.

Koch Engineered Solutions is also bullish on solar, but not on distributed rooftop solar, which the Koch network has been trying to stop. Last November, it bought DEPCOM Power, an Arizona company that builds large-scale solar power plants, and plans to supply solar farms in the United States and Canada.

Koch Industries’ relatively recent investments in batteries and renewables—which, granted, amount to a tiny percentage of the conglomerate’s far-flung operations—are just the beginning, according to Koch Engineered Solutions President Dave Dotson. “We are believers in the electrification of everything, driven by economics and consumer trends,” he told S&P Global Market Intelligence, “and look for where we can add value across the electric value chain from generation to end-user consumption.”

Dotson’s business strategy should come as a surprise to anyone who has been closely following his boss, and should prompt the House Oversight Committee to ask Koch how his company’s recent shopping spree squares with his network’s ongoing campaign against climate solutions.

An unabashed libertarian, Koch likely would respond that the private sector should take the lead, not the government, on energy—and just about everything else. For Koch, government efforts to manage the economy, protect public health and the environment, and provide social welfare programs are a slippery slope to totalitarianism and must be rolled back, if not eliminated. In his most recent book (co-authored with Brian Hooks),Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World,Koch argues that individuals, corporations and nonprofit groups are better suited to solve society’s most pressing problems—including the coronavirus pandemic—than the government.

Koch’s philosophy, however, fails to account for the fact that it was the private sector—specifically the fossil fuel industry—that got us into the dire situation in which we find ourselves today, faced with increasingly severe climate change-driven impacts. Major oil companies were aware their products wreck the climate at least 50 years ago and have spent hundreds of millions of dollars since then to manufacture doubt about climate science, disparage renewables and block government action. Now that Koch Industries, as well as some oil majors, see that there is money to be made by diversifying into clean energy technologies, they are slowly adding them to their portfolios but spending a fraction of what they are still dedicating to their oil, gas and chemical operations. It’s much too little, much too late.

If the House Oversight Committee is serious about getting to the bottom of the fossil fuel industry’s longtime campaign to stymie climate policy, it should call Koch on the carpet. By doing so, the committee could shine a light on his prominent role in sponsoring disinformation, as well as expose the threat he and his followers pose to U.S. democracy.

Author Bio: Elliott Negin is a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

==

ref BBB

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/climate-koch-brothers-lobbying-biden-build-back-better-1234815/

no lnx many

The Koch Empire Goes All Out to Sink Joe Biden’s Agenda — and His Presidency, Too

The dark-money network is spending tens of millions to undermine Democrats’ effort to protect the climate and shore up the social safety net

By ANDY KROLL & GEOFF DEMBICKI

The Koch Empire Goes All-Out to Sink Joe Biden's Agenda — and His Presidency, TooThe Koch Empire Goes All-Out to Sink Joe Biden's Agenda — and His Presidency, Too

Charles Koch, chief executive officer of Koch Industries, at the Broadmoor Resort in Colorado Springs, 2019. (AP Photo]

With the fate of President Biden’s domestic agenda in the balance, an armada of right-wing dark-money groups aligned with the Koch political network is mobilizing to sink Biden’s $3.5-trillion Build Back Better plan and deal a devastating blow to his presidency.

The Koch network is one of the most extensive and well-funded political and policy operations in the country, having pledged to spend more than a billion dollars in the past four election cycles. The web of nonprofit groups funded by or affiliated with the Koch network — dubbed the “Kochtopus” by critics — broadly promotes an anti-government, libertarian-style vision for American life. In most cases, the donors who bankroll the network’s groups remain anonymous, playing a central role in the spike in dark-money spending in American politics.

RELATED STORIES

Democrats Got Serious About Taxing The Rich. Then Manchin Got Ready To Spike It

Trump Is Now Asking Putin to Dig Up Dirt on the Biden Family]

Koch-backed groups fiercely opposed Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act and his cap-and-trade climate bill, successfully weakening the former and helping to kill the latter. The network’s groups have different mandates and focuses, including foreign policy, health care, and energy. At times, their libertarian leanings have found them making common cause with progressive groups — including by pushing to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to criticize government-mandated bans on racial-justice curriculums. But with a Democrat back in the White House, the Koch network of late has largely unified behind a push to stop Biden‘s agenda.

Koch-aligned groups are together spending millions of dollars on advertising, targeting moderate Democratic lawmakers, and pushing their influence in the halls of Congress to whittle down or outright kill the sweeping policy package, which would represent the largest expansion of the social safety net in the past 50 years and the biggest step toward addressing climate change in U.S. history.

“Fighting the reconciliation bill is a top priority for Charles Koch’s surrogates,” says Connor Gibson, founder of the corporate watchdog organization Grassrootbeer Investigations, who has spent years tracking Koch influence in the United States. “This is a viable threat for his network, and we can see that all the tentacles of the Kochtopus are out in full force trying to stop it from passing.”

This lobbying blitz comes at a critical moment for Biden’s agenda. Democratic leaders in Congress have pushed for a two-track strategy to pass a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill paired with the much larger $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act, which contains many of the signature policies Biden campaigned on as a presidential candidate. Those policies include hundreds of billions of new spending on universal prekindergarten, major expansions to child-care and home health-care programs, free community college, and the biggest-ever investments in renewable energies, electric cars, and other climate-focused policies. But for the larger bill to pass, it’ll need to get through a closely divided House and get unanimous support from the 50 Senate Democrats, including centrists such as Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

While the Koch network refused to support Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, the dozens of groups who receive funding or support from the network spent heavily to elect Republican governors, House members, and U.S. senators. AFP Action, the Super PAC affiliate of the Koch network’s flagship group Americans for Prosperity, spent $47 million last year, all of it to elect Republicans and defeat Democrats in high-profile races. The PAC tied to the Libre Initiative, a Koch affiliate focused on Hispanic Americans, spent $1.3 million in other key races across the country, often to great effect.

After the Democratic Party took control of the House and Senate, albeit by slim majorities, the Koch network set its sights on the pillars of Biden’s policy agenda. Just days after the two Georgia Senate runoff victories, Koch operatives held a private conference call to strategize about how to kill a top Democratic policy priority, theFor the People Act, the most ambitious election-reform bill since Watergate. As the New Yorker reported, an official with Stand Together,a Koch-backed nonprofit, conceded that the bill’s provision requiring greater transparency of dark money was so popular that the Koch network and its allies couldn’t mount a public-pressure campaign to stop — instead, they would have to play the inside game, mounting a lobbying blitz targeting members of Congress if they wanted to stop the bill. Now, the Koch network has an even more sweeping piece of legislation in its sights, the centerpiece of Biden’s domestic policy agenda, the Build Back Better Act.

The tip of the spear for the Koch network in this pressure campaign is Americans for Prosperity. Led by longtime Koch operative Tim Phillips, AFP is spending seven figures on TV and digital ads opposing not only Biden’s $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act but also the bipartisan infrastructure deal awaiting a vote in the House of Representatives.

AFP has adopted another tactic aimed at making Biden’s domestic agenda unpopular — hitching Biden’s plans with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a progressive leader, while claiming that the Build Back Better package is the biggest spending bill in American history. One AFP ad says Biden’s policy package is “the last thing we need to recover from this pandemic,” adding, “Tell Congress to stop the Biden-Sanders spending spree.” The ads appear onFacebook, Google platforms (including YouTube), and on TV stations across the country.

The Koch-backed LIBRE Initiative is running ads against the reconciliation package in Texas, Florida, and Arizona “to inform Latinos about the negative effects of overspending and overtaxing.” The group’s president, Daniel Garza, explains in a release that he intends to “mobilize our grassroots army of volunteers and activists to hold our elected officials accountable.”

Yet another group with long-standing Koch network ties, the 60 Plus Association, has launched a multimillion-dollar ad blitz focused on the prescription-drug-reform policies in the Build Back Better Act. Founded in 1992, 60 Plus was originally conceived as the conservative movement’s answer to the AARP; over the years, it’s taken millions from Koch nonprofit groups and been used to attack Obamacare and Democratic candidates for office.Indeed, almost two decades ago, 60 Plus lobbied to eliminate Medicare’s ability to negotiate with drugmakers during a previous battle over drug prices.

In its new ad blitz, 60 Plus claims that the provisions included in Biden’s plan to allow for greater drug-price negotiation in Medicare would cause benefits for Medicare recipients to be slashed and make medication harder to obtain for doctors. Like AFP, 60 Plus describes the Biden plan as an “out-of-control spending spree.” However, PolitiFact slapped this claim by 60 Plus with a “False” rating, citing health care experts who said giving the government the ability to negotiate with drug companies shouldn’t lead to reduced access to key drugs for Medicare patients.

All told, these and more than 100 other similar groups, many of them linked to Koch, are mobilizing to fight the spending bill. “As your committee begins marking up the$3.5 trillion reckless tax-and-spend reconciliation proposal,” this large right-wing coalition said in a letter earlier this month to top congressional Democrats, “we write in opposition to any effort to raise taxes on American families and businesses.”

The threat comes not only in the form of corporate tax increases — although the financial impact could be substantial, given thatTrump-era tax cuts potentially saved the Koch brothers up to $1.4 billion, according to estimates from the group Americans for Tax Fairness; many of the Koch-backed groups fighting Biden’s spending package are also deeply concerned about the ambitious climate provisions the package contains.

Proposed policies include expanding tax credits for electric vehicles, as well as provisions pushing utilities to use clean energy instead of fossil fuels. Add up all the climate impacts, and this could reduce America’s carbon footprint by nearly 1 gigaton worth of greenhouse gas emissions, the research firm Rhodium Group estimates. This would represent some of the most significant action ever taken on climate change in the U.S.

But what’s good for the planet is potentially terrible for Koch’s bottom line. The Koch Industries subsidiary Flint Hills Resources, for instance, operates the largest oil refinery in Minnesota, capable of processing more than 300,000 barrels per day of crude oil, predominantly from the Canadian tar sands. The refinery is fed by a Koch-owned pipeline network spanning more than 500 miles.

“Charles Koch has so many different layers of interest in fossil fuel and petrochemical production that the Biden administration’s bill could cause the costs of his businesses to increase, and therefore his profits would drop,” Gibson explains.

Fighting climate action has for this reason long been a top policy priority for Koch’s network — and it’s animating dark-money opposition to the current $3.5 trillion spending package.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation calls the spending package’s climate provisions “incredibly expensive and harmful anti-energy policies that will cripple our economy, increase our dependence on foreign oil, and increase cost of living, especially for the poorest Americans.” The Austin-based think tank has received at least $3.6 million from foundations linked to Koch since 1998, the watchdog group Desmog calculates.

One of the signatories of the coalition letter opposing the plan isMyron Ebell, a Koch-linked energy punditand professional climate-change skeptic. As recently as 2016, Ebell said that while he now acknowledges climate change is real, he doesn’t think it’s a “rapid or a serious problem.”

The Koch crew is also stoking fears of inflation and skyrocketing prices for consumers if the bill passes. “Prices are rising everywhere, from the gas pump to the grocery store,” AFP recently tweeted.

Opponents of Biden’s Covid-19 relief measures and his domestic policy agenda have raised fears of inflation as a result of so much government spending. But earlier this month, a dozen Nobel Prize-winning economists published an open letter that argued inflation wasn’t nearly as big of a concern. More important, they wrote, was “reversing years of disinvestment in public goods and addressing the country’s long-term needs — including building toward sustainable and inclusive growth and facilitating our clean energy transition.”

The dark-money groups mobilizing against the plan don’t seem to care. The country might have problems — including soaring inequality and a collapsing climate — but, for the Koch empire, that’s just the cost of doing business.

In This Article: Charles Koch, Climate Change, Joe Biden

---

https://www.desmog.com**/2015**/11/23/research-confirms-exxonmobil-koch-funded-climate-denial-echo-chamber-polluted-mainstream-media/

A new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (PNAS) shows that the climate denial echo chamber organizations funded by ExxonMobil and Koch family foundations produced misinformation that effectively polluted mainstream media coverage of climate science and polarized the climate policy debate.

The abstract and full text of the study can be found here: Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change.

The analysis of 20 years’ worth of data by Yale University researcher Dr. Justin Farrell shows beyond a doubt that ExxonMobil and the Kochs are the key actors who funded the creation of climate disinformation think tanks and ensured the prolific spread of their doubt products throughout our mainstream media and public discourse.

“The contrarian efforts have been so effective for the fact that they have made it difficult for ordinary Americans to even know who to trust,” Dr. Farrell told the Washington Post which was first to cover the news of the study’s release. “This counter-movement produced messages aimed, at the very least, at creating ideological polarization through politicized tactics, and at the very most, at overtly refuting current scientific consensus with scientific findings of their own,” Dr. Farrell said.

From PNAS’s press briefing note about the article by Dr. Farrell:

Corporate funding likely influences the nature and content of polarizing texts pertaining to climate change, according to a study. Political polarization has become a hallmark of climate change policy discussion, with multiple groups in various sectors contributing to public discourse regarding climate and energy. To quantify the influence of corporate funding in climate change discourse, Justin Farrell analyzed more than 39 million words of text produced by 164 organizations active in the climate change counter-movement between 1993 and 2013. The author examined the ideological content of the produced texts, as well as the funding behind the organizations that produced the texts.

