AFP 3 kch

8/16

oops 2x renamed afp 3 3/17

SEE FOUR

see afp fdn

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Americans for Prosperity Priorities

Koch-controlled organizations were busy advancing a number of priorities in the realms of policy, lawsuits, and social issues in 2023. Much of this was conducted through AFP and its affiliated 501(c)(3) foundation and super PAC, which spent a combined total of $207 million that year:

AFP Action, an FEC-registered super PAC, spent $30 million in 2023 as it warmed up for the 2024 elections, an effort that ultimately cost over $138 million during the two-year election cycle. The overwhelming majority of these funds were spent supporting Republican candidates and opposing Democrats.

AFP endorsed staunchly anti-environmental gubernatorial candidates such as West Virginia’s Patrick Morrisey, Indiana’s Mike Braun, and Louisiana’s Jeff Landry, a climate change denier.

As the fleet’s hub for “grassroots” activism, AFP continually orchestrated statements, reports, petitions, and events blaming then-President Biden for inflation, which many economists dismissed.

AFP continued a long tradition of attacking worker’s unions. It encouraged Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis to “hold unions accountable,” fought against a repeal of the decade-old “right-to-work” anti-union law in Michigan, and condemned a strike by the United Auto Workers by unionized employees in Michigan and Ohio.

2023 was the busiest year in the anti-ESG (environmental, social, and governance investing) trend in the states, with 26 of the 48 total anti-ESG laws passed that year in 31 states. AFP, along with other heavily Koch-funded groups like the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), the Heritage Foundation, and the American Legislative Exchange Council, led a state and federal crusade against “ESG” risk assessments in investing as a means of shielding the fossil fuel industry from accountability for the investment risks posed by climate change and pollution.

AFP celebrated a Supreme Court ruling in favor of a small business that refused to serve gay people. The ruling was opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The Koch-funded Alliance Defending Freedom -– an extreme Christian hate group known for its discrimination against the LGBTQ population -– represented the plaintiff in the case.

:{:{AFP released a statement praising Elon Musk’s “3 best changes” at X (Twitter), without noting the platform’s increased use by hate groups and its resulting drop in use and revenue. Koch has financed several organizations that are involved in a lobbying effort to shield big tech companies from antitrust laws.}:

AFP’s Pennsylvania chapter continued to attack the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) -– a regional cap-and-trade partnership designed to reduce carbon emissions -– while Koch Supply and Trading was participating in RGGI trades.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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transcript

Amy: Today, another super wonky legal thing that I swear to God is fascinating. Amicus briefs. OrAmicus briefs. It's Latin, and I hear lawyers pronounce it both ways. If you know the correct pronunciation, please just share it with me! At any rate, an Amicus or Amicus is Latin for friend.

So these are also sometimes referred to as friend of the court briefs. And way back before the internet and before large accessible libraries, even judges and their clerks couldn't so easily look up other cases that were relevant to the case at hand. So lawyers or other experts would submit these briefs that would point out similarities between the cases they were hearing and previous cases. It evolved over the years to include expert briefs more generally, but in the last decade or so it has morphed into something else entirely, just a mountain of anonymously funded briefs, pushing particular agendas, especially since the passage of Citizens United in 2010, which enabled endless amounts of anonymous corporate funding.

There's just been an explosion. Now, as you might assume, the Supreme court does have disclosure rules about these things. Of course it does, but they're ridiculous! You only have to disclose funding if it went toward the actual hands-on manual production of the brief. So like if Charles Koch paid someone to type that brief, you have to disclose that. But if he funded an entire Amicus program at your think tank, you don't.

Just to give you a sense of how rapidly this is exploding right now amici filed 781 briefs in the 2014 Supreme court term. That was a more than 800 % increase from the 1950s and a 95% increase from 1995. And the number of filings has just continued to rise since then. In the court's 2019 term, amici filed 911 briefs. The 2020 term featured almost 940.

Some high profile cases will even draw more than a hundred amicus briefs. And there's another disturbing trend: amici showing up at the certiori stage, or cert. That's the phase when the Supreme court is being petitioned to hear a case or reject it. Between 1982 and 2014, the percentage of petitions with at least one cert stage amicus more than doubled.

When I first started looking into this, it really didn't make sense because I thought is any judge really going to be surprised or swayed by a brief from the Cato Institute that says, we don't think you should regulate business? No, but here's the thing they're not swayed by the organization.

They're swayed by the attorney representing them. And any good amicus program worth it's dark money knows which lawyers will get which judges' attention at the cert stage. These connected lawyers can improve the chances of the court viewing the case as cert-worthy. At any stage seasoned members of the Supreme court bar add credibility to Amicus briefs. The late justice, Ruth Ginsburg actually talked about this in a 2008 interview. She said, "clerks often divide the Amicus briefs into three piles. Those that you can skip entirely. Those that should be skimmed. And those that should be read in full. If the attorneys submitting the Amicus brief has significant experience before the court, it would be more likely that their brief would be placed in a higher priority pile."

So it is actually an effective strategy. And more and more Supreme court justices are actually citing Amicus briefs in their rulings. From 2008 to 2013, the Supreme court cited amicus 606 times in 417 opinions. Between the 1994 and 2003 terms, the court's majority opinion referenced an Amicus brief only 38% of the time.

And in earlier terms like 1946 to 1955, it was less than 20% of the time. So it's gone from. 18% in the fifties to more than a hundred percent today. Another tactic folks will use with an Amicus briefs is to gather so many of them that it gives the justices the sense that there's some kind of consensus behind one side or the other.

Of course what all of this points to is the ability of people with deep pockets to tilt the courts in their favor. You would think that the Supreme court would just improve its disclosure requirements and be done with it. But for some reason, it hasn't done that. So in the meantime, Sheldon Whitehouse, the Senator from the great state of Rhode Island has proposed legislation that would force the issue.

He's here today to walk us through that legislation and why the Supreme court resists transparency, and how this whole Amicus thing is really messing with democracy. That's coming up after this quick break,

Senator Whitehouse: You press on the Supreme court to take action. And their first response is to pretend that there's no problem. And then you keep pressing and, um, ultimately within the judiciary, somebody realizes, okay, there actually is a problem. And, um, they'd begin to do some work on it. I don't know whether that's quietly blessed by the Supreme court or despite the Supreme court, but it's happened twice.

It happened first on amicus disclosure where the Supreme court said nothing to see here, not a problem, go away, but then the judicial conference said, okay, this is actually a really serious question. And they set up a special committee to look into it. And judge Mollette, um, as a part of that discussion in the public, uh, meeting, I guess said, Hey, we really got to know who the power is behind the throne on these Amicus briefs.

And she's obviously a respected DC circuit court of appeals judge. So, um, despite the Supreme court's indifference that has been taken up within the federal judiciary. And then recently the, um, peculiar failure of the court to disclose, um, gifts in the form of so-called personal hospitality, which as read by the Supreme court does not require that you even know the person who's giving you personal hospitality, not exactly the customary definition of the word personal.

But again, I wrote a letter asking for an explanation to all the different circuit courts of appeal and after ignoring it for quite a long time on the Eve of our hearing, uh, the circuit court. Sent in a joint response. I think again, through the judicial conference saying, okay, you're right, this is serious.

And we're going to have a group of people look at it once again. I don't know if that is despite the Supreme court or because they got a quiet signal from the Supreme court saying you better, you better look into this. Whitehouse isn't going away. Now that's twice that we've been through the same routine with them, which is they pretend that everything is fine. And it's only when you persist that somebody then acknowledges no, it is not fine. It is really wrong. And now we have these ongoing reviews, but it would be far better if the court from the get go took this seriously and took it up, you know, of its own volition. And didn't put us through all these delays and prevarications.

Amy: Do you think there's a sense that the threat of Congress legislating this versus them setting their own rules kind of drives that along as well? Like makes them take it more seriously?

Senator Whitehouse: Lord knows what, what the reason is for them to be so obtuse about what seemed to be unbelievably obvious ethics and conflicts problems. But I do think that knowing that Congress isn't going away has created some faint with, of accountability, at least in the judicial conference, if not in the Supreme.

It seems to me and please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me like in a lot of these cases, the justices themselves probably do have some inkling of who's funding what, but this would provide more transparency for the public. Is that, is that accurate or do you think that judges themselves are often in the dark too?

To the extent that Supreme Court justices are in the dark about who is behind some of these, that is a case of willful blindness. Because they often, they often go and sit with these groups and with their funders at Federalist society dinner. When all the chums come together. So if, if, if you can't figure that out, as you're sitting at the Federalist society gala at the table with front group organizations and those who fund them, then you have a problem of perspicacity unbecoming of a judge.

The problem is if everybody knew, right then the story would get far worse for the court. Because what we have right now is these little flotillas of right-wing amici show up, they ask the court to do X. The court almost invariably does X or at least some part of X, and there's a stunning win rate.

And if it were public who was behind those briefs, it would make the problem of the win rate look even worse. Right. It would cross reference likely with funders of republican senators who participated in packing the court with these right wing operative judges. And it would trace back to entities funding, the selection of these very justices.

Amy: Right.

Senator Whitehouse: They know enough to know that this is a world in which they don't like, they don't want the information to get out there because of their own problem.

Amy: Right, right. I read your Yale law journal article again this morning. And I know you noted a few different groups that show up a lot. Are there any particular attorneys who, are kind of like popular picks of these groups To be counsel on these briefs?

Senator Whitehouse: Yes, there are. And I just don't have them top of mind, but there are some pretty regular frequent flyers in the legal regime around this, the most obvious one who comes to mind right now in the wake of this wretched Cruz versus federal election commission decision is Don McGahn.

Amy: Right.

Senator Whitehouse: Don McGahn who picked the last three judges or was told who to pick by the Federalist Society, White House counsel during their selection. Let's put it that way. And Mitch McConnell, who orchestrated their confirmation through extraordinary obstacles, like for instance, faking an FBI background investigation. Faking an FBI supplemental background investigation for Kavanaugh. They're on the same brief telling the court what to do, and gee, big surprise the court does as instructed.

But I mean, if you want it, if you want to look at it like quick payback loop, FEC is like the perfect. That case in general is pretty stunning on multiple levels, but also totally predictable because the Federalist society justices are absolutely determined to expand the role of dark money for very obvious, but also very unfortunate political reasons.

Amy: I'm assuming that there are various dark money funded efforts against these disclosures. Have you come up against any, I don't know, obvious kind of, um, dark money funded opposition to improving disclosure and transparency?

Senator Whitehouse: Yes. I mean, there's a whole, Right-wing media operation to try to discredit it right. And to point out that it's, hypocritical of Democrats to play by the rules. And at the same time, want to clean up the rules. That's not an actual hypocrisy, but they frame it as one as part of their narrative. So you certainly see that in action.

And of course, there's this mad rush for the court to build a constitutional right to dark money. We'll get ahead of our legislation requiring disclosure of dark money. And if you want to go to the case in which they did that, I mean, it's just a beauty of a case calledAmericans for prosperity foundation versus Bonta,at the end of the day. We went through a number of respondents as the officials changed in California, but Americans for prosperity foundation, which is the5 0 1 C3, three twin to the Koch brothers' 5 0 1 C4 battleship Americans for prosperity,with massive overlap between the two: same address, overlapping boards, same staff.