Organizations with corporate funding were more likely to have produced polarizing texts, the author found, with ExxonMobil and the Koch family foundation acting as influential funders (emphasis added). Further, according to the author, corporate funding may have influenced the ideological content of produced texts. The results suggest quantitative evidence of the influence of funding in the climate change debate that had previously been hypothesized, and suggests an analytical model for integrating texts with the social networks that created them, according to the author.

This study confirms once again the central thesis of industry-funded attacks on climate science, which inspired the DeSmog book Climate Cover-up and countless articles about the deception campaign over the past decade.

Now let’s see how the mainstream media cover this story — that is what I’m most curious to see. (The Washington Post article was pretty straightforward, although it gave ExxonMobil an unchallenged last word, and Joby Warrick seemed to pose a bogus question to Dr. Farrell equating the fossil-funded disinformation campaign with pro-climate-action campaigns, but Dr. Farrell correctly rebutted such a comparison.)

Will this study, published in a highly authoritative journal, finally compel the newsrooms and boardrooms of the traditional media to take responsibility to undo some of the damage done by their complicity in spreading fossil fuel industry-funded misinformation?

Will false balance — quoting a distinguished climate scientist and then speed-dialing Pat Michaels at the Cato Institute for an opposing quote — finally stop?

Will editors commit to serving as referees to ensure the same industry PR pollution isn’t published any longer?

It’s critically important today that the public hears the scientific facts about climate change without the confusion injected into the policy debate by well-funded think tanks and their highly paid PR operative counterparts.

Dr. Farrell’s research also provides further evidence of the public deception orchestrated by the fossil fuel industry, and should prove valuable to investigators examining ExxonMobil as well as other current and future efforts to hold polluters accountable for their PR pollution.

Here is a video produced years ago, “Doubt” by The Climate Reality Project, which provides a nice overview of this issue[vid]  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjVjr-qOpNk

also highly suggested: track down access to Merchants of Doubt, the full-length documentary by Food Inc. director Robert Kenner that exposes the history of tobacco-to-climate denial and their common PR manipulators such as Marc Morano and Fred Singer.

It’s far beyond the time to end the climate cover-up. And responsible media can lead the way.

---

---

cmd 1020

koch-Funded Legal Group Pushes to Allow Mass Evictions During Pandemic

By Alex Kotch | October 13th, 2020 at 3:45 PM (CDT)

The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonprofit heavily funded by the Charles Koch Foundation, succeeded in getting the Trump administration to greenlight eviction proceedings despite its eviction moratorium.

Read more>>

---

---

how odd

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2020/12/04/koch-fought-u-s-chamber-of-commerce-ten-2020-house-races/

---

kochademia 100M$

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2020/11/23/koch-funding-of-universities-topped-100-million-in-2019/

==

https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/06/16/free-market-ideology-charles-koch-response-covid-19

Charles Koch, CEO of Koch Industries, is receiving credit for launching a COVID-19 relief fund, as he urged a “distinctly American response” of private charity — and not public benefits — to address this deadly pandemic.

Koch kickstarted the fund with a $5 million contribution, pocket change for a man who runs the second largest privately held corporation in the country, which makes about $5 million every twenty minutes.

His “distinctly American response” is not for the government to do more but for a billionaire to solicit help from Americans who make far less: his contribution amounts to 0.000125 of his net worth of roughly $40 billion, about the equivalent of a $5 donation for someone who makes $40,000 a year.

His newly rebranded “Stand Together” group has also “matched the almost $3 million raised by its GoFundMe campaign, #HelpTheHelpers,” and 87,000 other donors have lifted the fund to more than $50 million. (Stand Together was previously known as the Seminar Network and prior to that, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce.)

Koch’s miserly contribution stands in stark contrast to the hundreds of millions of dollars he’s spent on his political and policy agenda to remake U.S. laws to advance a radical free-market ideology, an approach to government that COVID-19 has revealed to be fatally flawed — literally.

Nowhere is that more evident than in President Trump’s weak response to the pandemic, which mirrors Koch’s worldview in prioritizing market forces over swift, coordinated leadership from our federal government.

Despite Trump’s assertions, America remains inshort supply of tests, personal protective equipment (PPE), and life-saving ventilators that corporationsare unlikely to produce in the time-frame and scale required to save tens of thousands of lives, without a presidential directive requiring urgent action.

Just this past week, Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) revealed that the Trump administration’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) plan to meet needs for PPE on COVID-19 was contingent on two deeply flawed assumptions: First, the number of infections would decline this summer (which was and remains demonstrably false) and second, that nurses would reuse PPE equipment that was designed for single use (which infectious disease experts strongly recommend against).

Due to this untrammeled “free market” approach, price gouging is rampant, and the cost of vital equipment is skyrocketing thanks to what New York Governor Andrew Cuomo described as aneBay-style competitive bidding war that has been playing out between states and with the federal government, due to Trump’s refusal to use his powers to stop this deadly competition for life-saving goods.

Already, President Trump’s laissez-faire approach has made America #1 in the world in infections, withclose to 2,000,000 confirmed cases and more than 100,000 deaths. Germany, in contrast, acted decisively to deploy its federal government and universal health care system toimpede the disease and reduce deaths, and it has slowed its reopening unlike America, which has recklessly accelerated its own in many states.

Meanwhile, corporate America has proven to be no match for the pandemic. Therestaurant industry has been crushed. Much of the oil and gas industry, which wasmired in debt while splurging on stock dividends, is on the brink of collapse.Wall Street is in a death spiral. Even hospitals have beencutting wages and laying off workers on the frontlines of the fight.

However, it is ordinary Americans who continue to bear the brunt of a crisis exacerbated by a social safety net riddled with holes, thanks in large part to Charles Koch.

Millions of Americans have applied for the very unemployment benefits that Koch’s network hasfought for years to kill, through his group “Americans for Prosperity” (AFP) and other organizations. More than 20 million jobs were lost in April and as of June, America’s unemployment rate is more than 13 percent, the worst rate since the Great Depression, and the rate is much higher than that in some states and in some demographics.

Loss of employment also means loss of health insurance for many people, and Koch has directed tens of millions of dollars in a concerted effort to undermine alternatives like the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicare for All.

Koch-funded groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), and AFP have been relentless in their efforts to kill the ability of Americans to enroll in the ACA’s health exchanges and they’ve also helped block state expansion of Medicaid for years. Koch’s spending has been instrumental in preventing millions of Americans from getting the health care they need.

Millions of Americans also lack access to paid medical or family leave, forcing them to choose between a paycheck and their health, which will lead to more preventable infections and deaths. Last month, AFP andIWF were mobilized to block the creation of a federal paid leave program, despite research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showingpaid leave helps reduce the spread of infectious diseases.

The CDC itself has also been targeted by the Koch network,lobbying Congress to cut the agency's budget by $1 billion in 2018. AFP has alsoattacked the CDC’s shelter-in-place policies and even went to court to fight stay-at-home orders. It is also actively trying to kill the HEROES Act, which would extend benefits in the CARES Act that millions of Americans still need, and the group is running digital ads against several senators and promising to score congressional votes on this relief package that passed the House.

But a business-as-usual approach that relies on corporate America and private charity to lead the way simply cannot deliver what strong and effective governing can: a robust safety net that protects all Americans and a fair democracy that makes the lives and well-being of our citizens its top priority.

It’s time for a bold rethink of the radical libertarian ideology espoused by Charles Koch that has spread through our politics like a destructive virus. It’s not just a symptom of America's disastrous response to COVID-19; it is one of the biggest causes of our crisis.

Lisa Graves is the executive director of True North Research and curator of KochDocs. She’s a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice.

==

Koch Foundations Increased Media Investments in 2018

by Alex Kotch | November 26th, 2019

Billionaire Charles Koch's two foundations spent nearly $3.5 million on media grants and contracts in 2018.

As the political and philanthropic network of billionaire libertarian Charles Koch employs its latest PR strategy, the Charles Koch Foundation (CKF) and the Charles Koch Institute (CKI) increased their giving to media organizations by roughly $1 million in 2018.

Koch has generally funded right-wing organizations such as the Daily Caller News Foundation, which funds much of the content on the Daily Caller website, and the Reason Foundation, which publishes libertarian-minded news and opinion on Reason.com. These and other donations continued in 2018, but the two foundations also contracted with conservative media outlet RealClearPolitics and two center-left publications, The Atlantic and Ozy Media.

Overall, CKF and CKI combined to spend nearly $3.5 million on media grants and contracts in 2018. This amount is a small, but growing, portion of the foundations’ annual donations. In 2018, CKF gave out $127.5 million in donations, mostly to fund Koch’s right-wing educational and political infrastructure.

Daily Caller News Foundation

CKF’s largest media grant in 2018, $746,250, went to the Daily Caller News Foundation. While less than the $960,000 it gave a year before, it was still Koch’s biggest contribution to a media organization last year, as it has been since 2015.

On Nov. 11, the Daily Caller News Foundation uploaded a mashup video to YouTube that included a clip of a neo-Nazi rapping about his support for President Donald Trump. In the verse of the original video that followed the clip used by Daily Caller, the neo-Nazi rapped about the “Great Replacement,” a central white nationalist propaganda theory that claims immigrants of color will replace white populations.

This wasn’t the first time the Daily Caller has been linked to white supremacy; it has published several white supremacists and antisemites and has had some on staff.

After a November 2018 Sludge report on the Koch foundations’ funding of pro-Trump media, three CKF top officials claimed to Washington Post opinion writer and Reason alumnus Radley Balko that, “they personally and the Kochs and their foundations more generally find the Daily Caller abhorrent, and feel the same way about Tucker Carlson.”The officials argued that the CFK funding went towards writer fellowships for articles that are made available by wire to a broader range of news outlets. It is not publicly known whether CFK has funded the Daily Caller News Foundation this year.

The Daily Caller New Foundation’s 2018 revenue numbers aren’t yet public, but CKF’s donations in 2016 amounted to 84 percent of the foundation’s annual contribution total.

RealClear

Two entities of the conservative media operation RealClear got money from the Koch foundations in 2018. The Real Clear Foundation, which funds RealClearInvestigations and “news aggregation and content creation that is in the public good,” according to tax records, received a $375,000 consulting contract from CKI.

RealClearPolitics, the company’s news, opinion, and poll aggregation website, and CKI teamed up to poll the public and veterans on military intervention and specific wars in 2017 and 2018. Also in 2017, the website published a piece critical of activists organizing against a Koch-funded center at Wake Forest University. RealClearPolitics accepts trainees from CKI’s Media and Journalism Fellowship program “with no strings attached.”

RealClearPolitics got $75,000 from CKF in 2018. Neither entity received money from the Koch foundations from 2015-17. RealClearPolitics published an op-ed from CKF official Will Ruger in October 2018 and another by Sarah Ruger, director of free expression at CKF, this June.

RealClear Foundation has been funded by right-wing megadonors for years. In fiscal year 2013, the sole disclosed donor was Nelson Broms, an insurance executive who co-founded the Koch-funded Manhattan Institute, who gave $50,000. By FY2016, the Real Clear Foundation had significantly increased its fundraising ability, getting $2,250,000 from the Koch-tied DonorsTrust. CMD has tracked over $5.5 million in Real Clear Foundation funding since April 2013, including $1 million from the similarly Koch-tied Donors Capital Fund and six-figure amounts from conservative megadonor foundations in the Koch funding network, such as the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation.

RealClearPolitics co-founder John McIntyre is tied to the far-right Federalist website. He and his wife, Jenn, are listed as directors of The Federalist on a 2017 securities offering filing, alongside co-founders Ben Domenech, who is married to Meghan McCain, and Sean Davis. Jenn McIntyre is also listed as an executive for The Federalist, which is not connected to the Koch-funded Federalist Society.

Center-Left Publications

The foundation of Charles Koch, whose political network has installed scores of right-wing state and federal lawmakers and funded ideological free-market centers and conservative student groups on college campuses, began funding initiatives in 2018 to counter the political polarization that it has catalyzed.

On its 2018 tax return, CKF listed a $300,000 contract with The Atlantic Monthly Group, which publishes The Atlantic.

The Atlantic magazine has a long history of publishing liberal and centrist writers. Since the conservative-friendly Jeffrey Goldberg took the reins in late 2016, the publication has devoted its pages to stories questioning political correctness on college campuses, criticizing the #MeToo movement, anddefending controversial figures such as Jordan Peterson.

Peterson has been accused of misogyny, bigotry, and conspiracy theorizing. Conservative New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss interviewed Peterson at the Aspen Ideas Festival, which is presented by Atlantic Live and supported by Koch Industries and the foundation of GOP megadonor Paul Singer.

Goldberg even briefly hired extreme misogynist Kevin Williamson, whom he first defended and then let go under enormous public pressure. Still, the publication is seen as part of the liberal media sphere.

On Nov. 28, The Atlantic kicked off a year-long series, “The Speech Wars,” which was underwritten by CKF, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the Fetzer Institute. The series presents “a marketplace for competing ideas,” said Goldberg. CKF is “excited” to “[support] The Atlantic‘s expansion of their courageous and nuanced coverage of growing polarization,” said CKF’s Ruger. “America’s an increasingly diverse nation, and we can be better for our differences. Dedicated efforts like The Atlantic‘s stand to deepen our understanding and ultimately address barriers to that peaceful and productive pluralism.”