You could pierce the corporate veil between the two with a banana, and they pick Americans for prosperity foundation as the petitioner to try to get this dark money constitutional right. To have a foundation. And when they do that, 50, at least 50 it's actually more, but it gets harder and harder to prove as you got into these small groups with no records, but at least 50 dark money, amici showed up at the certiorari stage.

And the cert stage to push the Supreme court to take up this case. And by the way, it lurked for a very long, strange period of time at the Supreme court. And they only took it up oncethey had judge Barrett giving them six and they only took it up literally two days after the attack on the Capitol, when everybody in America was looking elsewhere.

Wow. January 8th, they took the case up. So they've got the case of the twin of the Koch brothers, political battleship supported by 50 dark money front groups that they take onto their docket in the shadow of the attack, on the Capitol. And sure enough, they created a constitutional right to dark money for this group.

Amy: Right. Right. I've been looking at this with respect to the, um, the climate cases, because the very specific argument they're making about political speech in those cases is, um, I dunno, it, it keeps jumping out to me as like a broadening of this stuff. And I think they're going to try to get it to the Supreme court and blur the line between fraud and lying.

Senator Whitehouse: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think if you look at the tobacco fraud case with the department of justice, one, it makes an extremely good template for a climate fraud case. Against the fossil fuel industry, the Supreme court never took it up, but DOJ won big and just devastating decision by the DC district court, which was powerfully upheld in a unanimous decision by the DC circuit court of appeals. And the Supreme court declined to review it. So that's floating out there as a template and a way to end corporate fraud, but just, you wait for these guys to say that, oh, well, when it's a petition in government, right, exactly then there's special protection here. And the government of all people it was in the worst possible position to police fraud against itself because they treat government as an interested party rather than as the popular summation of the public will. Right. So, yeah, you could see that you could see that coming just as clearly as you could see theAFPF case coming.

Amy: Yeah. Thank you so much for your time and I'll keep you guys posted

Senator Whitehouse: Keep on this, there's lots of good material and we haven't been getting anywhere near enough attention. So thank you.

https://www.prwatch.org/news**/2018/11**/13419/kochs-new-super-pac-loses-six-nine-incumbents-key-targeted-house-races

Announced in September with great fanfare, the Koch's new super PAC, Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP Action), achieved mixed results in the fifteen races it targeted in the 2018 midterm elections.

Most significant, it lost six House races against incumbents, constituting a 12-vote swing that was key to the Democrats taking control of the U.S House.

AFP Action, the new super PAC arm of its astroturf operation, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), reported spending between$75,000 and $300,000 in each race.

The Koch's undoubtedly knew that these were key to the Democrats winning a majority in the House. Most of the money in these races was spent on TV and digital advertising.

In Iowa, a state carried by Trump in 2016, both incumbents backed by AFP Action were knocked off by challengers. Given the considerable advantage of holding office, more than 90 percent of incumbents are typically reelected.

The story was the same in Illinois, Minnesota, Utah, and Virginia: AFP Action supported incumbents who were defeated by challengers. In three House races, in Ohio, Texas, and Washington, AFP Action's targeted Republican incumbents won.

AFP Action also spent between $1.5 million and $6 million each on five U.S. Senate and three gubernatorial races.

AFP Action candidates won in two Senate races, with Koch darling Josh Hawley beating incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri and Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn taking down former Gov. Phil Bredesen in Tennessee.

But AFP Action lost big in Wisconsin where its candidate Leah Vukmir -- an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) champion -- got crushed by over ten percentage points byincumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D).And AFP Action lost in Montana after incumbent Sen. Jim Tester squeaked out a victory over challengerMatt Rosendale (R).

Florida's Senate race between Gov. Rick Scott (R) and Bill Nelson (D) is too close to call.

In the governor's race in Wisconsin, a state Trump narrowly won, Democratic candidate Tony Evers beat incumbent and former Presidential hopeful, Scott Walker. Altogether AFP Action spent about $6 million in ads on the two races in Wisconsin, not counting opening offices, hiring staff, and canvassing, with final figures still to come.

AFP Action also lost the open seat governor's race in Nevada, a state where it spent near $3 million, supporting Republican Adam Laxaltagainst Democrat Steve Sisolak.

AFP Action backed the gubernatorial winner in Florida, another open seat, Ron DeSantis beating Andrew Gillum, although that race may still end up getting a recount.

AFP spent millions on door-to-door, mail, and digital appeals to its list and the public, but the full amount cannot be known. In addition, as the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) reported,Concerned Veterans for America Action -- a project of AFP Action -- also aided Rosendale, DeSantis, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), and Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC).

===

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6784093-IWF-Wisconsin-Report-FINAL.html

afp voter suppression IWF 2016

That evaluation, procured by IWF/V, takes the position that IWF/V was exceptionally successful in Wisconsin in moving independent voters to support Donald Trump and Ron Johnson, in 2016, by double-digit percentages.

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frontline 4 22

waxman markey:

Yeas are 219, nays are 212. [Applause] The bill is passed.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The president won a victory in the House of Representatives on a sweeping climate bill.

JONATHAN PHILLIPS:

June 26, 2009. It was a big day. It was the culmination of years of work. Inside, I think there was a lot of relieved and happy people, because this was the end of a very long road. It was a huge moment.

NARRATOR:

It was the first legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions to pass the House of Representatives. Now the bill needed to get through the Senate.

JONATHAN PHILLIPS:

We were optimistic that the Senate would pick up the bill that summer. And I think we were a little bit naive about that.

HEATHER ZICHAL, Obama adviser on climate & energy, 2009-13:

When somebody's business model is deeply affected or felt to be affected, there are always going to be well-funded interests that make the case "don’t take any action, do not regulate us."

Promotional video

KOCH INDUSTRIES PROMOTIONAL AD:

One of our nation’s largest private companies is proudly built on American values and skill. Koch Industries started in the heartland—

NARRATOR:

Exxon Mobil and other companies continued their opposition to cap and trade, but the fiercest pushback came from another powerful force in the industry.

KOCH INDUSTRIES PROMOTIONAL AD:

You may not always see our name on the products you use—

CHRISTOPHER LEONARD, Author, Kochland:

In 2009 Koch Industries is the second largest privately held company in the United States, whose annual sales are bigger than that of Goldman Sachs, U.S. Steel and Facebook combined.

Koch is just deeply embedded in the fossil fuel infrastructure. It trades, ships and transports natural gas, oil, gasoline. So when you think about anything that would reduce demand or increase the price for fossil fuels, it's a tremendous threat to Koch's business.

This was a moment when the potential for passing climate change regulation was more real than it has ever been in U.S. history, full stop. That's why you saw the Koch political machine kick into high gear.

MALE VOICE:

Do you believe in anthropogenic climate change?

CHARLES KOCH, Chairman & CEO, Koch Industries:

[Archive] I mean, there are such a thing as greenhouse gasses, and they're contributing to that, but I don't think anybody knows how much. I don’t think science is settled. I mean, how could it be? As a matter of fact, science is never settled.

NARRATOR:

David Hoffmann was an environmental lawyer at Koch Industries. This is the first time he has spoken on camera about his work there.

DAVID HOFFMANN, Senior counsel, Koch Industries, 2005-10:

My father-in-law, basically his message to me was, "Don't work for the devil. This is a company that doesn't care about the impact they're having on the world, in the world." It encouraged me even more to work for Koch Industries, because I felt like, maybe I can convince people within Koch Industries that environmental compliance is not such a bad thing.

NARRATOR:

Hoffmann was given the job of assessing what the cap and trade bill would mean for Koch Industries. He met with a team of senior Koch lobbyists.

DAVID HOFFMANN:

I was invited to this meeting. The discussion quickly turned from the possibility that this bill might pass and what we should be doing to prepare for it to a discussion about how are we going to prevent it from passing, who are vulnerable Republicans that we need to target to make sure that they don't vote for this bill. We cannot let this bill pass. We won't let this bill pass, and we have to do everything in our power to prevent it from passing.

MALE ANNOUNCER:

Welcome to Americans for Prosperity Foundation's "Defending the American Dream" summit.

NARRATOR:

The Koch-funded organization Americans for Prosperity spearheaded the effort to stop the bill in the Senate.

DAVID KOCH, Former EVP, Koch Industries:

I can’t tell you what a thrill it is for me to be here this morning. Five years ago my brother, Charles, and I provided the funds to start Americans for Prosperity. And it’s beyond my wildest dreams how AFP has grown into this enormous organization—800,000 activists from nothing five years ago.

NARRATOR:

AFP had begun rallying opposition on the ground across the country. Steve Lonegan, a senior staffer at AFP, helped mobilize the movement.

STEVE LONEGAN, Americans for Prosperity, 2006-13:

[Archive] This country is heading in the wrong direction. But like Americans have always done, we're going to rise to the occasion. You know that. We're not going to let this cap and trade bill pass. Each and every day, I urge every single one of you to get up and think about what you can do that day, what action you can take to change the course of history.

Americans for Prosperity emerged at a time when America was being challenged by the climate change argument. It became very obvious that the Republican Party was not prepared or willing to fight the fight. And Charles Koch, who in my opinion is a hero and a visionary, saw this problem.

[Archive] We as Americans have reached a moment of realization that the very core values and principles are under attack like never before in our lifetime.

We had a multifaceted, hard-hitting approach, pressuring Republicans who were weak-kneed

and Democrats who were vulnerable whose states would be impacted by this.

If you're going to go into a war, like this was, the first thing you need to do is get your troops marching, get them energized. And that's what we did in that summer.

CHRISTOPHER LEONARD:

This was a volatile time in American life. We had just had the biggest economic collapse since the Depression. The Tea Party movement was animated by a lot of genuine political passion. Koch very cunningly stepped in and channeled that energy to Koch’s ends.Koch took that passion and also told these people, "Oh, hey, by the way, the government is trying to regulate greenhouse gases, which is another form of socialist tyranny, and they're trying to take your country away from you."

JONATHAN PHILLIPS:

All of a sudden, people started to get really energized about climate change, and not in a positive way.

FEMALE PROTESTER:

No Obamacare! No cap and trade!

JONATHAN PHILLIPS:

They are people screaming, and they're animated about cap and trade. And it's like, what? What just happened? How did this happen?

From the summer of 2009 through the winter, into the spring, we gradually saw the U.S. Senate back away from climate,basically because the handful of Republicans who we thought would engage on this issue saw what was happening. They don't want to be one of these people who just voted for the climate bill and now have angry protesters storming down their door. It was a bucket of cold water.

STEVE LONEGAN:

We stopped the bill from even going to a vote in the U.S. Senate. So it died its own death. I think we recognize the moment of relief as when we realized they didn't have the votes to pass it, and the thing just fell apart. There was just too much pressure. There were Democrats who weren't voting for it in key energy states, and at that point, everybody knew it was over. Back to the drawing board for the progressive left.

JONATHAN PHILLIPS:

I was demoralized. [Laughs] I think we all knew this was the end of climate legislation in the U.S. Congress for a long time. We had a shot at it, and we got beat.

NARRATOR:

No one from Koch Industries would agree to an interview or respond to questions.

CROWD [chanting]:

You work for us! You work for us!

NARRATOR:

The cap and trade bill was dead. Meanwhile, the Kochs and Americans for Prosperity had been pursuing another goal: purging the Republican Party of lawmakers who didn’t espouse their skeptical views on climate change. RINO POLARIZATION OVERTOM WINDOW RT SHIFT]

MALE SPEAKER:

dude at town hall?: [rep stone faced] I'm actually hopeful that this vote that you made was a vote to vote you out of office next time. [Applause] Global warming, it's all a hoax. [Applause]

STEVE LONEGAN:

The Republican Party needed to be shored up, it needed to be propped up, it needed to be given a backbone. Primaries are the most important part of our election system. You know, some incumbent can be sitting there all fat and happy thinking they're ensconced and can't be beaten and someone can come out of nowhere, knock them out in a primary. It happens all the time.

MALE PROTESTER:

You'll get your just desserts!

CHRISTOPHER LEONARD:

This is where you saw the perfection of the primary strategy, whereby Koch would would give money to a primary opponent to take out a congressperson that had crossed Koch on climate change.

NARRATOR:

Bob Inglis was one of those targeted. He says suddenly Koch Industries stopped supporting him and backed an up-and-coming conservative opponent.

BOB INGLIS:

My most enduring heresy against the orthodoxy at the time was just saying climate change is real and let's do something about it. They didn't want their money being spent on somebody that was talking what I was talking.

One very memorable occasion was [laughs] a big tent meeting. All of my primary opponents were there. The guy asking the questions was a local Christian radio talk host, and his question for me was, "Is climate change human caused, and do you support a carbon tax?" And so I said yes and yes.

[Archive] I do believe that humans contribute to climate change, and—actually, let me strike that. I don't really believe it; it’s not an article of faith for me. All of my faith tells me to look at the data. The data says that’s happening.

And then it goes to the guy that we were concerned about, because he's very capable fella.

TREY GOWDY:

[Archive] No on cap and trade, no on carbon taxes. I have been a prosecutor for 16 years. I'm used to having things proven to me and proving it to other people. Global warming has not been proven to the satisfaction of the constituents that I seek to serve. [Applause]

BOB INGLIS:

[Laughs] I remember thinking, that was a particularly good political answer, but—it won't win you a profile in courage, but, you know, a good answer, politically.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Let's go ahead and take a look at the numbers. It is a huge margin of victory. Inglis lost every county in the district. He is a seasoned congressman going down to a huge defeat tonight.

BOB INGLIS:

You know, it's quite a spectacular face-plant to get just 29% of the vote after 12 years in Congress. And it became a lesson to others, that you toe the line.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

House Democrats of every stripe were voted out of office last night.

MALE NEWSREADER:

It was a bloodbath for Democrats last night. It was historic.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Sweeping, stunning Republican victories all across the country.

NARRATOR:

Many of the Republicans who won the 2010 midterms had signed an AFP pledge opposing climate change legislation and openly challenged the climate science that had been accepted by some in their own party and the industry.

STEVE LONEGAN:

The achievement of 2010, the newly elected Republicans, the vast majority of which signed our carbon pledge, was to put an end to the whole climate change argument. Since then till now, it’s been a dead issue.

MALE REPORTER:

Are you proud of what Americans for Prosperity has achieved this year in the election?

DAVID KOCH:

You bet I am. Man, oh, man. We're going to do more, too, in the next couple of years, you know?

CHRISTOPHER LEONARD:

Koch Industries was able to reshape the Republican Party into one that identified with the idea that climate change is not real, that the science is a hoax. And that is a position of zero compromise and total opposition, not only to any laws, but even to an acknowledgement that the problem is real.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

… U.N. report released just this morning says climate change is accelerating and we are running out of time to stop it.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Punishing and extreme weather once again putting lives at risk.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Climate change is now widespread, rapid and intensifying. That human activities—

BILL HEINS:

The world, as an ecosystem, as an entity, is in big trouble. To think about the fact that we are making it worse, that's a hard thing to wrap your head around.

If I could have seen earlier that the hydrocarbon industry writ large was responsible for distracting attention from climate change, I would have taken a different path. I bear responsibility for having created bad outcomes. I consider often what kind of world are my grandchildren going to live in. Fifty years from now, they will rightly look back and say, "What were you thinking?"

https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/573610-koch-backed-group-launches-7-figure-ad-blitz-opposing

the hill no lnx

Koch-backed group launches 7-figure ad blitz opposing $3.5T bill

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), an advocacy group backed by GOP mega-donor Charles Koch, launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign Thursday attacking Democrats’ $3.5 trillion social spending package.

The connected TV, radio, direct mail and online ad blitz argues that the bill would lead to more government control and higher inflation. It will target 25 Democrats, including moderates who have expressed reservations about the $3.5 trillion price tag such as Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.).

“A government takeover of our economy is a fundamental departure from the spirit of entrepreneurialism we’ve relied on for generations to drive prosperity, and there’s only one outcome — unmitigated economic disaster that will be difficult to reverse,” AFP President Tim Phillips said in a statement.

In recent months, AFP has orchestrated an extensive effort to oppose both Democrats’ reconciliation package and the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, which it argues doesn’t make sufficient changes to regulations needed to improve roads and bridges.

The group’s most recent ad campaign comes as House Democrats prepare to vote on the infrastructure bill Monday. Democratic leaders say the bill must be passed alongside the party-line spending package that invests in climate, child care and other Democratic priorities.

The Democrats’ reconciliation package has come under fire from business lobbying groups and conservative organizations over its proposed tax increases on large corporations and wealthy individuals, as well as its measure to allow the federal government to negotiate the price of prescription drugs.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday announced a six-figure ad campaign urging moderate House Democrats to oppose the $3.5 trillion bill after warning that it would revoke endorsements for Democrats who vote for the measure.

The National Federation of Independent Business, a GOP-aligned small business group, also launched a six-figure ad campaign Wednesday urging Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa) and Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) to vote against the reconciliation bill.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has punched back at the campaigns to sink the spending packages filled with Democratic priorities.

“This is what oligarchy and a corrupt political system are all about," he tweeted in response to a corporate lobbying blitz announced last month. "The rich and large corporations get richer, and their lobbyists do everything possible to protect their wealth and greed. Not this time."

rww 921

koch-Funded Americans for Prosperity Spends Big to Help GOP Take Over Virginia House

AFP and CoC in covid corp liability and cedar pt taking case, both major anti-union/worker safety?

...In a memo to its members last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—the most powerful business lobbying group in the nation—said that legal action from workers who are infected by Covid-19 on the job is “perhaps the largest area of concern for the overall business community.”

The Chamber of Commerce “argues the sheer number of lawsuits could overwhelm businesses,” Roll Call reported.

“Businesses say they keep their workplaces safe,” Roll Call noted, “but the memo indicates that major corporations privately acknowledge that many so-called essential employees will get sick or die.”

Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-backed organization, is also urging lawmakers to protect corporations from responsibility for exposing their workers to the coronavirus.

As Common Dreams reported last week, theOccupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been flooded with thousands of complaints from workers in recent weeks accusing employers of violating federal coronavirus guidelines and failing to provide adequate protective equipment.

Justin Wolfers, an economics professor at the University of Michigan, wrote in a series of tweets last week that “the whole point of making employers liable for risking the lives of their staff is to prevent them from exposing their staff to undue risk.”

“Businesses are asking for the right to expose their workers to fatal risks with no consequences. It’s bad economics and bad policy,”said Wolfers. “If this tweet sounds to you at all anti-business, let me be clear: I am absolutely against businesses profiting by exposing their workers to unconscionable risks of death.”...

oops

an 921

Brandon Prenzlin is among the many Donald Trump supporters who is facing charges in connection with the January 6 insurrection. And he has been fired from his position as a grassroots organizer for the right-wing group FreedomWorksbecause of his arrest, according to HuffPost reporter Ryan J. Reilly.

Prenzlin, Reilly reports, was arrested by the FBI in Arlington, Virginia on September 17, and he is facing four misdemeanor charges — which include disorderly conduct on the grounds of the Capitol, entering a restricted building without authority, disorderly conduct inside a restricted building, and parading inside the Capitol.

Reilly notes that Peter Vicenzi, a FreedomWorks spokesman, confirmed that Prenzlin has been fired but did comment on his case.

According to Reilly, an "FBI affidavit lays out Prenzlin's alleged activities inside the Capitol on January 6, and shows how they were able to build a case against Prenzlin by citing his presence on social media."

"The FBI affidavit doesn't explicitly say it," Reilly reports, "but it suggests that online sleuths known as the 'Sedition Hunters' played a role in the case against Prenzlin. The sprawling community of open-source investigators, often working under the #SeditionHunters hashtag, has been working to identify the hundreds of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6. The Sedition Hunters website, where a photo of Prenzlin was labeled as No. 640 on a list of 'Sedition Insiders,' noted before Prenzlin's arrest that he had been identified."

Reilly adds, "It's unclear precisely when the identification was made, but an image of Prenzlin included in a tweet from the @SeditionHunters Twitter account indicated that Prenzlin had been IDed by early July. That's about the same time, according to the affidavit, that the FBI investigation got underway thanks to a tip."

FreedomWorks has been aggressively promoting voter suppression with its "Election Protection Initiative," which features far-right attorney and Trump ally Cleta Mitchell. In a video posted on FreedomWorks' website, Mitchell falsely claims, "The 2020 election was chaotic and deliberately overwhelmed the elections systems in many places in our country. It's no wonder that people across this country believe that there was really something wrong in the 2020 election. There was."

torres-sp

Business interests have also worked to undo campaign finance reforms that voters wanted. In November 2016, North Dakota voters voted for an initiative to provide public financing in elections. But the state legislature repealed the measure and the governor signed the repeal into law by February 2017. The opponents of this change included American for Prosperity, a group linked to Charles Koch of the Koch Brothers and Koch industries.

snapshot of Secret Funding of Amicus Briefs Tied to Leonard Leo–Federalist Society Leader, Promoter of Amy Barrett

By Lisa Graves | October 10th, 2020 at 8:41 PM (CDT)

AFP Action is canvassing for GOP candidates in six key U.S. Senate races, making it one of the few political outfits going door-to-door during the COVD-19 pandemic

front Group For Polluter Billionaires Wastes $140K On Goofy Global Warming Denial Ads

As Australia burns, animals are going extinct, and freak weather devastates our nation’s heartland, the propaganda arm of Koch Industries continues its bizarre denial of global warming. The multi-billion-dollar international polluter’s Americans for Prosperity “has launched a $140,000 advertising blitz in Virginia” telling the American public that corrupt environmentalists, not billionaire right-wing oil and coal men, are manipulating Congress and the media. According to AFP, these ads “expose the hypocrisy and outrageous economic costs of so-called global warming regulations, taxes, and green energy plans.” One of these ads portrays an “eco-hypocrite” with “three homes and five cars”:

Hey there, I’m Carlton, the wealthy eco-hypocrite. I inherited my money and attended fancy schools. I own three homes and five cars, but always talk with my rich friends about saving the planet. And I want Congress to spend billions on programs in the name of global warming and green energy. Even if it causes massive unemployment, higher energy bills, and digs people like you even deeper into the recession. Who knows, maybe I’ll even make money off of it!

Watch it:[old sw?]