A larger 2018 contract, $500,000 from CKI, went to Ozy Media, a company “tailor-made for the Change Generation–people from every corner of the globe who are challenging the status quo and bucking convention.” The money supported a PBS primetime series, “Take On America,” which has a similar theme to The Atlantic series: It “provides participants an opportunity to take a pause from the growing polarization by joining town hall meetings across the country.” Ozy CEO Carlos Watson, who co-founded the company with former Goldman Sachs associate Samir Rao, hosts the series, which is also funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

In addition to contracting with two media companies with liberal audiences, CKF also partnered with the Poynter Institute, a mainstream journalist education nonprofit, which it gave $225,000 in 2018. A year earlier, CKF gave Poynter its first grant, worth $75,000, to launch the Poynter College Media Project, a campus-based initiative that “encourage[s] the student press to use journalism to navigate divisive issues.”

The Koch operation, which has surveilled and attempted to smear well-known reporters such as Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, has a new line about journalism. “Media plays a vital role in the free flow of knowledge essential to society,” said Ruger. “Poynter’s program takes that one step further, highlighting the critical and continuing role a free press has in facilitating conversations on even our most difficult issues.”

This April, Poynter announced the Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism Fellowship, sponsored by CKI.

State Policy Network Associates

The Koch foundations donated to State Policy Network members the libertarian think tank Reason Foundation ($463,000) and, the Moving Picture Institute ($384,000) in 2018. The Reason Foundation, which had the late David Koch on its board, has received millions of dollars from several Koch family foundations over time. In recent years, Koch donation amounts have jumped around, but 2018’s total is roughly $135,000 more than the previous year.

The Moving Picture Institute is a New York City-based “modern-media production house and talent incubator that creates and supports high-impact film and video content designed to entertain, inspire, and educate audiences with captivating stories about human freedom,” according to its website. In addition to Koch funding, the institute has received funds from other key right-wing sources including DonorsTrust and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. It has produced films and video series attacking environmental activists, explaining various aspects of economics, and questioning regulation.

Other major recipients of money from the Koch foundations in 2018 include, the National Freedom of Information Coalition ($118,000), and the Student Free Press Association ($88,000), which operates the conservative College Fix website with content from student journalists who “commit themselves to the principles of a free society.” The group has also received funding from the Thomas W. Smith Foundation. Right-wing megadonor and current Education Sec. Betsy DeVos’s son, Rick, was on the Student Free Press Association board as of 2017.

Conservative outlets The American Spectator ($7,700 from CKF) and National Review ($6,000 from CKI) got smaller amounts through their connected foundations in 2018.

Since 2015, the two Koch foundations have spent over $8.5 million on media donations and contracts, including nearly $3.3 million in contributions to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

---

Koch Invested $127.5 Million in Building Right-Wing Infrastructure in 2018

by David Armiak | November 19th, 2019

Two-thirds of the money Charles Koch Foundation distributed in 2018 went to universities and colleges.

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/11/19/koch-invested-127-5-million-building-right-wing-infrastructure--2018/

[many docs 990]

Charles Koch, the CEO of Koch Industries with an estimated net worth of $43.1 billion, distributed over $127.5 million in 2018 through his personal foundation to support right-wing infrastructure and the so-called “talent pipeline” needed to staff it, IRS filings obtained and examined by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) show.

The Charles Koch Foundation (CKF) pulled in over $168 million in revenue in 2018, bringing its total assets to over $765 million. Charles Koch contributed $50 million himself to the foundation that year, the filings detail.

Universities and Colleges Receive $84.4 Million

CKF dispersed two-thirds of the $127.5 million in 2018 to universities and colleges, or a total or $84.4 million. George Mason University, host to the Koch-funded Mercatus Center and Institute for Humane Studies, took in the most at $16.2 million. This amount far exceeded the second largest recipient of Koch cash, Utah State University, by $12.4 million. (A full list of CKF grants to universities and colleges is available here.)

Koch has expanded his investments into the number of universities and colleges year by year in order to ensure that in the long term there will be advocates against regulation and for his vision of free-market capitalism.

Koch told a gathering of his peers in 1976 to “focus on ‘attracting youth’ because ‘this is the only group that is open to a radically different social philosophy,'” according to Jane Mayer.

In order for Koch to realize his vision for society, he will need the foot soldiers to fill out the massive right-wing infrastructure he has built over the years at the national and state level that he continues to fund in the millions.

“For more than 40 years, Charles Koch has been trying to remake America to fit his agenda against the people in our democracy regulating corporations to advance his bottom-line and his extremely narrow view of government, as documented in Chris Leonard’s new book Kochland,” said Lisa Graves, the board President of CMD, Director of KochDocs.org, and the co-founder of Documented. She added: “As Koch grows older, he has expanded his effort to shape our world beyond his lifetime by spending more and more indoctrinating young people in his deeply distorted conception of public policy, in addition to his efforts to capture the U.S. Supreme Court and other courts with his pro-corporate, anti-regulatory wish list.”

State Policy Network Affiliates Bring in $3.2 Million

Fourteen “affiliate” members in the State Policy Network (SPN), a web of right-wing “think tanks,” advocacy groups, and other registered nonprofits in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Canada, and the United Kingdom, received $3.2 million in CKF funding in 2018.

SPN is composed of 64 “affiliate members,” and 98 “associate members,” and its affiliates now bring in over $120 million in revenue, CMD recently reported.

SPN member groups are called on in the states to provide the academic legitimacy for right-wing policy ideas in the states through reports, public hearing testimonies at state capitals, and, increasingly, in the media.

Many of the right-wing policies are drafted as American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model bills and introduced by lawmakers — almost all of whom are Republican — into their respective state houses. ALEC received $300,000 from CKF in 2018, and another $34,000 from the Charles Koch Institute in the same year.

The $334,000 to ALEC from Charles Koch in 2018 is less than half of the amount he provided it in 2017 through the same vehicles.

Of all the SPN groups getting CKF funding, Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) received the largest amount at $1.2 million. TPPF brings in the most money of any SPN affiliate, CMD previously reported.

The next largest SPN recipients of CKF cash in 2018 were all organizations that focus on union busting. The Mackinac Center (MI) secured $600,000, and the Buckeye Institute (OH) and the Freedom Foundation (WA) each received $250,000 respectively.

Other SPN groups that received CKF funding in 2018 are:

• James Madison Institute (FL): $249,000
• Beacon Center of Tennessee: $120,500
• Pelican Institute (LA):  $122,000
• Goldwater Institute (AZ): $100,000
• Pacific Research Institute (CA): $100,00
• Badger Institute (WI): $78,000
• John Locke Foundation (NC): $55,000
• Mississippi Center for Public Policy: $25,000
• Advance Arkansas Institute: $28,440
• Rio Grande Foundation: $25,000

More Cash for Tucker Carlson’s Hateful Propaganda

CKF provided $746,250 in 2018 to Tucker Carlson’s “charity,” the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF). Carlson is known for his Fox News show, but he also publishes The Daily Caller, which has now received a total of $3.4 million from Charles Koch since 2012.

Earlier this year, CMD reported that “Koch cash accounted for 83 percent of the The Daily Caller News Foundation’s $1.1 million in revenue” in 2016.

CMD examined the questionable relationship between the non-profit and for-profit arms of Tucker Carlson’s operation in 2017. The mechanics of how they operate together raise serious concerns about whether Carlson’s tax-free nonprofit is operating primarily for the private benefit of his for-profit media outlet, which would be a violation of the tax code.

Carlson has deep ties to the Koch network. He was a senior fellow at the Koch-backed Cato Institute in 2009, a D.C. think tank that has received millions from Charles Koch, including $2.1 million in 2018.

And More Money for the “Conquerors of the Courts”

CKF gave the Federalist Society, which The Washington Post coined the “Conquerors of the Courts,” $768,000 in 2018.The Federalist Society, along with its activist leader Leonard Leo, has reshaped the Supreme Court and many of the Federal Courts by aggressively promoting the appointment of right-wing judges.

Both Trump appointees to the Supreme Court, Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, were members of the Federalist Society and were added to a nomination list Leo personally compiled for Trump.

Last week, Kavanaugh took a victory lap at the Federalist Society’s Gala, saying to his supporters who helped get him seated, “I will always be grateful.”

[docs]

---

1219 BAK

=== he is also a fdn somewhat neglected cat main bro, 11 red, david step down rx)see disambig node capt719

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/as-charles-koch-cultivates-anti-war-image-koch-industries-profits-from-defense-contracts/ no lnx As Charles Koch cultivates anti-war image, Koch industries profits from defense contracts Written by Alex Kotch / The American Prospect July 26, 2019 Libertarian billionaire industrialist Charles Koch has gone to great lengths to paint himself as an anti-interventionist. He has funded foreign policy-focused think tanks and university centers such as the conflict-averse Center for the Study of Statesmanship at Catholic University and the Notre Dame International Security Center, which is directed by anti-NATO professor Michael Desch. Most recently, he teamed up with an extremely unlikely ally, liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros, to found the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. The Charles Koch Foundation and Soros' Open Society Foundations each contributed $500,000 to help found the Quincy Institute, which will open in September, along with $800,000 from other donors. "Political leaders have increasingly deployed the military in a costly, counterproductive, and indiscriminate manner, normalizing war and treating armed dominance as an end in itself," reads the institute's website. "The Quincy Institute is an action-oriented think tank that will lay the foundation for a new foreign policy centered on diplomatic engagement and military restraint." But Koch Industries, the giant oil, chemical, paper, and electronics conglomerate owned and led by Koch, has been cashing in on Department of Defense contracts. Since 2016, two Koch Industries subsidiaries have gotten federal contracts worth a total of close to $2.3 million to provide the Navy with circuit boards for its ships, according to Sludge's review of federal contract data from the Federal Procurement Data System.

A Navy spokesperson told Sludge that "circuit boards are used in a variety of ships, submarines and aircraft" but declined to provide additional details regarding the use of the Koch subsidiaries' electronics. The two most recent contracts, which total nearly $500,000, went to Camarillo, California-based Interconnect Systems, which Koch Industries subsidiary Molex acquired in 2016. Naval Surface Warfare Systems Crane, a Navy office with a mission "to provide acquisition engineering, in-service engineering and technical support for sensors, electronics, electronic warfare and special warfare weapons," initiated a $247,350 contract with Interconnect Systems in March 2019 for "digital signal processing computer card[s]." The company had signed a similar contract in September 2018 with NSWS Crane for $243,950. Interconnect Systems scored a $1 million contract for circuit cards in July 2018 from the Defense Logistics Agency's (DLA) maritime facility in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. DLA Land and Maritime "manages the supply chain for ground-based and maritime weapons systems repair parts, small arms parts, and fluid-handling systems." Nallatech, a subsidiary of Interconnect Systems, has gotten close to $247,000 worth of Navy contracts since 2016.

The majority of that money came from NSWC Crane, but some came from the NAVSUP Weapons Support Systems agency, which supports naval weapons systems. NSWC Crane gave Nallatech its largest contract, for $147,000 worth of hybrid processors, in September 2017. Since 2016, Interconnect Systems and its subsidiary, Nallatech, have gotten $2,260,000 worth of Defense contracts. Nallatech, which last year integrated with Molex subsidiary BittWare, has received over $617,000 worth of Defense contracts since 2008, the year it was acquired by Interconnect Systems, according to usaspending.gov. The company advertises military and aerospace products such as radar systems for manned and unmanned vehicles that "provide unprecedented situational awareness and target coordination," as well as a "ballistic digitizer." Molex, an Illinois-based manufacturer of electrical connectors, provides parts for a number of industries. In its defense section, the Molex website lists products for use in unmanned vehicles, missiles, and ground vehicles. Koch Industries, the Quincy Institute, the Charles Koch Foundation, and Open Society Foundations did not respond to requests for comment. More Navy Connections A partially Koch-funded foreign policy center at a California state university is also involved with the Navy. The University of California at San Diego's Center for Peace and Security Studies got a $3.3 million multi-year grant from the Charles Koch Foundation in 2017, its second year of existence.

"We're excited about U.C. San Diego and its scholars' work to better understand emerging issues in security studies and their implications for U.S. foreign policy," said Charles Koch Foundation Vice President for Research William Ruger in a university news story. Ruger, an Afghanistan war veteran, is in the Navy Reserve. The Center for Peace and Security Studies also gets funding from the Office of Naval Research's Minerva Research Initiative. Its current grant, covering 2014-19, is called "Deterrence with Proxies." The center's website describes its work on military automation. "Technologies that supplant human labor in battle-such as UAVs (drones) and ground combat robots-lower military labor costs and limit political risks associated with friendly casualties. The tendency should thus be for military automation to increase the scope of threats or uses of force by the most advanced economies, geographically and in terms of the issues in dispute." UCSD has a long and lucrative relationship with the Navy; the Navy's Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, which works with the defense industry to create new weapons systems, has been headquartered at the university since 1997. Since 1981, UCSD has raked in nearly $250 million from Navy contracts, according to data from the Federal Procurement Data Service. Political science professor Erik Gartzke, a former Army and Navy officer who runs the Center for Peace and Security Studies, has written papers about "costless combat" drones.