In reality, it is the backers of Americans for Prosperity who are wine-sipping, ballet-loving trust-fund elites, a thousand times more wealthy than the likes of “eco-hypocrite” Al Gore. Charles and David Koch are the scions of Koch Industries, founded as an oil refining business by their father Fred Koch. Fred Koch also helped found the John Birch Society, an ultraconservative organization that believed the U.S. government was controlled by a traitorous cabal of Communist sympathizers.

AFP founder David Koch, with a net worth of about $17 billion, is the richest man in New York City, owning the Fifth Avenue apartment once occupied by Jackie O, a home in the Hamptons, an Aspen retreat, and the Villa Del Sarmiento in Palm Beach. He recently pledged $100 million to the Lincoln Center theater where the New York City Ballet and City Opera perform. In return, the David H. Koch theater will join the American Museum of Natural History’s David H. Koch Dinosaur Wing ($20 million), the Johns Hopkins University’s David H. Koch Cancer Research Building ($20 million), and MIT’s David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research ($100 million) in being named after this billionaire polluter. Koch enjoys not just ballet and fine art but big game hunts, whose kills he features in his Aspen ski chalet:

Mr. Koch’s home in Aspen, Colo., famous for its New Year’s Eve parties in his bachelor days, boasts trophies from big-game hunts with his father in Botswana and Mozambique. A pair of 130-pound Ugandan elephant tusks frames the dining room.

David’s brother Charles Koch, also a radical right-wing libertarian, founded the Cato Institute and launched the Mercatus Center at George Mason University to dismantle environmental regulations that limit the excesses of his private pollution corporation.

The third Koch brother, William I. Koch, split from Koch Industries to set up his own energy company. Bill Koch, worth only about $2 billion, is famed for his competitive yachting and being a “discerning speculator in his world-class collections of art, wine, and firearms.” His $10-million wine collection was marred by the purchase of $500,000 in counterfeit Chateau Lafite that were supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson.

Well, at least they aren’t hypocrites.

UPDATEAt Article XI, Miles Grant writes:

I'm just dumbfounded they'd think we're this, well, dumb. Is this guy supposed to be a rich snob, a surfer dude, or some combination - Spicoli with a trust fund? And what's he eating, cheese and crackers? That's snobby rich people food? You'd think Americans for Prosperity, with millions rolling in every year, would be able to buy some better propaganda for its buddies in the dirty fossil fuel industry.

UPDATECORRECTION: In their ads, AFP claims "global warming is a hoax." But just this summer, they were telling reporters they weren't deniers:

"Annie Patnaude, the organization's communications director, said the group does not disagree with the science behind global warming, but that people should look at the policies behind bills such as the Lieberman-Warner bill." Kalamazoo Gazette, [8/15/08]

So I guess they are hypocrites.

UPDATE: Okay, final update. I contacted Phil Kerpin at Americans for Prosperity, who said that the view expressed in their ad that global warming is a hoax "is not our position." After saying that Americans for Prosperity doesn't "take a position on the science," he admitted that they "do believe there is a scientific debate" as to whether man-made global warming exists.

UPDATE: Okay, final final update: Americans for Prosperity has taken down the blog post announcing the ads and removed them from YouTube. UPDATE 2/12: Ads and the AFP blog post have been restored.

DN attacks by kochs go back to 1971

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/8/19/usps_louis_dejoy_:{privatization:(style="background-color:#ffcc66;"):}:

After massive public outcry against cuts to mail service ahead of November’s election, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has announced he will suspend changes to the U.S. Postal Service until after the election, when a record number of voters are expected to cast ballots by mail. President Trump has admitted he’s working to undermine the USPS in order to make it harder to vote by mail in November. We speak with Lisa Graves, executive director of the policy research group True North Research, who says Louis DeJoy is “the most partisan person, in 100 years at least, to head the Postal Service” and warns that U.S. democracy is at stake. “We need to really hold this Postal Service accountable...

Lisa Graves, but can you lay out what’s going on and the deep concern that, yes, Louis DeJoy, who has, with his wife, something like $75 million to $100 million invested in competitors and contractors to the U.S. Postal Service, that already major changes have taken place? They’re just revoking the ones that were leading up to the election, though they say they’ll introduce them right after.

LISA GRAVES: Well, that’s right, Amy. And I think that we’re at a true crisis point in terms of our democracy and with our Postal Service. And that’s because we have the most partisan person, in a hundred years at least, to head the Postal Service, in Louis DeJoy, who has deep financial conflicts and deep personal ties to President Trump. This is also being pushed forward by Mike Duncan, who was a major fundraiser for Mitch McConnell for the Senate Leadership Fundand is aright-wing partisan who helped stand up American Crossroads, and also at the instigation, in essence, of Steve Mnuchin, who has tried to push additional pressure on the Postal Service, in essence, in my view, to accomplish what really is Charles Koch’s long-term goal of privatizing our Postal Service. So, we have a deep crisis in our country.

The announcement by the postmaster does not reverse the things that have already happened, that he’s already implemented, including the removal of many mail sorting machines. And so, we need to really hold this Postal Service accountable. Actually, I think Louis DeJoy needs to be removed. And we need to reform the Postal Service so we do not have two of the most partisan men ever at the helm of our Postal Service.

That Postal Service belongs to us, even though Charles Koch, as I documented with In the Public Interest and Bold ReThink, that organization has been targeted by Charles Koch for privatization since the 1970s. So, I’m hoping that the members of Congress will respond to citizens who are clamoring to protect our Postal Service, make sure we get our ballots on time, make sure we get medicines on time and checks on time, and really reform the Postal Service and get it the money it needs to survive and thrive in this corona crisis.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Lisa Graves, in the few minutes we have left, could you talk a little bit more about this hidden effort by Charles Koch to privatize the Postal Service, that has gone on almost unknown by most Americans for so long?

LISA GRAVES: Yes, I was really surprised that he really began staking the men, urging for the Postal Service to be privatized in the 1970s. And when he became the biggest funder for the Libertarian Party in 1976, its platform expressly called for the abolition of the Postal Service. Then, in 1980, when his brother ran for vice president, the Libertarian Party also called for the abolition of the Postal Service. Then he helped to stand up, with the Reagan administration, a privatization commission, with his right-hand man on it, which again called for abolition of the Postal Service.

And then they brought on board to Citizens for a Sound Economy, which is now Americans for Prosperity, the leading advocate of privatizing the Postal Service, who then George W. Bush put on the Board of Governors of the Postal Service in 2003. And that man, James Miller, helped push through the terrible law in 2006 that saddled the Postal Service with unprecedented debt to pay for decades of future retiree health benefits. And that’s the debt that has really hampered the Postal Service in its ability to have a better financial position, and it also limited the Postal Service from opening banks and offering banking services, as well as increasing the rates of first-class mail beyond a penny a year. And so, that really throttled the Postal Service. And that’s the long-term cause to basically prepare it for privatization, which is Charles Koch’s longtime goal.

AMY GOODMAN: Last minute, also, already, the effect — right now the Department of Veterans Affairs has been forced to find other ways to ship mail-order prescriptions to vets all over this country. And it’s not only vets. So many people rely on the Postal Service just to get medicine.

LISA GRAVES: Yes, it’s a true crisis. And I think that if Louis DeJoy thinks that he can issue a press statement and walk away from the damage he’s caused, he’s wrong. The American people are not going to tolerate the destruction of our Postal Service. Millions of Americans rely on it, in small cities and big towns, for medicines and checks. And we need it to work properly. We need it fully funded. We need it to have coronavirus relief just like other businesses and entities in America.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, who Charles Koch is?

LISA GRAVES: Charles Koch is one of the richest men in the world. He’s one of the richest men in America. And he leads Koch Industries, which is one of the largest privately held corporations in the world, which has a long record of using its funds to advance his political causes.

AMY GOODMAN: Were you surprised that the Postal Service turned around to the extent it did yesterday? I mean, we’re talking about massive outcry. Even Donald Trump, whose bidding DeJoy was doing, tweeted out, ”SAVE THE POST OFFICE!”

LISA GRAVES: Yeah, they’re clearly hearing the heat. So, the question, as Nancy Pelosi said, is: Will they reverse the things that have happened, not just stop doing it? Stopping it, we already see the damage done. The question is, a true reversal to the status quo before Louis DeJoy became the postmaster general this summer.

AMY GOODMAN: Lisa Graves, we want to thank you so much for being with us. And we have to stop saying November is the election, because people who vote by mail are voting in the next weeks, and that goes on for more than a month. Lisa Graves, executive director of the policy research group True North, with a new report we’ll link to, “The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service.”

koch Group Pushing for Employer Immunity Takes $3.5M From Company with COVID-19 Outbreaks

By David Armiak | July 27th, 2020 at 11:55 AM (CDT)

Owner of Mountaire Farms, one of the nation’s largest poultry processors with multiple COVID-19 outbreaks, gives millions to American for Prosperity’s PAC, which is advocating for state and federal legislation to protect employers with workplace coronavirus cases

About Alex Kotch

walks back https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/anti-lockdown-protests-are-imploding-because-the-koch-network-has-soured-on-them-columnist/

post Mich guns?

https://www.prwatch.org/news/2020/07/13600/bradley-foundation-bankrolled-right-wing-reopen-effort-despite-rising-coronavirus

The Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry**Bradley Foundation**, a major source of funding for right-wing groups with over $854 million in assets, gave grants to FreedomWorks Foundation and the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce Foundation this year to specifically assist with their efforts to rapidly reopen the economy amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

The political pressure generated by the lobbying and litigation efforts of Bradley-funded groups and President Trump led many states to prematurely roll back stay-at-home safety measures and reopen businesses. As a result, the three-day average of COVID-19 cases has more than doubled over the past three months, from 20,316 on April 24 to 59,474 on July 14, leading a number of states to now shut down again.

"Save Our Country"

In a list of Quarter 2 grants posted to its website, Bradley staff lists $100,000 to the FreedomWorks Foundation to "support the Save Our Country initiative."

Save Our Country was launched in April by FreedomWorks Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Tea Party Patriots, the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, and other right-wingers to push for a "quick" reopening of the states after many had enacted stay-at-home orders as confirmed coronavirus cases rapidly increased. Bradley added another $275,000 to FreedomWorks Foundation for "general operations."

In June, The Guardianreported guk that Save Our Country had raised "just over $800,000 towards a $5m goal for projects including new ad efforts – online, radio and print – to rev up grassroots pressure to reopen states faster, plus curtail more federal spending and promote business-favored tax cuts." Bradley is the first Save Our Country donor identified.

One five-figure placed last month featured ALEC's favorite economist and Committee to Unleash Prosperity founder Stephen Moore claiming that New York "Governor Cuomo allowed thousands to die in nursing homes," and ended with the statement, "Tell your governor to reopen society & get America working again."

Save Our Country switched to using "reopen society" instead of "reopen the economy" after polling FreedomWorks commissioned in late April found that reopening the economy amidst the pandemic was unpopular, files obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) detail.

Records examined by CMD show that Scott Rasmussen, editor-at-large of Ballotpedia, presented his polling to ALEC state legislative leaders stressing the message that, "We need to talk about reopening society and not the economy."