Meanwhile, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Koch-backed corporate bill mill, supported domestic drone use through its proposed Unmanned Aerial Vehicle program. 'The Case for Private Defense' "Charles Koch's anti-interventionist posturing is more clearly understood through his decades-long support of anarcho-capitalist scholars who have developed and championed the call to privatize police and military defense," said Ralph Wilson, co-founder of the Corporate Genome Project and former research director of activist group UnKoch My Campus. Koch's political views are shaped by the Austrian School of economics, which advocates unfettered free markets and small governments. One prominent right-wing think tank that has promoted these concepts is the Mises Institute, which was established in 1982 and is named after one of the 20th century's leading Austrian economists, Ludwig von Mises. The late Murray Rothbard, Mises' close associate and vice president of academic affairs at the Mises Institute for 13 years, argued against the state entirely and advocated a privatized military and police force. Like Rothbard, Mises Institute senior fellow Hans-Hermann Hoppe supports fully privatized security. In a paper first published by the Mises Institute in 1998, Hoppe argues that "collective security is a myth that provides no justification for the modern state, [and] all security is and must be private." In a 2002 essay, republished by the Mises Institute in 2010, Mises Institute fellow Robert Murphy made the case for privatized defense.

Since then, he has continued to speak on the issue; Murphy held a session called "The Market for Military Defense" at this month's "Mises University," an annual free-market-economics boot camp. Murphy owes much of his career to the generosity of Koch; he's a research assistant professor at Texas Tech's Free Market Institute, which is heavily funded by the Charles Koch Foundation (but also, ironically, gets substantial funding from the state government); a senior economist at the Institute for Energy Research, which Koch helped found and which has received funding from the three Koch family nonprofits; and a research fellow at the Independent Institute, which has scored grants from two Koch foundations. Rothbard and Koch co-founded the libertarian Cato Institute in 1977 but had a falling out in the early 1980s. Still, their spheres continue to intersect, as several other current Mises Institute associates teach in university programs also funded by the Charles Koch Foundation. Just Another Rebrand? The Koch family has struggled with image problems for some time. Koch, along with his younger brother, David, has helmed a libertarian-minded political operation for decades, which has helped propel conservative Republicans to state and national office, and helped to found the Tea Party.

Koch Industries is one of the country's biggest polluters and has had to pay over $800 million in fines for environmental, labor, workplace, and other violations. Because of their poor reputations, Koch Industries and Koch's political network have undergone a series of rebrands, including Koch's newest incarnation as a philanthropist who works with both parties to reform the criminal justice system and restrain America's forever wars. For several years now, Koch has compared himself and his network of wealthy conservative donors to civil rights heroes such as Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King. But critics say these recent initiatives are largely distractions from Koch's core mission, which he has always followed: to cut taxes and slash regulations in order to maximize Koch Industries' profits. "Koch Industries has consistently chosen corporatism and profit over their own 'principled' libertarianism, whether contracting with the U.S. military or accepting over half a billion dollars in local, state, and federal subsidies," Wilson told Sludge. Koch will likely continue to fund think tanks focused on preventing wars, but his company's simultaneous role in the military-industrial complex should not be overlooked.===

maybe a bit like short lived support of criminal reform, aligns with his longtime libtartd principles? more interestingly, soros gets off bogeyman list ?! boston globe  no lnx 719 In an astonishing turn, George Soros and Charles Koch team up to end US 'forever war' policy By Stephen KinzerUpdated June 30, 2019, 5:01 a.m.George Soros (left) and Charles Koch are teaming up on the effort. BESIDES BEING BILLIONAIRES and spending much of their fortunes to promote pet causes, the leftist financier George Soros and the right-wing Koch brothers have little in common. They could be seen as polar opposites. Soros is an old-fashioned New Deal liberal. The Koch brothers are fire-breathing right-wingers who dream of cutting taxes and dismantling government.

Now they have found something to agree on: the United States must end its "forever war" and adopt an entirely new foreign policy. In one of the most remarkable partnerships in modern American political history, Soros and Charles Koch, the more active of the two brothers, are joining to finance a new foreign-policy think tank in Washington. It will promote an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing. This is a radical notion in Washington, where every major think tank promotes some variant of neocon militarism or liberal interventionism. Soros and Koch are uniting to revive the fading vision of a peaceable United States. The street cred they bring from both ends of the political spectrum - along with the money they are providing - will make this new think tank an off-pitch voice for statesmanship amid a Washington chorus that promotes brinksmanship. "This is big," said Trita Parsi, former president of the National Iranian American Council and a co-founder of the new think tank. "It shows how important ending endless war is if they're willing to put aside their differences and get together on this project. We are going to challenge the basis of American foreign policy in a way that has not been done in at least the last quarter-century."

Since peaceful foreign policy was a founding principle of the United States, it's appropriate that the name of this think tank harken back to history. It will be called the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who in a seminal speech on Independence Day in 1821 declared that the United States "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." The Quincy Institute will promote a foreign policy based on that live-and-let-live principle. The institute plans to open its doors in September and hold an official inauguration later in the autumn. Its founding donors - Soros's Open Society Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation - have each contributed half a million dollars to fund its takeoff. A handful of individual donors have joined to add another $800,000. By next year the institute hopes to have a $3.5 million budget and a staff of policy experts who will churn out material for use in Congress and in public debates. Hiring is underway. Among Parsi's co-founders are several well-known critics of American foreign policy, including Suzanne DiMaggio, who has spent decades promoting negotiated alternatives to conflict with China, Iran, and North Korea; the historian and essayist Stephen Wertheim; and the anti-militarist author and retired Army colonel Andrew Bacevich. ...

==

CMD Fox News' Tucker Carlson is under fire this week for racist, sexist, and homophobic comments he made while chatting on "Bubba the Love Sponge" a shock jock radio show between 2006-2011.

Groups are scrutinizing Fox's advertisers and demanding that they drop the show.But Carlson also publishes The Daily Caller, a controversial online media outlet with ties to white nationalists that has infamously peddled everything from climate denial and anti-Islamic tropes to false prostitution charges and violence against protesters.Carlson's moonlighting as an extremist at The Daily Caller is heavily bankrolled by - you guessed it - the Koch brothers. An investigation by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) finds that the Charles Koch Foundation has poured more than $2.7 million into the Daily Caller's non-profit "charity" since 2012, which generates the lion's share of the "news" that the Caller publishes.Indeed, in 2016, Koch cash accounted for 83 percent of the The Daily Caller News Foundation's $1.1 million in revenues.Carlson Under FireAs if catering to white supremacists was not bad enough, Media Matters published an inventory of hateful comments made by Carlson as a guest on the show between 2006-2011.

The radio host discusses Warren Jeffs, the religious leader who was investigated in 2007 for marrying off underage girls to older men and was eventually jailed for sexual assault of minors in 2011. When the radio host condemned Jeffs for being an "accessory to the rape of children," Carlson said "whatever the hell that means," and going on to suggest that forcible underage marriage is not as serious as forcible child rape. Listen to the tape here.In other interviews, Carlson called Iraqis "semi-literate primitive monkeys," who "don't use toilet paper or forks." They should just "shut the fuck up and obey." Carlson spoke about his desire for a presidential candidate to blame the "lunatic Muslims who are behaving like animals." That candidate would be "elected king" if they vowed to "kill as many of them as [they] can." Carlson also said Afghanistan is "never going to be a civilized country because the people aren't civilized." Listen to the tape here.The release of the older audio tapes gives "context and insight" on his nightly programming today, said Media Matters President Angelo Carusone on MSNBC.So far, Carlson has failed to apologize. As Fox News scrambles to control the damage, at least three advertisers - Allergan, letgo, and GreatCall - have had enough.But with the focus on advertisers, it's important to remember who else bankrolls Carlson's mini media empire.The Koch Caller?The Kochs have long underwritten The Daily Caller. Previously, CMD reported that the Kochs gave $805,512 to The Daily Caller News Foundation between 2012 and 2015, predominantly from the Charles G. Koch Foundation.

Since then, the numbers have continued to grow.The Koch foundation gave another $946,000 in 2016 and $960,000 in 2017, the last year publicly available - for a total of $2.7 million.In 2017, CMD analyzed emails sent by the Trump campaign to The Daily Caller subscribers and estimated that the outlet also received at least $150,000 from the Trump campaign in the months right before the November election, based on the fee charged for mailings to its list. The funding was never disclosed by Carlson or The Daily Caller as they reported on the Trump campaign.In addition, CMD also examined the relationship between the non-profit and for-profit arms of Tucker Carlson's operation. The mechanics of how they operate together raise serious concerns about whether Carlson's tax-free nonprofit is operating primarily for the private benefit of his for-profit media outlet, which would be a violation of tax law.CMD's story was picked up by numerous media outlets including the Washington Post, which interviewed tax experts on the legality of the scheme."It really does look like the reason for the existence of this 501(c)(3) organization is to provide benefits to the for-profit company, and that should be a private benefit that is not acceptable," Linda Sugin, a law professor at Fordham University, told the Post and other media outlets. "You can't have money going into the foundation being used for purposes that are really to support the for-profit organization."

---

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/03/12/trump-taps-climate-denier-to-lead-a-secret-white-house-climate-paneldavid aEmeritus Professor of Physics at Princeton University and well-known climate science denier William Happer will lead the Presidential Committee on Climate Security, the Washington Post has reported. Happer, a National Security Council senior director since last September, and his panel will "assess whether climate change poses a national security threat," according to documents obtained by the Washington Post.Happer is a well-regarded researcher in the field of atomic physics and adaptive optics, but has no formal training in climate science.

Happer's name is notorious among climate scientists and environmentalists for his staunch denial of climate change and the science supporting it.Last Thursday, the leaders of four U.S. House Committees sent a letter to Trump protesting the move, saying:We are deeply concerned about recent reports that the National Security Council (NSC) is planning to assemble a secret panel, led by a discredited climate change denier, to undermine the overwhelming scientific consensus on the nature and threats of climate change, including to the national security of the United States.The panel will not operate under the standard rules for Federal Advisory Committees, which require open meetings, transparency and public involvement. If the panel meets in secret, its conclusions will not be open to peer review or criticism, hallmarks of science.Trump, who has pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord, rolled back the Clean Power Plan, revived plans for Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, and deregulated the fossil fuel industry, has yet to respond to the congressional letter.Happer's "CO2 Coalition" Well-Funded by the Far RightBefore joining Trump, Happer served as president of a group called the CO2 Coalition.After a few years of flatlining, global carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels jumped to an all time high in 2018, but that is not a problem for the CO2 Coalition.CO2 Coalition describes its mission as "educating thought leaders, policy makers, and the public about the important contribution made by carbon dioxide to our lives and the economy."

In a section on its website dubbed, "CO2 Fundamentals," CO2 Coalition says, "The debate about global warming and climate change has shifted from genuine scientific exploration to a campaign demonizing CO2."CO2 Coalition has received $100,000 from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in 2016 and 2017, according to IRS filings examined by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). In an internal Bradley Foundation grant proposal record for CO2 Coalition dated 6/14/2016, Bradley staff writes, "Through strategic public discourse techniques, it will use science to counter the campaign demonizing the use of fossil fuels - a campaign that has effectively replaced scientific inquiry in the climate change debate."Bradley internal documents show that it is a major funder of the web of climate change denying organizations and that it "has made significant grants to support energy policy think tanks, attack-dog groups that target environmentalists, and efforts to discredit climate science," CMD found.An internal spreadsheet from Bradley shows a matching grant of $130,000 ($132,000 on its 2016 IRS Form) from Scaife Foundation for CO2 Coalition. The Scaife Foundation funds many organizations that dispute the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change including: Heartland Institute, Hoover Institution, Heritage Foundation, Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Atlas Economic Research Foundation. Scaife Foundation gave another $135,000 to CO2 Coalition in 2017, its IRS filing shows.

The Mercer Family Foundation led by Trump supporter Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, is the top supporter of CO2 Coalition with $320,000 in donations in 2016 and 2017 IRS filings show. A Huffington Post reportlate last year detailed more than $4 million from the foundation in grants to climate skeptics in 2017.Charles Koch, billionaire owner of one of America's biggest polluters Koch Industries, has also given to CO2 Coalition but an examination of IRS filings raises some questions. Charles Koch Foundation (CKF) details $32,409 to CO2 Coalition in 2016 and 2017 and Charles Koch Institute (CKI) $10,000 in 2017 on their individual IRS filings, but CO2 Coalition's detail no contributions from CKF and $46,409 from CKI in 2016 and 2017.Other major contributors to Happer's climate science denial outfit include many of the major right-wing funders:$125,000 from Searle Freedom Trust (2016-2017)$125,000 from Thomas W. Smith Foundation (2016-2017)$50,000 from Achelis and Bodman Foundations (2016)$40,000 from the Randolph Foundation (2017)

***==

http://documentedinvestigations.org/2018/07/12/janus-decision-rooted-koch-wishlist/With last month's monumental Janus decision by the Supreme Court, the Koch family won a major victory in their multi-generational attack on unions.The ruling spreads to the entire public sector one of the laws the Koch fortune first helped push through in Kansas 60 years ago: "right-to-work." And in doing so it enshrines the union-busting agenda their fossil fuel money has helped advance for decades.(This story was first published by In These Times.)Through a single vote, the Court's 5-4 Janus decision reverses decades of legal precedent that had obstructed part of the Koch's pro-corporate agenda.