The poll of 1,000 registered voters conducted by Rasmussen found that "People do not necessarily care about going to businesses, but to be with each other," so, "When you introduce any action-emphasize social aspects and not the almighty dollar."

ALEC played a major role in the right-wing campaign to reopen the economy by organizing a sign-on letter urging Trump and state leaders to reopen and in hosting calls with Vice President Mike Pence, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and others from the Trump administration on the topic.

To date, ALEC has received $500,000 from Bradley in 2020 for "program activities."

Ballotpedia, which received $100,000 from Bradley in 2019, is a project of the right-wing Lucy Burns Institute. Leslie Graves, its founder, president, and CEO, is married to the Republican operative Eric O'Keefe, who serves as chairman of the board for Convention of State Action.

Convention of States Action launched openthestates.com to facilitate the planning and discussion of efforts to "reopen America for business," CMD reported.

In addition to FreedomWorks Foundation and ALEC, the following Save Our Country Coalition members received Bradley money in 2020:

Council for National Policy: $75,000 to "support the Conservative Action Project and Key Influencers Program"
First Liberty Institute: $50,000 "to support general operations"
National Review Institute: $250,000 "to support the Buckley Legacy Project and the Thomas L. Rhodes Journalism Fellowship"

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce Foundation

The Bradley Foundation also disclosed a grant of $50,000 to the WMC Foundation "to support efforts to reopen Wisconsin safely after COVID-19." WMC Foundation is the 501(c)(3) sister organization of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), the state chapter of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

WMC announced its "Back to Business" plan for the state on April 24, calling for Wisconsin to reopen businesses on May 4. In a press release for the plan, WMC's president and CEO Kurt Bauer said, "We need to protect lives, but we also need to protect livelihoods."

WMC's plan was based on a number of risk factors so that business owners would have an idea of when and how they could reopen.

Dr. Patrick Remington, a retired UW-Madison medical school professor, told the Wisconsin Examiner, "There's really no evidence to suggest that this risk model actually translates to true risk. It's a model based on assumptions, and it's not based on evidence."

A protest to reopen Wisconsin drew 1,500 to the state capital the same day, April 24, which was promoted in part by Convention of States-Wisconsin State Director Joanne Laufenberg on openthestates.com.

Wisconsin State Senator Kathy Bernier (R-Chippewa Falls), who delivered remarks at the protest, announced that she was working on a "Back to Business" plan at the rally and directed people to wmc.org to view it.

WMC is one of the largest dark money political spenders for Republican candidates in Wisconsin and was infamously investigated in bipartisan "John Doe" proceedings for illegal campaign coordination with former Governor Scott Walker's campaign and O'Keefe's Wisconsin Club for Growth.

Bradley also gave WMC Foundation $600,000 in 2011-2012. "WMC, the trade association, was one of the biggest spenders for Republicans in the 2011-2012 recall period. Bradley could not give the association or its campaign arm funds, but funneled funds to the 'charitable' arm," CMD reported as part of its Bradley Files investigation. "Bradley records indicate that WMC Foundation Inc. also received matching funds of $600,000 in 2011 from M&I Foundation (a foundation associated with M&I Bank, now BMO Harris)."

Lawsuit Against Wisconsin's "Safer at Home" Order

GOP legislative leaders filed a legal challenge to the state's April 16 "Safer at Home" order resulting in 4-3 State Supreme Court ruling on May 13 striking it down.

A number of Bradley-funded groups backed the GOP's legal maneuver, by filing amicus briefs, including WMC, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), and Charles Koch's Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin.

Bradley and its affiliated Bradley Impact Fund has granted WILL $7.7 million and Americans for Prosperity Foundation $1.4 million between 2011 and 2020, according to tax and grant records examined by CMD.

Following the Supreme Court decision, confusion ensued as people flocked to Wisconsin's bars and pubs, and counties and cities scrambled to set their own rules to replace the state's order.

Since then, the seven-day average number of coronavirus cases in Wisconsin has more than doubled, from 286 on May 13 to 755 on July 13.

https://apnews.com/57f673f31fb343042e3806b9806e8f7d

(AP) — Leading Republicans say the coronavirus shutdown cannot go on. Car-honking activists swarmed a statehouse Wednesday to protest stay-home restrictions. Capitol Hill staff are quietly drafting bills to undo the just-passed rescue aid and push Americans back to work.

Behind President Donald Trump’s effort to accelerate re-opening the U.S. economy during the pandemic is a contingent of GOP allies eager to have his back.

“It’s very much time to start having that conversation and start figuring that out,” said Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., who has shared his views with Trump.

The push to revive the economy is being influenced and amplified by a potent alliance of big money business interests, religious freedom conservatives and small-government activists, some with direct dial to Trump. They are gaining currency as a counter-point to the health professionals who warn of potentially deadly consequences from easing coronavirus stay-home restrictions too soon.

IMPACT ON THE ECONOMY:

The mobilization is reminiscent of the tea party rebellion a decade ago, when conservatives roared against federal intervention in recession recovery. It’s drawing a similar band of deficit hawks alarmed by the $2.2 trillion rescue package, religious congregants who say their right to worship is being violated and conservative lawmakers warning of a slide toward big government “socialism” with expanded safety net programs.

“How do you rein in some of the tyrannical enforcement?” said Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, in a radio interview.

Economist Stephen Moore is leading a new coalition to fire up activists nationwide. The conservative Heritage Foundation put forward a five-point re-opening plan. Republicans discuss options almost weekly on the House GOP’s private conference calls.

“It’s about promoting liberty and freedom,” Moore said. “It’s about stopping spending that will bankrupt the country and getting the$20 trillion engine that is the American economy started again as soon as possible — as in tomorrow.”

Early on in the crisis, Trump’s instinct to re-open was kept in check by two unlikely forces — the health professionals on the White House’s coronavirus task force and the Trump campaign, which warned that widespread fatalities would be more damaging to the president’s reelection than the economic fallout, according to a Republican granted anonymity to discuss the private assessment.

But as the national stay-home guidelines appear to have limited the virus spread, and the mounting death toll, now beyond 27,000, is less than first envisioned, those political calculations seem to be shifting toward the economic concerns, the person said.

“We have to learn to live with this,” said Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks, which is holding weekly virtual town halls with members of Congress, igniting an activist base of thousands of supporters across the nation to back up the effort.

Advocates say they are focusing on parts of the economy and regions of the country where virus spread is low or workers can do their jobs while maintaining social distancing. They point to construction, landscaping and factory floors. They envision new rules — everyone wears face masks — and other safety precautions.

These Republicans warn that the public health emphasis has failed to take into account the broader societal toll of a prolonged shutdown and potential for a Great Depression. The government cannot keep throwing around money to prop up the economy, they say.

Toomey worries that diseases of despair, including substance abuse, will deepen with unemployment and rising poverty, and supply chain disruptions could lead to civil unrest. He said there are segments of the economy, particularly in rural Pennsylvania, “that could be open today.”

One early shutdown opponent was the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, which argued businesses should be allowed to “adapt and innovate.”

With one in 10 American workers suddenly unemployed and dismal corporate quarterly earning reports expected, key Republicans on Capitol Hill say it’s time to shift strategies now.

“We’re really trying to get this thing going quicker than a lot of people may expect,” said Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., in a radio interview. He spoke to the president over the weekend, he said, and Trump was already thinking about the transition.

“What we see right now is the free market, free-enterprise system is under threat,” Perdue said. “Don’t come in and tell us how to run our lives.”

Democrats warn that jumping ahead of public health guidelines could have disastrous effects if Americans retreat from social distancing and spark new hot spots that overrun hospitals with more patients than available beds.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a stark warning for Americans to “ignore the lies”and “listen to scientists and other respected professionals” to protect themselves and loved ones.

Full Coverage: Economy

“All of us want to resume the precious and beautiful lives that America’s unique freedoms provide,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to Democratic colleagues. “But if we are not working from the truth, more lives will be lost, economic hardship and suffering will be extended unnecessarily.”

Some leading Republicans are pushing health care solutions. Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the chairman of the health committee, wants a “Manhattan Project” for testing, referring to the wartime effort to develop nuclear weapons, to give Americans confidence that children can return to school in the fall.

Across the nation, though, end-the-shutdown protests are flaring up.

In Texas, conservative state legislators said in a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott it’s ultimately the “individual Texan’s responsibility” to keep themselves safe. Many are backed by Texas oilman Tim Dunn, who co-authored a similar letter to Trump.

On Wednesday, drivers staged “Operation Gridlock” at the Michigan state capitol after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s decision to toughen rather than relax what already was one of the nation’s strictest stay-home orders.

Among the groups promoting the effort on Facebook was one with ties to the politically connected DeVos family, even though Education Secretary Besty DeVos stopped her political spending when she joined Trump’s Cabinet.

Associated Press writers David Eggert in Michigan and Paul Weber in Texas contributed to this story.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/trump-says-hes-aiming-to-shield-corporations-from-legal-liability-for-workers-who-contract-covi-19-on-the-job

no lnx

Trump says he’s aiming to shield corporations from legal liability for workers who contract COVI-19 on the job

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams April 21, 2020

President Donald Trump said during a press briefing Monday evening that his administration is aiming to shield corporations from legal responsibility for workers who contract the novel coronavirus on the job, a move that the Chamber of Commerce and right-wing advocacy groups are aggressively lobbying for as the White House pushes to reopen the U.S. economy against the warnings of public health experts.

“We are trying to take liability away from these companies,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question on the subject. “We just don’t want that because we want the companies to open and to open strong. But I’ll get you a legal opinion on that.”

The president claimed that his administration has not previously discussed the issue of corporate liability, but the New York Times reported that business executives raised the matter with Trump in a conference call last week.

An “issue of great concern to the executives on the call,” according to the Times, “was the need to address the liability companies could face if employees got sick after returning to work, given the possibility that workers who felt that they were brought back too soon—or were not placed in a safe environment—could sue en masse.”

Additionally, the Washington Post reported earlier this month that Trump administration officials discussed including in the next stimulus package “a waiver that would clear businesses of liability from employees who contract the coronavirus on the job.”

Watch Trump’s remarks:

JM Rieger

@RiegerReport

REPORTER: [If companies] have employees come back to work and they get sick will these companies be liable?

…

TRUMP: I’ll give you a legal answer to that when we look it up.

…

REPORTER: You guys haven’t discussed that yet?

TRUMP: Nobody’s discussed it, no. But we will now.

Embedded video

In a memo to its members last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—the most powerful business lobbying group in the nation—said that legal action from workers who are infected by Covid-19 on the job is “perhaps the largest area of concern for the overall business community.”

The Chamber of Commerce “argues the sheer number of lawsuits could overwhelm businesses,” Roll Call reported.

Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-backed organization, is also urging lawmakers to protect corporations from responsibility for exposing their workers to the coronavirus.

As Common Dreams reported last week, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been flooded with thousands of complaints from workers in recent weeks accusing employers of violating federal coronavirus guidelines and failing to provide adequate protective equipment.

several like this/ 420 an

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/stoking-divisions-and-driving-a-new-explosion-in-the-pandemic-republicans-think-they-can-win-through-sheer-chaos

digby no lnx

...