That vote was secured with the Kochs' help in bankrolling efforts that include: helping to maintain a GOP Senate majority; helping the Senate block President Obama from filling the February 2016 Supreme Court vacancy; and helping to win the confirmation of right-wing corporate activist Neil Gorsuch.Janus helps cement the nation's highest court as the Koch Court, and Charles Koch wants to keep it that way.As Documented first detailed in partnership with the Intercept, for months the Kochs had been investing heavily in anticipation of Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement from the Court, which was announced on June 27, the same day as Janus. Earlier this year, the Koch group "Americans for Prosperity" (AFP) hired Sarah Field from the Koch-funded Federalist Society to spearhead its campaign to extend the Koch hold on the Court for perhaps a generation or more.Despite claims by AFP that helping to seat Gorsuch was their "first" foray into Supreme Court nominations, the Koch effort to influence who becomes a judge and how they interpret the law goes back much further.In fact, the Kochs have been investing in reshaping the law to suit their personal agenda for decades. For example, the Koch group Citizens for a Sound Economy, AFP's predecessor, backed Clarence Thomas' controversial confirmation to the Court more than 25 years ago.

The Kochs' long-term agenda to remake the United States in their image is a multi-pronged effort that includes changing both the law and who makes or interprets the laws, including the anti-union Janus decision.THE SEEDS OF JANUSThe effort to roll back union rights actually began almost a century ago, as wealthy industrialists objected to the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, known as the Wagner Act, which enshrined the right to collective bargaining in the United States.Many tycoons of the time, like Alfred Sloan, head of General Motors, opposed those rights along with other business reforms of FDR's New Deal.Fred Koch, co-founder of the corporation that later became Koch Industries, harshly criticized American workers under New Deal policies in 1938. He extolled the economic policies of Emperor Hirohito and fascists Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini:Although nobody agrees with me, I am of the opinion that the only sound countries in the world are Germany, Italy, and Japan, simply because they are all working and working hard… The laboring people in those countries are proportionately much better off than they are any place else in the world. When you contrast the state of mind of Germany today with what it was in 1925 you begin to think that perhaps this course of idleness, feeding at the public trough, dependence on government, etc., with which we are afflicted is not permanent and can be overcome.Only recently, through the investigative work of Jane Mayer, has the public learned that the Koch fortune was actually built in part on directly aiding Hitler by building the oil-cracking factory that became "a key component in the Nazi war machine." As Mayer noted in her 2016 book Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, that factory refined high-octane fuel needed for the Luftwaffe, which targeted, terrorized, and killed many thousands of innocent civilians. Fred Koch's praise of Germany came after Hitler's air bombers helped murder 136 men, women, and children in Guernica in the Basque region, a tragedy made famous by the mural painted by Pablo Picasso.

Meanwhile, industrialists like Sloan pursued efforts to undo New Deal reforms. In 1947, Congress amended the Wagner Act with the Taft-Hartley Act. It gave states the power to pass "right-to-work" laws that undermined collective bargaining by not requiring workers who benefit from bargained rights to pay dues to the unions that secured and enforced them.HOW THE KOCHS FERTILIZED "RIGHT-TO-WORK"As Mayer noted:[Fred Koch] was an early and active member of the Wichita-based DeMille Foundation for Political Freedom, an anti-labor group [founded in 1945] that was a forerunner of the National Right to Work Defense Foundation.

In a revealing private letter, one of its staff members explained the group's 'Astroturf' strategy. In reality, he said, big-business industrialists would run the group, serving as its 'anonymous quarterbacks,' and 'call the turns.' But he said they needed to sell the 'yarn' that the group was 'composed of housewives, farmers, small businessmen, professional people, wage earners-not big business industrialists.' Otherwise, he admitted, the movement was 'almost certainly doomed to failure.'By 1954, an engineer from Wichita, Kan., Reed Larson, took a leave from his job at the Coleman Company, to launch Kansans-for-the-Right-to-Work. The following year, former Rep. Fred Hartley, Jr., (R-N.J.) co-founded the National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC). By 1958, the NRTWC was targeting six states to adopt right-to-work laws but it failed in every place, except Kansas."Fred [Koch] co-led a referendum drive to alter the state constitution in order to make it harder for unions to take root in Kansas," Duke University Professor Nancy MacLean noted.

On Nov. 9, 1958, the New York Times reported that right-to-work won in Kansas because anti-union views had taken hold, noting:More campaign efforts and more money were expended on the emotion-provoking issue than on the campaigns of all Republican and Democratic state and Congressional candidates combined. … For the last 10 days or so before Election Day an organization called Kansans-for-the-Right-to-Work flooded newspapers, television channels and other advertising media with appeals to 'vote yes.' These by far outnumbered the 'vote no' advertisements of unions opposing the amending.A month later, Fred Koch joined Robert Welch and ten other men in Indianapolis to found the extreme rightwing group dubbed the "John Birch Society" (JBS).As the Washington Post noted in its 1961 profile of JBS:At the top of the Society's structure in Wichita are several very wealthy industrialists. Oil engineer Fred Koch is president of the Rock Island Oil and Refining Co. A millionaire several times over, he is on the Society's national council. … Wichita is the John Birch Society's center of strength in Kansas, and one of its greatest in the country. … The leadership of the Birch Society overlaps heavily with the leadership of the organizations that successfully campaigned in 1958 for a right to work amendment to the State's Constitution.

As detailed by Group Research Inc. in its 1962 history of JBS, Koch worked with both NRTWC and the Christian Crusade in arguing against union dues like those at issue in the Janus case.A History of HostilityIn 1959, Fred Koch joined the Executive Committee to plan the JBS strategy to push back against what it viewed as communism in nearly every American institution.In 1960, Koch published his polemic "A Business Man Looks at Communism" and distributed it to JBS chapters across the country. That pamphlet makes a variety of hysterical claims against unions, including:Labor Unions have long been a Communist goal. How far they have been penetrated by Communists I have no idea, but it must be very far indeed, judging the hatred andvenom poured out in some labor papers….

Koch also accused the U.S. Supreme Court under former Gov. Earl Warren (R-CA) of issuing pro-Communist decisions, the universities of having thousands of Communist professors, the United Nations of being subversive, and former GOP President Dwight Eisenhower of being soft on Communism.Similar sentiments were expressed in numerous other publications the JBS also pushed. The organization pitched a screed against the union workers who organized against Kohler fixtures in Wisconsin. It pushed attacks on the UAW's Walter Reuther, who was posthumously awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom.It published and peddled right-wing writer Rosalie Gordon's attack on the U.S. Supreme Court for decisions enforcing collective bargaining rights as protecting the "labor-union monopoly," along with what she called the "plague" of desegregation caused by Brown v. Board of Education.The JBS also pushed reprints of tomes by Ludwig von Mises attacking unions as illegitimate intervenors in the "free market," artificial inflators of wages for workers, and thieves of the profits of tycoons. It promoted F.A. Hayek's vilification of government regulation of corporations as leading to fascism and Hilaire du Berrier's conspiracy theories that American labor unions were supposedly using union dues to finance communist terrorist violence abroad.

Fred Koch's son Charles urged visitors to the John Birch Society bookstore in Wichita to read copies of JBS pamphlets, including those by anti-labor writers from the Austrian School of Economics, like Mises.Indeed, as the present author first documented for the Center for Media and Democracy, Charles Koch became active in JBS after returning home to Wichita to help with the family business. Charles was a leader and fundraiser for JBS, including underwriting its publications and national radio network, while it attacked collective bargaining and leaders of the civil rights movement such as the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks.CHARLES KOCH IN ACTIONThough he left JBS in 1968, Charles Koch never abandoned its core anti-union agenda and the lessons of his father's commitment to right-to-work. He did try to shed some of the rhetoric around communist conspiracies, though of late he was painted by Koch political strategist Richard Fink as a martyr against "collectivism," in audio obtained by the Undercurrent, which also included outlandish claims linking fascism and the minimum wage.It was Charles Koch's investment in lifting up the work of Mises and Hayek, who made similar claims, that helped preserve and extend their legacy. As Stephen Moore noted in a 2006 profile on Charles for the Wall Street Journal:The authors who have had the most profound influence on his own political philosophy include F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Joseph Schumpeter, Julian Simon, Paul Johnson and Charles Murray. Mr. Koch says that he experienced an intellectual epiphany in the early 1960s, when he attended a conference on free-market capitalism hosted by the late, great Leonard Reed.

Charles brought Mises to Wichita to speak and deployed F.A. "Baldy" Harper's Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) to promote Mises and his protégé Hayek. As lauded by Reed's Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), Hayek argued that unions violated the very idea of the "rule of law" and that the Wagner Act was central to that violation, a sentiment he promoted in numerous writings.Charles Koch is deeply devoted to an alternative universe in which collective bargaining undermines the rule of law and is not a major cause of increased wages.Moore noted in his interview:As we continue, Mr. Koch becomes increasingly animated. He discusses another seminal work in his collection, F.A. Harper's 1957 Why Wages Rise. The book demonstrates 'that wages rise not because of unions or government action, but because of marginal productivity gains - people get more money when they produce more value for other people.' Then he confides, "I was so thrilled by this revelation that I had what Maslow called a 'peak experience.''"Koch has also supported the NRTWC, which "sought to put a new face on the anti-union campaign by building its rhetoric on the arguments of Hayek, Mises, and others with a 'respectable' pedigree." The NRTWC argues that:Compulsory unionism itself violates the dignity of the individual worker, regardless of how the forced union tribute is spent.

As the late Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich A. von Hayek wrote: "[T]he coercion which unions have been permitted to exercise … is primarily the coercion of fellow workers.Deep Devotion and InvestmentHayek and Mises are not the only two virulently anti-union economists Charles Koch backed. As Nancy MacLean documented in Democracy in Chains, one of the key architects of the Koch agenda domestically and internationally, James Buchanan, also railed against the so-called "union monopolies" for distorting "free market" wages.And, as UnKoch My Campus has detailed, Koch money has funded scores of academics to push their agenda at universities, buying control over content and personnel with restrictive dictates attached to their donations.Many of the rightwing groups Charles Koch is known to have made a major investment in since the 1970s have pushed right-to-work or attacked collective bargaining rights.

These include Reason magazine, the Cato Institute, Americans for Prosperity, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the State Policy Network and many more.During David Koch's 1980 bid to become vice president, running on the ticket of Libertarian Ed Clark-which was pushed by Charles and fueled with Koch cash-the campaign platform included making right-to-work the law of the land:[W]e urge repeal of the National Labor Relations Act, and all state Right to Work Laws, which prohibit employers from making voluntary contracts with unions. We oppose all government back-to-work orders as imposing a form of forced labor.That is, there would be no need for state right-to-work laws if there were no NLRA that protects collective bargaining rights. As a result, right-to-work would be effectively nationalized at the determination of the employer.After badly losing that election, the Kochs have invested heavily in changing the culture-and courts of America-to make their anti-union vision a reality.Right-to-work is part of that vision.MILLIONS SPENTA leak of the Kochs' summer retreat in 2010 revealed that they featured NRTWC leaders at their gathering of billionaires to plot plans for that year's midterm elections.In 2012, before most of America even knew that the Kochs had branded their billionaire conclave as "Freedom Partners," that group injected $1 million directly into the NRTWC among the more than $200 million of its known spending that cycle.In 2016, they focused much of their known political spending on keeping a GOP majority in the Senate, and they influenced the make-up of the U.S. Supreme Court by helping to block Judge Merrick Garland's confirmation.For the 2018 election, they've pledged to spend more than $400 million through the Seminar Network, the latest rebranding of their network of tycoons.

To be clear, the Koch family fortune is not the only one that has been expended pushing right-to-work laws to try to weaken the power of ordinary people to negotiate through unions. A major funder of right-to-work effort has been the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, along with Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, which Mother Jones has dubbed "the ATM" of the right wing.Collective bargaining has provided women with greater economic opportunities and job security. Right-to-work laws also have a disproportionate impact on people of color, who are union members at a higher rate than whites. Black women will likely be the group most adversely affected by the Janus case. Notably, workers in right-to-work states also have lower wages than in states that have rejected this agenda.UNDERMINING PROGRESSIVES TOOThe spread of right to work through Janus also will affect our elections.As In These Times has documented with the Center for Media and Democracy, the national push for right-to-work is designed to undermine the power of unions and to "defang and defund" them as a way to weaken the chances for progressives to win in politics and policy.The Koch investment in making right-to-work a national reality represents one of the longest and deepest commitments to this agenda, aside from NRTWC itself.And this year marks the 60th anniversary of Fred Koch's victory of making right-to-work legally binding in Kansas.Now, six decades later, Charles Koch has helped make his father's wish binding on the rest of America through helping to make the Janus ruling a reality. Lisa Graves

---

2016 Charles Koch - Estimated worth: $48.3 billion. Contributions (with wife Elizabeth Buzzi) since 1989: $13.1 millionThe chairman and CEO of the sprawling Koch Industries conglomerate and his wife donated $6.9 million last cycle, the bulk of which went to Freedom Partners Action Fund, a hub in their vast political money machine. The super PAC spent $28.9 million against Democrats such as Senate candidates Ted Strickland, Catherine Cortez Masto and Katie McGinty. Koch also donated directly to a number of lawmakers, including now-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).Of course, these totals, and those for the everyone else we've listed, don't include any dark money contributions - funds given to organizations that can be engaged in politics but don't have to disclose their donors. In Koch's case, that sum may be considerable.