FreedomWorks, the instrumental force behind the Tea Party, “is holding weekly virtual town halls with members of Congress, igniting an activist base of thousands of supporters across the nation to back up the effort” led by right-wing commentator Stephen Moore.the Associated Press reported. Other right-wing groups vocally opposing shutdowns include Americans for Prosperity, an organization funded by the Koch brothers, and the conservative Heritage Foundation. There is even a connection to the family of Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. As Michigan’s governor noted, the DeVos family foundation helped fund Facebook ads for this week’s protest.

Pro-gun activists have gotten in on the act as well. It’s an astroturf Tea Party reunion tour. If there’s one thing that riles up the right wing, it’s apparently the government trying to save lives.

‘There’s no pandemic…Media’s the cancer’ — People across the U.S., many of whom are vocal Trump supporters, are protesting stay-at-home orders.

COVID-19 has killed more than 37,000 people in America within the last 7 weeks. pic.twitter.com/2xtbPXfjz9

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) April 19, 2020

Trump has personally praised the protesters, as has Vice President Pence, even as they both pretend to care about their new guidelines for opening up the country.

All of this seems odd, considering that common sense and all legitimate scientific advice says that prematurely letting our guard down will likely lead to a resurgence of the epidemic, which means shutting down the economy all over again, with even worse consequences. But there’s a method to their madness. As chaotic and dysfunctional as they are at governing, Trump and the Republicans are united on their electoral strategy. They’ve decided that opening up the economy as soon as possible is their ticket to re-election.

According to Politico, conservatives are still convinced that a highly divisive strategy focused entirely on their base voters divisive, is the way to go, even in the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis:

Trump-supported activists are protesting strict stay-at-home orders. Conservative groups’ internal polling in red-leaning and swing states show a significant uptick in Americans who favor reopening the country. A growing chorus of Republican lawmakers across the nation are on board.

“If you don’t see something start to happen … you’re going to see a conservative revolt by our base,” said Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks, a conservative group which recently polled on reopening the economy. “The worst strategy for him is to keep things shut until August. Trump is basically going to win or lose his election right now, in the next month.”

Yes, that would be the same FreedomWorks that is ginning up the protests, along with the other big money groups financed by the likes of Charles Koch. Big-money donors seem to have activated their astroturf groups to get people out in the streets to make sure that Trump feels the pressure from his beloved base to open up the economy. These donors care about preserving their power, privilege and profit margins, but Trump only cares about the November election. They are manipulating him, and his supporters, to make him believe that his ends are aligned with theirs.

Republicans in Congress are doing their part as well. The bill coming up for a vote this week to refill the small-business bailout fund is missing something vital that Democrats and governors of both parties have been begging for: help for state and local governments, many of which are in dire economic trouble and hamstrung by balanced-budget requirements.

You might think that providing them with federal funds to keep the lights on would be a no-brainer. But according to Axios, Republicans will use this prospect as a cudgel to force states to reopen: “The thinking among some Trump administration officials is that many states should be reopening their governments soon and that additional funding could deter them from doing so.”

If anyone thinks that depriving aid won’t hurt Trump’s political enemies more than his allies, they still don’t understand how he plays this game. (There’s already evidence that more federal aid has gone to red states.) This may end up being the most destructive thing Trump has done, at least in economic terms.

kochs push hard for work req for welfarE DURING COVID

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2020/03/11/despite-coronavirus-threat-americans-prosperity-still-leads-fight-against-medicaid-expansion/

OMG or just more never trumpism?

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/the-nra-is-in-total-meltdown-and-making-folks-nervous-about-trumps-2020-campaign-report/

no lnx

henderson

NRA ‘is in total meltdown’ — and making ‘folks nervous’ about Trump’s 2020 campaign: report

Michael Vadon

written by Alex Henderson July 3, 2019

It isn’t hard to figure out why President Donald Trump has been claiming that Democrats are hell-bent on destroying the 2nd Amendment: he realizes that the National Rifle Association (NRA) is one of the top supporters of the Republican Party. But the NRA’s recent problems have been well-documented, and a Politico report published on July 3 stresses that turmoil and instability within the NRA are a major worry for Trump’s 2020 campaign.

In Politico, journalist Alex Isenstadt explains that the NRA “is in total meltdown” thanks to “everything from a failed coup attempt to the departure of its longtime political architect to embarrassing tales of self-dealing by top leaders.” And GOP leaders, according to Isenstadt, fear that if the NRA is “profoundly diminished heading into the election,” the GOP will be facing “a gaping hole in its political machinery.”

Gregg Keller, former executive director of the American Conservative Union, explained to Politico why the NRA’s problems “have folks nervous” in the Republican Party — asserting, “No organization has been more important to conservative voter education and engagement than the NRA.We all hope they’re able to mount the kind of effort in the 2020 cycle they have in the past. But in case they can’t, given their current situation, I hope they’re being forthright about that within the movement so others can pick up the slack.”

Republican strategist Chris LaCivita told Politico that the “infighting and accusations” troubling the NRA will “have an impact in the NRA’s ability to raise money, which would be used in elections to turn out its membership.”

Isenstadt notes that following the recent resignation of Chris Cox (who had been in charge of NRA lobbying since 2002), it remains to be seen “who will oversee the NRA’s 2020 strategy.” Steven Law, who heads the Senate Leadership Fund (a right-wing political action committee with close ties to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell), described Cox as “the guy everybody dealt with” in the GOP.

@realDonaldTrump

People are fleeing New York like never before. If they own a business, they are twice as likely to flee. And if they are a victim of harassment by the A.G. of the state, like what they are doing to our great NRA, which I think will move quickly to Texas, where they are loved.....

If the NRA’s problems harm Republican fundraising in 2020, the burning question is: who would fill the void? And Isenstadt points out that other possible worries for the Trump campaign include less spending by the Chamber of Commerce and a recent announcement by the Koch Brothers-affiliated _{Americans for Prosperity }_that it is open to the possibility of supporting centrist Democratic candidates in some cases.

Former Republican Rep. David McIntosh, now president of the right-wing Club for Growth, expressed concerns over Americans for Prosperity’s announcement of possible support for some Democrats.

Interviewed by Politico, McIntosh said of the GOP, “Right now, the party is functioning. But if you see another collapse or if we lose the White House, I think you’re going to see Republicans frankly in a world of hurt without a major funding group like that.”

5/19

Don Wiener and Arn Pearson — The Kochs’ political astroturf operation sponsored, paid for, and restricted the terms of attendance for Governor Dunleavy’s “Statewide Discussion for a Permanent Fiscal Plan.”

RELATED TOPICS

https://www.alternet.org/trump-peddles-false-hope-terminally-ill-right-try-law

...

doctors and medical researchers were casting doubt on Trump’s claims. At best, the Right to Try law will help a few patients suffering from certain terminal illnesses for which there are promising treatments under review, but only if they are wealthy enough to pay for the treatments and the cost of treating any negative side effects, most likely without help from their insurance plan. For this reason alone, the new law is not expected to help nearly as many people as Trump claims.

At worst, critics say Right to Try is a stealth attempt by libertarian ideologues to undermine patients’ rights and chip away at the FDA’s regulatory authorityover chemicals that have yet to be proven safe and effective. Medical experts point out that theFDA already has a program for allowing patients to try drugs that have not completed clinical trials, and the agency approves 99 percent of applications. The Right to Try legislation simply cuts government watchdogs charged with protecting consumer safety out of the process.

Of course, the experimental chemicals and devices patients now have the “right” to try must also be effective at treating serious illness without presenting intolerable side effects. According to Vinay Prasad, a doctor and professor of medicine at Oregon State University, this is a feat achieved by only 10 percent of drugs that initially enter clinical trials. Manufacturers must also agree to provide them in the first place.

“It isn’t accurate to call these drugs, though, because they are just chemicals, most of which don’t work,” Prasad said.In a series of tweets, Prasad said Right to Try advocates associated with conservative groups like Americans for Prosperity and the Goldwater Institute had created a “misleading narrative” about a large number of patients who had exhausted their options and wanted to try new drugs. (Right to Try advocates routinely campaigned with sick children to pass laws in a number of states, and a young boy battling muscular dystrophy joined Trump as he signed the bill into law.)

Vinay Prasad@VinayPrasadMD 30 May Replying to @VinayPrasadMD

This group & partners created a misleading narrative where many sick patients had exhausted proven options and wanted to try "drugs" that were still in clinical trials.

It isn't accurate to call these drugs, though, because they are just chemicals, most of which don't work.

Vinay Prasad@VinayPrasadMD

In fact,:{ multiple studies show that most of these chemicals do not come to market FOR ANY PURPOSE.

~10% come to market FOR SOME USE, but maybe not the use you wanted to "try" it for (i.e. true % chance of benefit, even lower}:) pic.twitter.com/tSb5rrMJAC

7:51 PM - May 30, 2018

Companies can still deny requests to “try” their experimental treatments and have plenty of reasons to do so, including fear that a bad outcome could lead to lawsuits and delay or threaten a drug’s ultimate approval. In fact, Prasad and other experts say manufacturers, not the FDA, are the real barrier between terminally ill patients and emerging treatments.

Vinay Prasad@VinayPrasadMD 30 May Replying to @VinayPrasadMDThe legislation does protect health providers and pharmaceutical companies from legal liability if their experimental products do more harm than good, but manufacturers may not feel protected until that language is tested in court. Despite the “Right to Try” moniker, the law offers no new rights to patients besides the ability to seek treatments that have not been tested and approved by the FDA.

Also worth noting that the FDA is not holding back cures in cancer or other serious ailments

In fact, they are rubber-stamping the most toxic, and marginal products

The:{ avg cancer drug approved adds 2 months of life!

in ideal settings

less in real world}://www.nfrank.info/site/ckfinder/userfiles/pdf/Unitended%20Consequences%20of%20Expensive%20Cancer%20Therapeutics.pdf …pic.twitter.com/1Vk1eWK4oG

Vinay Prasad@VinayPrasadMD

I find it interesting to note what the Right to Try bill does not include

No "Right to Have Approved Drugs Be Affordable"

No "Right to Have Pharma make Better Drugs"

No "Right not to go bankrupt from paying for drugs you need"

No "Right to make companies GIVE the drug"

8:11 PM - May 30, 2018

For these reasons, medical experts argue that the Right to Try law will do little for most families facing a terminal illness, all while curtailing the FDA’s ability to control access to investigational drugs. That’s why more than 300 doctors and academics signed a letter in February urging members of Congress to ditch the legislation, despite pressure from Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

“This legislation sells vulnerable patients and families false hope at the expense of weakening the FDA’s critical role in making sure that all Americans can have confidence in the safety and effectiveness of our medical products,” the authors wrote, adding that their view is shared by the American Lung Association, the Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation, the National Health Council and many other groups.

When it comes to policy, Trump has never been concerned with the fine print. That’s a job he leaves up to staffers and members of his cabinet, many of whom come directly from the world of big business or the far right of the Republican Party. The president promotes their policies with broad strokes and bold promises, just as he did on Wednesday as he signed the Right to Try bill and declared a victory during another week of damaging headlines. In politics, however, the devil is in the details, and what Trump wants you to see on TV is not always what you get.

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/12/07/alec-hires-former-koch-staffer-lead-energy-task-force

The Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has hired Grant Kidwell, a former analyst from two major Koch-backed groups–Americans for Prosperity and the Charles Koch Institute–to lead its Energy, Environment and Agriculture (EEA) task force, a position that has been left vacant since July.