---

http://www.alternet.org/education/right-wing-billionaires-are-funding-cynical-plot-destroy-dissent-and-protest-colleges As s far-right speakers face loud student opposition at their university speaking gigs, conservative lawmakers in several states are introducing legislation that cracks down on protesters. As uncovered by UnKoch My Campus' Ralph Wilson, numerous states have borrowed their so-called "campus free speech" bills from the rightwing Goldwater Institute, which is funded by conservative plutocrats including Charles Koch and the Mercer family.The intent of these bills isn't to protect student speech; it's actually to suppress it in favor of guest speakers who, at times, support white nationalism, LGBTQ discrimination and other hateful worldviews. By funding the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute, wealthy conservatives are enabling the promotion of hate speech while stifling student dissent. Whether or not Koch, for example, agrees with the hate speech he indirectly sponsors, he certainly benefits from a more friendly academic environment for far-right ideologues who often deny climate change and praise his extreme brand of tax- and regulation-free capitalism.The Goldwater Institute's model bill allegedly ensures "the fullest degree of…free expression," but it explicitly states that "protests and demonstrations that infringe upon the rights of others to engage in or listen to expressive activity shall not be permitted and shall be subject to sanction."It goes on to say, "Any student who has twice been found responsible for infringing the expressive rights of others will be suspended for a minimum of one year, or expelled."Under this code, imagine that a student protests a climate change denier and gets a brief suspension.

Then the College Republicans group brings in a full-on white nationalist. Will this student do what she thinks is right and protest a racist who's given a platform at a respected university, or stay home because she's risking expulsion? This campus "free speech" legislation is essentially an attack on student speech and an elevation of ultra-conservative ideas that many people in university communities think have no place in American society."These laws would create a chilling effect on students who reject the idea that white supremacists or climate deniers are simply representing an 'opposing viewpoint' that should be tolerated, and who are rightfully relying on their first amendment freedoms to stop the rise of fascism and prevent global climate catastrophe," Wilson, UnKoch's senior researcher, told AlterNet. The group has been conducting research into Charles Koch's considerable ideological donations to higher education, most of which goes toward free-market programs.Charles Koch Foundation representatives say that conservative views are underrepresented in higher education, and the foundation's massive university donations-which fund free-market academic centers, professorships, grad students and lecture series-are necessary for academic freedom.

This view is shared by other conservative billionaires and higher ed donors including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who recently said to the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference, "The education establishment [tells you] what to think…the real threat is silencing the First Amendment rights of people with whom you disagree."What the Kochs and their allies really want, by amplifying the voices of far-right professors and guest speakers, is to steer society towards a tax- and regulation-free plutocracy. Charles and David Koch, who together are worth nearly $97 billion, have been working toward this goal for over 40 years.In 2014, Virginia passed the nation's first law banning so-called "free speech zones," which restrict protected speech to designated areas often far away from events that students want to protest. The following year, Missouri enacted a Campus Free Expression Act forbidding "free speech zones" without imposing punitive measures.But while more recent legislation bans free speech zones as well, it also restricts student free speech in scenarios where, lawmakers claim, free speech is protected.The protest crackdownLegislators in some states including Illinois and Tennessee have introduced bills in 2017 that explicitly mention sanctions on student protesters. Illinois' bill, proposed by two Republicans, lifts this language, and additional passages, nearly verbatim from the Goldwater model. Also sponsored by Republicans, the bill in Tennessee-nicknamed the "Milo Bill" after an event at the University of California at Berkeley featuring the racist "alt-right" icon Milo Yiannopolous was canceled due to protests-directs universities to enact free speech policies that include "sanctions for anyone under the jurisdiction of the institution who interferes with the free expression of others," and it gives faculty "the right to regulate class speech."In North Carolina, Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest intends to work with legislators on a Restore Campus Free Speech Act, which would create "a discipline policy that would punish students who shout down visiting speakers or deprive others of their right to free expression, a tactic commonly known as the 'hecklers' veto.'"

Last year, Forest floated a measure calling on the University of North Carolina's board of governors to create a system-wide policy that would impose harsh penalties, including expulsion, on students, staff and faculty members who disrupt classes, public meetings or events. The Koch-funded Generation Opportunity lauded the effort at the time. Forest has said that yelling at a guest speaker "has never been free speech," and he's called campus protest methods "terrorist tactics." No one introduced a free speech bill that year.Other proposed laws, like North Dakota's, which was introduced by six Republicans, omit sanctions provisions but state that a university may restrict student speech if it blocks entrances to buildings, obstructs traffic or interferes with events. Much of the North Dakota bill comes directly from the text of the Goldwater model legislation.

A large group of most Republican legislators in Virginia has a new bill in play that includes much of the Goldwater language but stays away from restrictions on students.Additional campus free speech bills have been introduced this year in Colorado (sponsored by two Republicans and one Democrat) and Utah (sponsored by 14 Republican state representatives). Florida could be next. Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin has a "free speech" provision in his proposed budget.Big money driving campus 'free speech' effortsOne of the model bill's authors, Stanley Kurtz, is a longtime fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, which applies "the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy," according to its website. The center has received millions of dollars in donations from the foundations of the conservative Bradley, Scaife, Olin and Earhart families, as well as hundreds of thousands from two vehicles for wealthy right-wing donors, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund.Billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch are responsible for more than $9 million in contributions to the two groups from 2006 to 2015, according to the website Conservative Transparency and additional research by this author. Much of the $6.3 million that went to Donors Trust came in 2015.

A now-defunct Koch nonprofit, the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, donated $190,000 to the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and the Charles Koch Foundation has given over $9,000.The Goldwater Institute's James Manley, senior attorney, and Jonathan Butcher, education director, also co-authored the "campus free speech" model legislation. The institute took in nearly $2.5 million from Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund from 2002-2015, according Conservative Transparency and additional research. The Charles Koch Foundation has pitched in $75,000. Manley formerly worked at the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the two Donors funds. Butcher was a research assistant at the heavily Koch-funded Heritage Foundation from 2002 to 2006.Says Wilson, "These bills take Koch's academic presence to the next level, creating protected space to reveal the white supremacist roots of Koch's free market crusade, likeKoch's close friend and white nationalist Charles Murray who has taken to campuses to espouse the genetic superiority of white males."Another Koch-funded think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, reportedly has student groups at nearly 80 colleges and universities. These groups bring in AEI fellows like the eugenicist Murray to speak on their campuses.

Recently, Murray attempted to give a lecture at Middlebury College in Vermont but was stymied by vociferous protests. He had to end his speech early, and he and a liberal professor were attacked on their way out.Students at UC Berkeley and area residents protested Yiannopoulos, whom the College Republicans had invited to speak. The protests led to fires, vandalism, and reportedly, fights. Until recently, Yiannopoulos was an editor at Breitbart News, known as the online "platform of the alt-right," which happens to be funded by Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, the far-right mega-donors who are major Donald Trump backers and whose family foundation has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Goldwater Institute. The younger Mercer was even a member of Trump's transition team. Violence against a speaker, a professor or an onlooker is certainly unacceptable. So is inviting a white supremacist to speak at an institution of higher learning, and so is preventing students and faculty from protesting such a speaker. Plenty of right-wing billionaires likely don't agree with white nationalist ideas, and by funding these so-called campus free speech bills they're trying to advance free-market principles. But regardless of motivation, this campus "free speech" movement is spreading the hate of white nationalism, the racist "alt-right," Islamophobia and homophobia-not to mention climate change denial and economic policies that benefit only the very wealthy-on campuses filled with young students. Conservative, corporate millionaires and billionaires are at fault.

---

Charles Koch gave $90 million to influence higher ed in the Southhttp://www.southernstudies.org/2015/12/charles-koch-gave-90-million-to-influence-higher-e.htmlLast month, the provost of Western Carolina University in North Carolina asked the public school's chancellor to approve an academic center funded by the Charles Koch Foundation, a private nonprofit run by the billionaire chairman, CEO, and co-owner of the Koch Industries oil and chemical corporation. The foundation funds academic programs, professorships, scholarships, conferences, lecture series and economics centers, all for the purpose of promoting the free-market agenda embraced by Koch and his brother David.The chancellor has come out in support, and on Dec. 4 the school's trustees will vote on the fate of the Center for the Study of Free Enterprise, which would launch with $2 million from the Charles Koch Foundation over five years and $1.4 million from the university.The proposed agreement has come under fire from the school's faculty senate, which voted 21-3 to oppose the center's creation. The group raised concerns about academic freedom, cost, reputation, and the lack of peer review. "The Charles Koch Foundation has previously set forth explicit expectations in line with their political views in exchange for monetary gifts to universities," the faculty senate said in a statement, "thereby constraining academic freedom by influencing and interfering with the development of new knowledge."

The proposed center at WCU is part of a long campaign by Koch to influence higher education. The Charles Koch Foundation along with three other groups led by Koch gave nearly $108 million to 366 colleges and universities from 2005 to 2014, finds an Institute for Southern Studies investigation, building on research by Greenpeace. The other groups are the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation, the Claude R. Lambe Foundation, and the Charles Koch Institute. (For more about these groups, see "The Koch-led charities funding higher education" at the end of this story.) Eighty-five percent of the donations - or $91 million - went to 147 Southern colleges and universities.The bulk of the money given by the four nonprofits - $77.7 million - went to George Mason University, a public school in Fairfax, Virginia. Much of that went to the school's Mercatus Center and Institute for Humane Studies, nonprofits housed at the university that focus on teaching and promoting free-market economics. But even when the GMU donations are excluded from the total giving, Southern schools received 45 percent of the remaining contributions.Besides GMU, the other schools that received the most money from the Koch foundations are all in the South:

Florida State University at $2.3 million, West Virginia University at $1.3 million, Clemson University of South Carolina at $1.3 million, and Troy University of Alabama at $1.1 million...Looking at Koch contributions to schools by state, Virginia got the lion's share at $78.5 million followed by Florida at $3.3 million, the Kochs' home state of Kansas at $2.4 million, Texas at $1.9 million, and South Carolina at $1.7 million. Of the top 10 states for Koch higher ed contributions, six are in the South, with Alabama and West Virginia coming in at sixth and eighth, respectively.The four Koch-connected groups' donations to higher education have risen since 2005, when they gave $2.3 million to colleges and universities. The most recent tax return, posted to the foundation's website last month shows that the Charles Koch Foundation donated $23.6 million in 2014, nearly double the $12.4 million that it and the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation together donated in 2012. The latter foundation's 2014 tax return is not yet available.?A Southern focusWhy would so much of Charles Koch's contributions to higher education be going to schools in the South?The Charles Koch Foundation did not respond to requests for comment. But Ralph Wilson, a doctoral candidate at Florida State University who co-founded the student activist group FSU Progress Coalition and is active with UnKoch My Campus, a student group dedicated to uncovering the Kochs' influence on U.S. universities, thinks the Southern focus has to do with the brothers' political clout in the conservative region.Koch Industries has contributed heavily to candidates for state office in the South, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Since 1994, the company, its political action committee, and its lobbying arm have invested the most money in state candidates, other political action committees, and outside political groups in Texas ($1.5 million), with Virginia in third ($670,000), Georgia in fifth ($275,000), and Florida in seventh ($200,000).State politicians in turn are often in charge of appointing public university systems' boards of governors and trustees who appoint top administrators, who then can influence the creation of academic centers, the donations a school accepts, and hiring decisions. Some politicians even become top university officers themselves.Take for example Florida State, where a contentious search for the university president took place last year. One candidate for the job was businessman John Thrasher, then a Republican state senator in Florida and chair of the re-election campaign of Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who received significant support from the Kochs.

Thrasher's own campaign got $3,000 from Koch Industries over three election cycles, and in 1998 he was named legislator of the year by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a pro-business advocacy group that receives funding from Koch foundations.Thrasher, who twice violated ethics laws as a state representative and voted to cut Florida's higher education budget, was up against three candidates who many thought were better qualified for the university presidency. But the Scott-appointed chair of the school's board of trustees picked the presidential selection committee, which included many politicians, former politicians and lobbyists. Thrasher was chosen as president.In 2008, Florida State had entered into a $1.5 million funding deal with the Charles Koch Foundation that granted the foundation wide leverage in hiring decisions and imposed other requirements.

Public outcry led to a revised agreement, which drew fire from students, faculty, and alumni for infringing upon academic freedom.In Thrasher's final months in the Florida House, he supported a bill that weakened donor transparency requirements for state universities. And after Thrasher became FSU's president, the school removed the requirement for a formal gift agreement - a written document"outlining the program to be supported and the schedule of contributions" - for donations over $25,000."Thrasher, as a legislator and now as president, has enabled FSU's resistance to donor transparency," says Wilson. "He has personally perpetuated the university's misinformation about the Koch agreements as justification for refusing to meet with students and faculty, and maintained total silence regarding recent student and faculty concerns over the university's donor policy.