Funded by numerous fossil-fuel companies, ALEC and its EEA task force has a long history of passing “model bills” undermining environmental protections and opposing policies to combat climate change. The task force is made up of numerous corporate lobbyists and their trade groups that stand to benefit from measures weakening environmental protections: including Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, Peabody Energy, the Edison Electric Institute, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), the American Gas Association.

Kidwell’s first week at ALEC comes as the group holds its States and Nation Policy Summit, currently taking place in Nashville, Tennessee. Among the measures being discussed is a resolution urging the EPA to scrap the 2009 endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, which formed the legal basis for the federal government to regulate greenhouse gas pollution. According E&E News, the fossil-fuel funded Heartland Institute is rumored to be behind the resolution.

Before Kidwell’s appointment, Kenneth Stein who now works for the Koch-backed Institute for Energy Research, briefly served as the task force director from April to July 2017. John Eick, who now works for AFPM, previously led the task force from 2012-2017. Todd Wynn, who now works at the Department of Interior and previously worked at the Edison Electric Institute, was Director from 2011 to 2013.

This story was originally published in Documented here.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/trump-koch-brothers-231863

no links

Charles Koch once likened the contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to being asked to choose cancer or a heart attack.

Now, Koch’s allies are helping to launch Trump’s administration, giving Charles and his brother David potential inroads with a president whose campaign they refused to support.

The president-elect, in filling out his transition team and administration, has drawn heavily from the vast network of donors and advocacy groups built by the billionaire industrialist brothers, who have sought to reshape American politics in their libertarian image.

From White House Counsel Don McGahn and transition team advisers Tom Pyle, Darin Selnick and Alan Cobb to PresidentialInaugural Committee member Diane Hendricksand transition-team executive committee members Rebekah Mercer and Anthony Scaramucci, Trump has surrounded himself with people tied to the Kochs.

“In creating the Koch network, I don’t think that we ever envisioned that we would besupplying staffers to this semi-free market, semi-populist president,” said Frayda Levin, a donor to the network who chairs the board of its main voter mobilization group, Americans for Prosperity. “But we’re happy that he’s picking people who have that free market background, particularly because on many issues, he is a blank slate, so anybody with expertise is in an amazing position to shape his agenda.”

Trump's baseless assertions of voter fraud called 'stunning'

By ANDREW RESTUCCIA

And many more Koch-linked operatives are expected to join Trump’s nascent administration in the coming weeks, according to Trump transition-team sources. Names being considered include Koch Industries lobbyist Brian Henneberry and former company spokesman Matt Lloyd, as well as Daniel Garza, who runs a Koch-backed nonprofit called the LIBRE Initiative that courts Latinos, not to mention a handful of veterans of the Koch network’s advocacy groups who worked on the Trump campaign — from top Pence adviser Marc Short and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to ex-campaign aides Stuart Jolly, Eli Miller, Scott Hagerstrom, Charles Munoz and Matt Ciepielowski.

Perhaps more surprisingly, despite some predictions of imminent policy clashes, there’s already informal communication between the Trump team and the Koch network, and both camps are signaling a willingness to work together on issues of mutual interest. David Koch even attended Trump’s election night victory party.

How long the comity lasts between Trump and the powerful Koch brothers could go far in determining whether Trump is able to take full advantage of the complete Republican control of Washington ushered in by his stunning victory over his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

Things weren’t so agreeable during the campaign, when the Koch operation blocked Trump from directly accessing its data or its candidate forums, while the brothers condemned the first-time candidate for his combative tone, his calls for a Muslim immigration ban and his opposition to the sorts of trade policies that facilitate the brothers’ vision of unfettered global capitalism. At one point, Charles Koch compared the choice between Trump and Clinton to choosing between “cancer or heart attack,” and the Koch network did not spend any money directly boosting Trump or attacking Clinton.

Trump in turn boasted that the Kochs could not influence him because he didn’t “want their money or anything else from them.” And he blasted his rivals for the GOP nomination as puppets of the Kochs. A possible truce after Trump clinched the nomination broke down quickly, with the two sides clashing over who rejected a proposed meeting.

The Koch network, which some believed was discouraging its operatives from working with Trump’s campaign, is now seen by insiders as welcoming the chance to have allies on the inside of Trump’s administration.

At the same time, though, the network already is signaling that it intends to oppose aspects of Trump’s agenda that run counter to the brothers’ brand of small government, low-regulation conservatism, possibly including the incoming president’s $1 trillion infrastructure spending plan and his pledge to renegotiate trade deals.

Trump’s press office didn’t respond to requests for comment.

James Davis, a spokesman for Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the central group in the Koch network, said, “We’ll try to find areas to work together to advance a free and open society and reverse the counterproductive policies that have created a two-tiered society.” He added: “We wish the new administration well.”

Setting aside the personal and policy conflicts, Trump’s willingness to draw from the Kochs’ operation makes sense in several ways.

PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION

Trump douses White House hopes of Cruz, Rubio and others

By BURGESS EVERETT

Charles and David Koch over the past decade mobilized some of the biggest donors on the right to finance what amounts to a privatized political party — a network of donors and advocacy groups that became a leading employer of conservative operatives and policy professionals independent of the official GOP during a period when Republicans were mostly out of power in Washington.

The 1,200-employee network, which claims it will have spent about $750 million in the run-up to the 2016 election, would have been a logical pool from which any incoming Republican administration might have drawn as it endeavored to fill thousands of jobs.

But there’s an added appeal for Trump.

During the campaign, Trump railed against a Washington GOP establishment — embodied by the family of his vanquished primary foe Jeb Bush — from which the Kochs for years had worked to demonstrate their independence. And, after he won, President-elect Trump announced a sweeping lobbying ban that could be more of a deterrent for many conservative policy professionals than for Koch network staffers, who can work for years within the brothers’ network of think tanks and advocacy groups without directly lobbying federal or state officials.

“If you’re not going to pull from the Chamber of Commerce, Bush wing of the party, you don’t have that many places to go, so it makes sense to look to Koch world,” said a GOP operative who advised Trump team’s during the campaign and the transition. “Trump is looking for new blood that wasn’t part of the traditional establishment, and his presidency is already totally rewriting the Republican hierarchy. There were all these people who were locked out who are now getting their chance.”

Some former Koch staffers told POLITICO that the allure of joining Trump’s team was compounded by what they saw as the network’s retreat from the 2016 presidential race and its increased emphasis on advocating libertarian-infused policies such as decreasing incarceration and government subsidies.

“It’s less a result of Trump recruiting from the network as it is a result of the network retreating from the political field, leaving people looking for places they could go to have an impact,” said a former network staffer who worked on the Trump campaign.

In fact, many of the Koch veterans who played major roles in the Trump campaign had left the Koch network weeks or even months before joining forces with Trump, including Short, Lewandowski, Ciepielowski, Cobb, Jolly, Miller and Munoz — none of whom responded to requests for comment for this story.

Most notably, Short resigned his role as president of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce in late February to join Marco Rubio’s rival presidential campaign, motivated partly by the network’s decision to sit out the presidential race.

Short landed in Trump’s orbit when the Republican nominee tapped as his running mate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.A longtime ally of the Koch network, Pence had previously employed both Short and Lloyd, who later went to work for Koch Industries, the privately owned multinational oil and industrial conglomerate that is the source of the brothers’ fortunes, which are estimated at $43 billion each. Short is now helping Pence run the transition effort and is expected to fill a senior role in the vice president’s office, as is Lloyd, who is working as a deputy chief of staff in Pence’s gubernatorial office in Indiana and could not be reached for comment.

Other ex-Koch operatives, including Lewandowski, left the network on less-than-great terms, and jumped at the chance to join up early with Trump as he launched a campaign that few establishment operatives or donors took seriously.

Lewandowskihad worked for years at Americans for Prosperity, where he drew complaints from co-workers and directed an underperforming voter registration initiative. Still, he brought with him from AFP undeniable organizing experience. Under his leadership, the Trump campaign brought on a number of former AFP operatives, including Ciepielowski, Cobb, Jolly, Miller and Munoz — all of whom are up for posts in Trump’s administration or at the Republican National Committee, according to sources in Trump’s operation.

Cobb is currently working for the transition team, which also is getting advice from Selnick and Pyle.

Selnick is a senior adviser and consultant to Concerned Veterans for America, a nonprofit group funded by the Koch network that has pushed to allow veterans to access private health care — a goal that Trump embraced on the campaign trail.

“The Trump transition team’s collaboration with experts like Darin is a positive sign that the president-elect is prioritizing real VA reform,” said Dan Caldwell, a Concerned Veterans spokesman, referring to the Department of Veterans Affairs. “We are optimistic that President-elect Trump will now turn these ideas into tangible reforms, and we will support him in that effort.”

Pyle, who is leading the Trump transition team’s Energy Department landing team, is the president of a fossil fuel advocacy group called the American Energy Institute, which has received significant Koch network funding. But the group gradually has been cut out of the network, which may have given it leeway to officially endorse Trump over the summer, even as the Koch network was sitting out the race. Pyle declined to comment.

Additionally, some of the deepest pockets helping Trump have either contributed significant sums to the Koch network or attended its twice-a-year donor gatherings. They include transition team executive committee members Mercer, a hedge fund heiress, and Scaramucci, a Wall Street impresario; as well as self-made roofing billionaire Hendricks, a member of Trump’s Presidential Inaugural Committee. Family members of Betsy DeVos, whom Trump nominated last week as his secretary of education, have also been contributors to the network.

McGahn, who last week was named White House counsel, represented Freedom Partners and its affiliated super PAC — work he continued for a time even after signing on with the Trump campaign. He didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Garza, whose LIBRE Initiative is in good standing in the Koch network, told POLITICO that he is engaged in “some initial talks” about a possible role with the Trump team. But he suggested that, even if he joined the team, it wouldn’t mean that the Trump administration would get a free pass from his group. “We’ll encourage and advocate for freedom-oriented, pro-growth policy proposals and call out bad policy prescriptions regardless of party or personality.”

The first potential battle between the Kochs and the Trump administration — the one repeatedly mentioned by operatives in and out of the network — is Trump’s centerpiece infrastructure plan, which constitutes the sort of Big Government domestic spending for which the Kochs have long attacked Democratic and Republican politicians alike.

“It will be interesting to see whether AFP actually holds the line on something,” said one top Republican operative. “There really could be a Trump-Koch spat in Year One.”

Others are interpreting the Koch-Trump détente as evidence that the true allegiance of many Koch staffers was always to the Republican Party, despite the network’s attempts to cast its efforts as independent from the official GOP.

“Starting in 2006 when Republicans lost control of Congress and even more so in 2008, when we lost the White House, a lot of people just needed a paycheck to keep up with their mortgage, and the Koch network kept them afloat,” said one former network official. “That’s not the way Charles Koch saw it, but the people who were accepting the checks saw it that way. And now, there’s an opportunity for them to get off the Koch dole and get back in power.”

Then there’s the question of whether Trump will even want to collaborate.

Several operatives around the Koch network said there’s concern that the Trump administration will have no incentive to work with the network.