"A free-market strategyUniversity funding is part of a multi-pronged approach to social change that Charles Koch and his close ally Richard Fink devised decades ago.Fink, the Koch brothers' "grand strategist," is currently executive vice president of Koch Industries, president of the Charles Koch Foundation, and chair and CEO of Koch Companies Public Sector LLC, which coordinates Koch Industries' lobbying. Starting in the 1970s, Fink worked with Charles Koch to devise a three-part strategy of influence based on ideas from Austrian economist and free-market proponent Friedrich Hayek to spread their laissez-faire ideology as widely as possible.The first step in Fink's "Structure of Social Change" involved pouring millions of dollars into universities to produce what he called "intellectual raw materials" to support their political agenda. But these materials had to be packaged in a way that non-academics could understand, and that's where the second step in the strategy came in: Think tanks such as the libertarian Cato Institute, co-founded by Charles Koch and heavily funded by the Koch foundations, produce reports, policy proposals, and opinion pieces that turn academic work into political fodder.Next, what Fink calls "citizen activist" groups put the think tanks' ideas into action by advocating for the recommended policy changes.

The Koch network includes a vast array of such groups, including the "social welfare" nonprofit Americans for Prosperity, which David Koch founded with Fink and North Carolina political mega-donor Art Pope, and the closely linked nonprofit Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which bankrolled the beginnings of the Tea Party. AFP spends millions on federal, state and local elections, often buying attack adstargeting opponents of their favored candidates. The Kochs and their companies' political action committees also donate directly to the politicians they hope will usher their policy preferences into law.While the Kochs are prolific donors to higher education in the South, they are by no means alone. Their close ally Art Pope, for example, has given six- and sometimes seven-figure donations to mainly Southern universities, much of it going towards free-market programs. The foundation of the North Carolina-based bank BB&T has given at least 63 "Moral Foundation"grants to universities that require the schools to offer a course centered on "Atlas Shrugged" by libertarian favorite Ayn Rand.And not all of the big donors to higher education are conservatives:

For example, liberal financier George Soros and independent Michael Bloomberg have also donated heavily to universities, as Dave Levinthal of the Center for Public Integrity showed in his far-reaching investigation of the Koch Foundations' higher ed donations.The Kochs' giving, however, is more focused on a particular area - free-market economics - than most others' donations, and comes with more strings attached. The Charles Koch Foundation has in some cases proposed courses, sought to approve hiring decisions, and even asked for the names and email addresses of students in Koch-sponsored courses, as Levinthal documented.?As university budgets suffer in the wake of a prolonged economic recession and amidst cuts by conservative state legislatures, giving to higher ed by the Koch foundations could continue to rise. While deals like WCU's free enterprise center are often approved, the Kochs' politically polarizing image sometimes derails these efforts: Suffolk University just decided to sever tieswith its Koch-funded, conservative research institute; Brooklyn College reportedly rejected a multimillion-dollar gift from the Charles Koch Foundation last year; and the University of Daytonhas stopped accepting Koch funding.

Today the Kochs and their giving to higher education are under more scrutiny than ever. UnKoch My Campus, launched in 2013 by students and alumni of numerous schools and coordinated in part by Wilson and Greenpeace investigator Connor Gibson, has active campaigns opposing Koch money at several schools including FSU, George Mason, and Suffolk.Because of UnKoch's work, "students finally have the information necessary to distinguish an education that serves the student from a privatized education in service of a Kansas billionaire," says Gibson. "That couldn't be said five years ago."* * *The Koch-led charities funding higher educationCharles Koch is the chairman of the Charles Koch Foundation, which spends primarily on educational programs and had $528 million in net assets at the end of 2014. It also funds free-market think tanks and conservative journalism. Last year, Koch was the sole funder of the foundation, giving $168 million, but in 2014 a number of family trusts, including one in his name, supplied most of the revenue.

The Fred and Mary Koch Foundation, with over $30 million in assets after 2013, has Charles and David Koch on its board of directors and Charles Koch's wife, Elizabeth Koch, as its president. The foundation gives to universities, scholarship programs, and nonprofit organizations, including one that "teaches business and entrepreneurial education" in numerous high schools.The Claude R. Lambe Foundation, where Charles and Elizabeth Koch were directors, disbanded in 2013, but gave tens of thousands of dollars to universities in 2005 and 2009.The Charles Koch Institute, set up in 2011 as a 501c3 educational nonprofit organization, mainly funds its own educational programs and gives money to policy think tanks but gave tens of thousands of dollars to Indiana University, the University of North Carolina, and George Mason University from 2013 to 2014. Charles Koch is on the board of directors, and the institute had $290 million in assets at the end of last year.  By Alex Kotch on December 3, 2015 11:11 AM

---

http://www.alternet.org/environment/charles-koch-admits-climate-change-happening-then-denies-problemAs the nation warily watches every Republican presidential candidate kiss the ring of billionaire donor Charles Koch [3] for a shot at his network's $300,000,000 pool of presidential cash, Charles Koch did something unusual. Last week's USA Today interview with Charles Koch [4] noted his shifting opinion on what he calls climate change "hysteria:"For the record, Koch says this of climate change: "You can plausibly say that CO2 has contributed" to the planet's warming, but he sees "no evidence" to support "this theory that it's going to be catastrophic."Wait…Charles Koch just accepted that the planet is warming? Hold your applause.Clearly, Mr. Koch still denies that there's a problem - which means he's missing the entire point of discussing climate change.

But any movement from Charles on the 5 Stages of Climate Denial-from #1 down to #3 [5]-is a big deal. This is the same guy who has poured $80 million [6] into organizations that have misrepresented climate change science to the public and advocated against any viable solutions to the problem.Koch's Right-Hand-Man: "Charles is ahead of me on this."Last June, leaked [7] recordings surfaced [8] from Koch's regular meeting [9] of millionaires and billionaires who are coordinating $889 million in spending around the 2016 election. Charles's Koch top strategist Richard Fink indicated that we may see a shift in Koch's rhetoric on climate change. Fink, aka "Charles Koch's Brain [10]," told attending prospective donors what they wanted to hear: donate to us, and we'll fight the crazy commie hippies and their pesky science. From the Undercurrent [11]:"The environmental movement. Occupy Wall Street. These kids are searching for meaning. They're protesting the 1 percent. They are the 1 percent, but they're protesting the 1 percent. The environmental movement and climate change. It's not about climate change. I studied climate change for six years. I can't figure it out, quite frankly. Charles is ahead of me on this. I'm not a climatologist, but I'm not completely stupid. I can tell you I meet with people, particularly in California, that are convinced the world is going to burn up in you know, a year or two. They don't know the answer - they don't even know the question, because it's not about climate change. It's about a cause. It gives their life meaning."

For context, you should probably know that Fink told the room's billionaires that the minimum wage would lead to fascism, comparing today's low-income Americans to pre-Nazi Germany citizenry. Not exactly a room full of academics. And since one of the people that Mr. Fink 'meets with' was a scientist that he funded to study global temperature data, you have to wonder how much experience Rich Fink has with willful ignorance.When Charles Koch Accidentally Proved Global WarmingCharles Koch cannot deny is that he's seen the global temperature record data. In 2011, through the Charles Koch Foundation (CKF), CKF president Richard Fink funded a high-profile study on global surface temperature data.

This dataset, which was an unnecessarily redundant [12] reproduction of several other similar studies, was constructed by a scientist who at the time was a climate change denier. BEST data compared with previous reconstructions of global surface temperature data.Dr. Richard Muller's Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study (BEST) [13] made headlines when he announced his acceptance of what climate scientists had already been saying for over 15 years-yes, people are responsible for unnatural climate variability that scientists have documented-and surprised the country by becoming an advocate [14] for solutions to global warming.This put Mr. Koch in an awkward spot. Koch's $150,000 grant to Dr. Muller [15] made him the project's top single donor, and Muller was a celebrated skeptic before his dramatic change-of-heart.Add to that Mr. Koch's background in science-a chemical engineering degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For such an educated, celebrated albeit controversial high-society businessman, the refusal to acknowledge science that is understood by middle schoolers guaranteed to undermine the sensible reputation that Koch Industries has spent a lot of money [16] to put out there.But Charles gets no credit here. Dumping almost $80 million into organizations that have attacked the scientists who study climate change and interfered with virtually every proposed policy and regulation to solve global warming isn't being a science-savy CEO. It's being a denier, and especially in the context of a self-serving petrochemical billionaire, that's pretty offensive to the rest of us.We define climate change denial as "anyone who is obstructing, delaying or trying to derail policy steps that are in line with the scientific consensus that says we need to take rapid steps to decarbonize the economy [17]." Mr. Koch remains a staunch denier in that regard.The Koch brothers continue to finance campaigns to make Americans doubt the seriousness of global warming, increasingly hiding money [18] through nonprofits like DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund [19].

Why focus on Charles Koch and David Koch? Many large foundations associated with corporate fortunes are active in financing climate denial groups [18] - Anschutz, Bradley, Coors, DeVos, Dunn, Howard, Pope, Scaife, Searle, and Seid, to name a few. Unlike Koch, most of those fortunes did not come from owning a corporation like Koch Industries, historically rooted in fossil fuel operations. And none come as close as the Kochs in terms of decades-long focus on actively building a political influence network [20] and coordinating [9] other wealthy executives, corporations and families to dump amounts money into politics that not even the Koch brothers could afford.Check out Greenpeace.org for more research on the Koch brothers crusade against climate science [6]. Connor Gibson is a researcher for Greenpeace USA and a guest author for DeSmogBlog based in Washington, D.C.. He focuses on polluting industries, their front groups and PR operatives. He specializes in tracking those who professionally deny climate change science and obstruct policy solutions to global warming.

---

RS 9/14 But Charles was already falling under the sway of a charismatic radio personality named Robert LeFevre, founder of the Freedom School, a whites-only­ libertarian boot camp in the foothills above Colorado Springs, Colorado. LeFevre preached a form of anarchic capitalism in which the individual should be freed from almost all government power. Charles soon had to make a choice. While the Birchers supported the Vietnam War, his new guru was a pacifist who equated militarism with out-of-control state power. LeFevre's stark influence on Koch's thinking is crystallized in a manifesto Charles wrote for the Libertarian Review in the 1970s, recently unearthed by Schulman, titled "The Business Community: Resisting Regulation." Charles lays out principles that gird today's Tea Party movement. Referring to regulation as "totalitarian," the 41-year-old Charles claimed business leaders had been "hoodwinked" by the notion that regulation is "in the public interest." He advocated the "barest possible obedience" to regulation and implored, "Do not cooperate voluntarily, instead, resist whenever and to whatever extent you legally can in the name of justice."

---

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Charles_Koch  1 Koch Brothers Early History 1.1 Relationship to John Birch Society2 The Koch Fortune3 Koch Brothers Early Activism, 1960-1980 3.1 David Koch Runs for Vice President as Libertarian, 19803.2 Charles Koch Calls for the Development of a "Well Financed Cadre"4 Building the Koch Cadre, Non-Electoral Activity 4.1 Bankrolling American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)4.2 Funding Judicial Junkets4.3 Bankrolling the Tea Party5 Electoral Activity 5.1 "Triad" Campaign Finance Scheme Avoids Disclosure Laws, 19965.2

The Koch Donor Network5.3 Building a Post-Citizens United $400 Million Dark Money Web5.4 Koch Funded Dark Money Groups Investigated and Fined in California5.5 Involvement in Scott Walker Race and Recall Election in 20105.6 2012 Post-Election Audit5.7 Future Commitment to Politics6 News and Controversies 6.1 Opposition to Bailouts6.2

Opposition to Obama Administration6.3 "Mostly False" Claim that EPA Called Koch Industries a "Model"7 Affiliations8 Sourcewatch resources9 External resources10 Contact11 References Koch Brothers Early HistoryCharles Koch (b. 1935) and David Koch (b. 1940) are two of the four children of Fred Koch and Mary Koch. Fred Koch founded Wood River Oil and Refining Co. in 1940; it had been renamed Rock Island Oil & Refining Co. by 1961 and was renamed Koch Industries by Charles Koch in 1967.[5]

Fred Koch was also a founder and executive committee member of the far-right John Birch Society, known for opposing the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and communism.[6]The senior Koch's views are thought to have influenced the Koch brothers' pro-business, anti-union agenda. Lisa Graves noted that "The Kochs' mistrust of public education can be traced to their father, Fred, who declared that the National Education Association was a communist group and public-school books were filled with "communist propaganda," paranoia that extended to all unions, President Eisenhower and the "pro-communist" Supreme Court."[7] Echoing this anti-union fervor, David Koch has stated that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's attack on public unions was "critically important."[8]He also accused President Barack Obama of being "a hardcore socialist."[9]Relationship to John Birch SocietyFred Koch was a founding member of the John Birch Society. In the 1960s, Charles Koch opened a John Birch Society bookstore with Bob Love, a friend of his father.[10] At the time, the Society was campaigning against the civil rights movement, calling for the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren, who had ordered public school desegregation in Brown v. Board of Education, and accusing President John F. Kennedy of "treason" in ads shortly before his assassination. [6]

Charles and Love didn't resign from the Society until 1968. The split was reportedly due to disagreement's about the Society's support for the Vietnam War.[6]Charles shared his isolationist position with Robert LeFevre's all-white "Freedom School," which he funded and on whose board he sat. Charles had also encouraged his brother, David, to attend a Freedom School retreat, according toSons of Wichita.[10]The Koch FortuneCharles Koch took over his father's Rock Island Oil and Refinery Company, becoming president and chairman in 1967 and renaming it Koch Industries [6] Since then, the company's revenues grew from just over $100 million to over $115 billion in 2014. The Koch brothers' fortunes have also grown dramatically in that time, increasing from $375 million each in 1984 to some $17 billion each in 2008--and a staggering $41 billion each in 2014, just a few years after the 2008 economic crisis.In addition to successful investments and expansion of its resource extraction operations over the years, Koch Industries has engaged in commodity speculation and created new types of derivatives.[11]

The Nation has reported that Koch Industries was "among the largest traders (including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) speculating on the price of oil in the summer of 2008,"[12] afterwards also playing a prominent role in lobbying against regulation of the derivatives market, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.[13]Koch Industries has been involved in many investigations and indictments related to the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. A list of lawsuits involving Koch Industries can be accessed here: Legal Complaints Against Koch IndustriesKoch Brothers Early Activism, 1960-1980David Koch Runs for Vice President as Libertarian, 1980David Koch was the vice-presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party in 1980, running alongside presidential candidate Ed Clark. About the failed bid, the New York Times has written that "much of what occurred in that quixotic campaign shaped what the Kochs have become today - a formidable political and ideological force determined to remake American politics, driven by opposition to government power and hostility to restrictions on money in campaigns."[14]

David Koch's campaign was made possible by Buckley v. Valeo, a 1976 Supreme Court decision that loosened campaign finance laws. The decision permitted unlimited spending of a candidate's own money on his/her own campaign, as well as unlimited spending by individuals to promote a candidate, if that individual was not coordinating their campaign with the candidate.[14] In 1979, David Koch wrote a letter to Libertarian Party members about his plan to make use this new loophole to fund a Libertarian Party campaign. "As the Vice­ presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party I will contribute several hundred thousand dollars to the Presidential campaign committee in order to ensure that our ideas and our Presidential nominee receive as much media exposure as possible."[14]

David would spend about $2.1 million on the campaign, but the Libertarian Party won just over 1% of the vote nationally.[14]According to William Koch, Charles and David's brother, Charles began spending significantly on the Libertarian Party. According to the New York Times, William said in a 1986 interview, "Charles was giving as much to the Libertarians as he was paying out in dividends […] Pretty soon we would get the reputation that the company and the Kochs were crazy."[14]Statements David Koch made during the campaign are revealing of his anti-government views. As the New York Times reported about his statement at the 1979 Libertarian nominating convention, David "denounced the 'harassment of Koch Industries and implored the Libertarian Party activists to make the party 'a force that will roll back the coercive force of government.'"[14]

At a speech on the campaign trail in 1980, "David Koch railed against what he saw as overregulation. Presidents Nixon and Carter had bequeathed an 'Alice in Wonderland' energy policy, he argued, a mix of subsidies and price controls that had stymied market forces and caused high prices and shortages."[14]Charles Koch Calls for the Development of a "Well Financed Cadre"Charles Koch began funding the Institute for Humane Studies in the 1960s. He also created his own Charles Koch Foundation to funnel money to the Libertarian Society. He helped found the Cato Institute in 1974, by which time he was already giving money to the Libertarian Party. Charles also purchased the Libertarian Review.[6]In a 1974 speech, Charles Koch stated:"The important strategic consideration to keep in mind is that any program adopted should be highly leveraged so that we reach those whose influence on others produces a multiplier effect. That is why education programs are superior to political action, and support of talented free-market scholars is preferable to mass advertising.

The development of a well financed cadre of sound proponents of the free enterprise philosophy is the most critical need facing us at the moment."[14]The Kochs have funded a number of nonprofit organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council, think tanks and legal foundations, which are listed here:Building the Koch Cadre, Non-Electoral ActivityAfter the failed 1980 campaign for the vice presidency, the Koch brothers lessened their involvement in the Libertarian Party, increasingly focusing their attention and financial support on developing their own network of "educational programs" and "cadre" of free-market advocates.[14]The Kochs' funding founded Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) in 1984, headed Richard Fink. Fink was shortly thereafter appointed to President Ronald Reagan's "Commission on Privatization."[15]

In the late 1980s and 1990s, CSE pushed for banking deregulation, like the elimination of Glass Steagall,[7] spearheaded the defeat of a greenhouse gas tax,[2] and helped in the defeat of health care reform in the Clinton era.[16][17]In 2003, a rift between CSE and its related foundation led the Kochs to found Americans for Prosperity.[2] David Koch chairs the board of directors for the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.[18]Today the brothers directly and indirectly fund a wide network of organizations that promote their "free enterprise philosophy," from think tanks to scholarship programs to policy advocacy groups. Recipients include a long list of academic institutions; Koch family foundations gave some $30.5 million to 221 colleges and universities from 2007 to 2012.[14]Access a list of organizations with ties to the Koch brothers here:Bankrolling American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)Koch Industries has had a seat and a vote on the corporate board of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) since 1994.

ALEC has awarded both Koch brothers its Adam Smith Free Enterprise Award.[7] The Nation reports that the Kochs have likely given over $1 million to ALEC over the years, and many of ALEC's model bills reflect the policies the Kochs have been advocating for decades.[7]Funding Judicial JunketsThe Kochs have funded seminars for judges since the 1990s, first at the University of Kansas and later at George Mason University, which hosts the Koch-funded think tank the Mercatus Center. For example, the George Mason University Law & Economics Center hosted "an expenses-paid conference on public pension reform" which was funded by the Charles G. Koch Foundation, as well as corporate funders like ExxonMobil, Google, and Walmart, according to the Center for Public Integrity.[19] The Judicial Conference of the United States has noted that judges' attendance at such seminars "poses certain concerns," including that "judges may be influenced inappropriately by those who sponsor or contribute (financially or otherwise) to these seminar programs and who might be litigants before those judges."[20]A report by Center for Media and Democracy/The Progressive found that a federal judge who halted an investigation into alleged illegal campaign coordination, which involved groups like the Wisconsin Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity, "attended privately-funded, all-expenses-paid judicial seminars put on by George Mason University in 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012."[21] The Washington Post reported on a similar conference in 2011, when Google was facing an antitrust investigation, writing that "Google executives worked behind the scenes with officials at George Mason University's Law & Economics Center to put on academic conferences that would be attended by officials who were considering the case."[22]

Bankrolling the Tea PartyThe Koch brothers and their network have played a significant role in supporting the far-right Tea Party movement. According to the New Yorker, the Kochs' "Americans for Prosperity has worked closely with the Tea Party since the movement's inception," providing everything from "Tea Party talking points" to lists of officials for activists to contact to funding conferences.[2] The New York Times reported that Freedom Partners, for which "longtime Koch employees" constitute a majority of the board, has given grants to a number of Tea Party-affiliated groups.[23]According to the New Yorker, a Koch Industries spokesperson has denied that the Kochs provide funding for Tea Party groups, and David Koch has told New York magazine, "No one representing the tea party has ever even approached me."[2]Electoral Activity"Triad" Campaign Finance Scheme Avoids Disclosure Laws, 1996The Koch's have a long history of funding money into electoral campaigns. For example, the Kochs used a variety of means to influence the 1996 election cycle.In Kansas, according to the Lawrence Journal-World,"Koch-linked contributions of 'hard money'-gifts of more than $200 by identifiable individuals or political action committees divulged to the FEC-to the state's four representatives and two Senators totaled $130,600."[24]Senate Democrats found evidence of more complex funding schemes, as well, namely a political campaign operation called "Triad," which they suggested "allowed wealthy individuals to put more money into the election process than they would otherwise legally have been allowed to do" while evading campaign reporting requirements.[6]

In 1997, investigators for the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee told the New York Times that "they believe[d] Koch Industries support[ed] the Economic Education Trust, based in Twin Falls, Idaho, which gave $1.3 million to Triad in 1996."[25]In an interview with Bill Moyers, staffer Beth Stein explained the scheme as follows:"One of the things that Triad did was set up two shell corporations, essentially, tax-exempt organizations. One was called Citizens for Reform and the other was called Citizens for the Republic Education Fund, and the sole thing that those corporations did was to air attack advertising in various races across the country."[26]In 1998, the Minneapolis Star Tribute reported that "Koch Industries Inc. backed a secret trust that donated $1.8 million in 1996 to finance issue ads sympathetic to conservative Congressional candidates, [lending] new credence to the conclusion last year of Senate Democratic investigators that Koch's owners, Charles and David Koch, were probably the financiers behind the trust that contributed to at least two nonprofit groups."[27]The Koch Donor NetworkSince at least 2006, the Kochs have hosted semi-annual meetings for wealthy right-wing donors.[28]

While these Koch network gatherings are carefully guarded, occasional leaked documents and recordings have revealed that they include "titans of industry - from health insurance companies, oil executives, Wall Street investors, and real estate tycoons - working together with conservative journalists and Republican operatives," as well as prominent public officials, including members of Congress, state governors, and even Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.[29] The meetings involve fundraising, reportedly in the millions of dollars, as well as discussions about political strategy.[30]A full list of known participants in Koch summit meetings can be accessed on the Koch network page.Building a Post-Citizens United $400 Million Dark Money WebAccording to the Washington Post, in 2012 the Kochs and fellow donors backed a "network of politically active nonprofit groups" that was "carefully constructed with extensive legal barriers to shield its donors," raising over $400 million for the election cycle. As the Post explains, a "labyrinth of tax-exempt groups and limited-liability companies help[ed] mask the sources of the money, much of which went to voter mobilization and television ads attacking President Obama and congressional Democrats."[31]For example, Freedom Partners, which Politico has referred to as "the Koch brothers' secret bank", spent some $250 million in the 2012 election cycle, much of it spent in grants to other groups that ran so-called "issue ads" during the election.[32]

Koch Funded Dark Money Groups Investigated and Fined in CaliforniaThe Center to Protect Patient Rights, a group run by Koch operative Sean Noble, was fined by the California state elections board for violating campaign finance disclosure laws as part of a campaign to prohibit "unions from using automatic payroll deductions to raise money for political campaigns."[33]Other "dark money" groups involved in the network included funding sources Freedom Partners and the TC4 Trust, CSE successor Americans for Prosperity, and a long list of Koch astroturf organizations like the 60 Plus Association,Generation Opportunity, American Commitment, Concerned Women for America, the Libre Initiative, and Public Notice.[34] Additional funding went to the Wisconsin Club for Growth, and from there to Citizens for a Strong America, both of which were later involved in a criminal investigation related to the 2012 election.[35]Involvement in Scott Walker Race and Recall Election in 2010Walker's gubernatorial campaign received $43,000 from the Koch Industries PAC during the 2010 election.

The Koch PAC gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which in turn spent $65,000 on independent expenditures to support Walker.[36] The RGA also spent $3.4 million on TV ads and mailers attacking Walker's opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. [37]In a February 2012 interview with the Palm Beach Post, David Koch admitted that he was helping fund Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker as Walker fought off a recall election sparked by his anti-union legislation.[38] The paper reported that Koch acknowledged his group, Americans for Prosperity, was "hard at work in places such as Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker is facing off with public unions and grappling with a likely recall."[38]Koch was quoted as saying, "We're helping him, as we should. We've gotten pretty good at this over the years [...] We've spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We're going to spend more." [38]

Highlighting the recall as a fight against unions, Koch also stated that "What Scott Walker is doing with the public unions in Wisconsin is critically important. He's an impressive guy and he's very courageous…If the unions win the recall, there will be no stopping union power."[38]2012 Post-Election AuditAccording to Politico, after this network "spent hundreds of millions to win the White House and the Senate - and came up empty," the Kochs undertook a major audit of their organizations. Reportedly disappointed with the election results, Charles Koch wrote an e-mail to major donors about the need "to re-examine our vision and the strategies and capabilities required for success," adding that "Our goal of advancing a free and prosperous America is even more difficult than we envisioned, but it is essential that we continue, rather than abandon, this struggle."[39]Future Commitment to PoliticsIn a 2014 interview with the Wichita Business Journal, Charles Koch identified "cronyism" as one of the biggest problems facing the United States, adding, "You name it, in every industry we have this. The successful companies try to keep the new entrants down. Now that's great for a company like ours. We make more money that way because we have less competition and less innovation. But for the country as a whole, it's horrible."[40]

When asked why he continues to be involved in politics, despite negative public reactions, Charles answered, "It's like Lee Trevino used to say, somebody asked him, "How are you winning all these golf tournaments?" and he said, "Well somebody has got to win them and it might as well be me." That's the way I am on this. There doesn't seem to be any other large company trying to do this so it might as well be us. Somebody has got to work to save the country and preserve a system of opportunity."[40]News and ControversiesOpposition to BailoutsIn a 2011 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Charles Koch wrote that "government spending on business only aggravates the problem" and "businesses that fail to do so should be allowed to go bankrupt rather than be bailed out."[41]Opposition to Obama AdministrationIn a 2014 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Koch wrote that the "fundamental concepts of dignity, respect, equality before the law and personal freedom are under attack by the nation's own government."[42]

He criticized the Obamaadministration as holding the "central belief and fatal conceit" that people are "incapable" of running their own lives.In a closed June 2011 strategy seminar, Charles Koch said: "We have Saddam Hussein...this is the mother of all wars" in what appeared to be a reference to President Obama and the 2012 elections.[43]"Mostly False" Claim that EPA Called Koch Industries a "Model"Koch claimed in a 2014 Wall Street Journal op-ed that the Environmental Protection Agency had commended Koch Industries for being a "model for other companies." PolitiFact rated this claim as "Mostly False," determining that "the statement contains an element of truth" but that "Koch Industries has a history with the EPA that was completely glossed over, and it includes multiple violations of rules."[44]Affiliations

==