The political operation created by the billionaire conservative mega-donors Charles and David Koch is quietly investing millions of dollars in programs to win over an unlikely demographic target for their brand of small-government conservatism ― poor people.

The outreach includes everything from turkey giveaways, GED training and English-language instruction for Hispanic immigrants to community holiday meals and healthy living classes for predominantly African American groups to vocational training and couponing classes for the under-employed. The strategy, according to sources familiar with it and documents reviewed by POLITICO, calls for presenting a more compassionate side of the brothers’ politics to new audiences, while fighting the perception that their groups are merely fronts for rich Republicans seeking to game the political process for personal gain.

The efforts include a healthy dose of proselytizing about free enterprise and how it can do more than government to lift people out of poverty.

“We want people to know that they can earn their own success. They don’t need the government to give it to them,” Koch network official Jennifer Stefano told activists and donors during in Columbus, Ohio, at which she introduced one such project, Bridge to Wellbeing.

Housed within the foundation arm of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch network’s largest group, the program represents “the new way to advance freedom,” Stefano boasted. “And so that’s why, today, you’ll see Americans for Prosperity Foundation reaching out to new communities offering not just classes on the Constitution, and knowing your rights, but on couponing and how to turn your passion into profit by helping other people be successful, to not just tell them about the economy and economic freedom, but to show them that we want them to economically thrive, and how to do it.”

Bridge to Wellbeing last week served hot dinners to crowds of dozens of primarily African American attendees at a church in Miami and a community center in Orlando. A chef offered tips on how to prepare “dinner on a dime,” while attendees were guided into “learning about freedom,” according to the Twitter feed of one AFP staffer.

The Koch efforts can seem at times almost like a post-Citizens United version of turn-of-the-century political machines like Tammany Hall ― part privatized social-service agency, part voter mobilization. But liberal critics see it as a craven and patronizing gambit to bribe the disadvantaged into supporting a de-regulatory agenda that helps the haves at the expense of the have-nots.

"It won't work. They can't hide their agenda of lower wages, no unions and no health care, which would be devastating to these communities, merely by trying to 'help' them with a food coupon," said David Brock, who founded a liberal non-profit group that tracks the Koch network. He added, "It's also creepy. It sounds like something Hezbollah would do to get recruits."

Like most else in the Kochs’ expansive network, which plans to spend as much as $889 million from the industrialist Koch brothers and hundreds of allied mega-donors in the run-up to the 2016 election, the so-called well-being efforts, as they are known within the network, are only partly about electing Republicans.

Charles Koch has long argued ― mostly privately until recently ― that government welfare and regulation actually hold back many of its ostensible beneficiaries. His network's goal, he told hundreds of ultra-rich conservatives he had summoned to a tony Southern California resort this summer, “is to remove the shackles preventing all Americans, especially the disadvantaged, from pursuing their dreams. That’s what’s happening in this country. We are crushing ― these policies are crushing peoples’ dreams,” including by making "it nearly impossible for the poor to start a small business or, in many cases, even work.”

Koch went on to call his network "the most effective movement in history for helping people improve their lives and making the world a better place."

In addition to Bridge to Wellbeing, Koch-backed wellness efforts include the Hispanic-focused LIBRE Initiative, which has given away holiday turkeys and toys, as well as Spanish-language training for drivers’ licensing, GED exams and tax-preparation. Another network group,Concerned Veterans for America, is expected to begin offering similar well-being programs for veterans, according to sources. There are also initiatives aimed at the homeless, developmentally disabled and mentally ill. And there’s a new group called Stand Together for America focused partly on using well-being-related outreach to appeal to what network officials call “the middle third” ― persuadable voters who are mostly disengaged. And the Charles Koch Institute in 2013 launched a “Well-Being Initiative” to provideintellectual firepower for the overall network effort.

“Sometimes, we have not been as good at explaining the virtues of economic freedom and individual liberty to people who are struggling,” said Americans for Prosperity’s president Tim Phillips. He also conceded that well-being initiatives could help AFP’s main arm satisfy an Internal Revenue Service requirement that the group spend most of its money on educational or charitable purposes, not political or policy advocacy. “Part of it is we are a social welfare organization. And, so, yes, we do try to help folks live more prosperous lives. That’s not related to direct policy.”

“Could come off as not being genuine”

The well-being push includes causes that defy easy partisan typecasting ― such as a major criminal justice reform push and a fledgling fight to reduce occupational licensing ― on which Koch allies have worked with liberal groups and even lately with President Barack Obama’s administration. But messages about reining in government and empowering the private sector undergird all of the efforts ― even pitching in to help emergency victims.

After a chemical spill polluted the water supply in nine West Virginia counties last year, AFP Foundation gave away more than 100,000 gallons of bottled water to affected residents. Some environmentalists bristled, pointing out that Koch-backed groups have fought against stricter environmental regulations. But sources say that Stefano, the Bridge to Wellbeing leader, in a presentation to AFP staff, argued that charitable efforts like the one in West Virginia “allow us to demonstrate our values of individual responsibility and the private sector stepping up in times of need, instead of waiting for government.”

Inside the network, the well-being initiatives are viewed as a legacy project for Charles Koch and his longtime lieutenant Rich Fink. An executive at the brothers' multinational industrial conglomerate Koch Industries, Fink advocated for the creation of Stand Together for America, and has sat on the boards of Charles Koch Institute and Americans for Prosperity Foundation, though he left the AFPF board at the end of last month. Sources familiar with the network tell POLITICO that, in weekly meetings of top officials from across the expanding network, groups are urged to pursue outreach to disadvantaged groups.

“They’re trying to reshape the country, and they realize they can’t do that without changing the perception of conservatism,” said one operative who works with Koch-backed groups, who requested anonymity. In an internal network memo reviewed by POLITICO, though, in which AFP sought additional program funds, it predicted that the Bridge to Wellbeing initiative would allow the group and its foundation to “go on the offense against the current suggestions that AFPF is extreme, an arm of a political party or the front group for wealthy donors.”

Still, there’s a fair amount of concern inside the network that the efforts could be a costly boondoggle that is unlikely to yield any progress towards the Kochs' goals, and more likely risks backlash.

Stefano privately addressed those concerns during Bridge to Wellbeing's formative stages, according to sources familiar with the discussions, who said she warned network officials on multiple occasions that “capitalizing on these types of events could come off as not being genuine.”

And one former network executive said, “There are a lot of high-up lieutenants who roll their eyes when they talk about this and question whether it’s getting any bang for the buck. How does teaching people how to clip coupons or giving them free turkeys translate into convincing them that conservatives or Republicans have the best interests of the disadvantaged at heart? Is this really changing people's minds or are they just showing up for the free turkeys?”

The calculation, according to AFP spokesman Levi Russell, is that new audiences might be more receptive to the message if it’s presented in a less-political context. “If we're only engaging people on the latest piece of legislation being debated, we're starting too late in the process,” Russell said.

‘Care and intent’

After spending more than $400 million boosting conservative candidates and causes in the run-up to the 2012 election, only to see Democrats retain the White House and the Senate, the Koch network commissioned a forensic analysis to determine where their efforts had fallen short.

It identified a number of needed tactical and strategic adjustments. But it also concluded that its efforts were hampered by the widespread perception that conservatives don’t care about the plight of regular folks struggling to make ends meet ― let alone the underprivileged.

Sources tell POLITICO that, in post-election strategy sessions, Charles Koch and his inner circle fixated on an exit poll finding that highlighted a so-called “empathy gap” that plagued GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Among voters seeking a candidate who “cares about people like me”, Obama clobbered Romney 81 percent to 18 percent ― by far the widest gap among the four traits commonly measured (the others are vision for the future, shares my values and strong leader).

“All we talked about post-2012 was that statistic,” said a former executive with one network group. “How Romney won on economics or national defense but lost like 80 to 20 on who cares about you. It spoke to a larger problem with the conservative movement. Romney just embodied that.”

Koch and Fink concluded that winning over empathy-seeking voters could help them tilt the electoral map in their favor.

“If we are successful, there will be enough … support to not only drive state policies, but also to elect a majority of freedom advocates in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and we need 317 electoral votes to elect a president who will advance” economic freedom, Fink argued to donors at a closed-door 2014 session. In his remarks, which were secretly recorded and posted online by a liberal blogger, he stressed that “intent matters to this middle third,” and pointed out “Mitt Romney won on leadership. He won on the economy. He won on experience. What did he lose on? He lost on care and intent.”

He conceded that the Koch network’s efforts to reach the coveted middle third have been clumsy.The focus has been on “telling them what’s important — what we think is important should be important to them. And they’re not responding and don’t like it, okay? Well, we get business — what do we do? We want to find out what the customer wants, right, not what we want them to buy.”

The network commissioned focus groups done by veteran GOP pollster Frank Luntz, a Koch favorite, to assess the concerns of the middle third, and determine how best to reach them, sources told POLITICO. On top of that, Fink told the donors the network gathered “20 years of objective research of left, right, middle scientists, and we’ve looked at 170,000 surveys of people around the world, in the United States — they were all people in the middle — and what they think is important.”

The result was an index of “six dimensions demonstrated to be key factors of well-being,” according to documents from the Charles Koch Institute. Among them were increasing the standard of living by providing for basic necessities, offering opportunity through strong job markets and entrepreneurship, bolstering personal freedom, encouraging family and community bonds, promoting physical and mental health and providing safety from war and crime.

It’s difficult to assess how much of the network’s $889-million budget for the 2016 cycle is slated for well-being initiatives, both because the efforts are spread across multiple groups and because the groups aren’t required to disclose detailed financial information.

But sources tell POLITICO that Fink has directed that a greater percentage of AFP’s overall budget be allocated to its foundation, which runs Bridge to Wellbeing and which tax filings show had a 2014 budget of $23 million (as compared to $82 million for AFP's main arm). And leaked documents reveal that the Koch network has pitched donors on well-being projects and concepts since at least last year.

At a June 2014 network gathering, donors were given the option of attending breakout sessions entitled “Well-Being: What It Is and Why It’s Important” and “Value-Added Events: Engaging the Middle Third.” The latter session, which refers to the precursor program to Bridge to Wellbeing, featured presentations by Stefano and Fink’s daughter Justine Fink, who helps run Bridge to Wellbeing. Stefano was listed as the “VP of Value Added Events” on AFP’s 2014 tax filings, which show she received an annual salary of $184,000.

“Not politics”

The Bridge to Wellbeing pilot program was launched in key swing states like Colorado, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. And insiders profess that the hope is that some of those helped by the network’s social services will embrace free-enterprise conservatism and possibly even join the ground troops that Koch-backed groups deploy to get out the vote.

Yet, publicly, the Kochs and their allies downplay political motivations.

In a promotional video shot at a Bridge to Wellbeing turkey giveaway, an "instructor" named Nicole Thorton, who previously worked as a high school history teacher and now teaches courses for AFP Foundation about the Constitution and individual rights, explained that the purpose “is not politics. It’s to help citizens to have a better quality of life and that is something that everybody wants, regardless of your political affiliation.”

There’s an almost evangelical undercurrent to the group’s efforts, which came across during Stefano’s speech in Columbus this summer.

“We have to go out and we have to embrace people for who they are. We have to meet them where they’re at. We must personalize freedom so that it’s meaningful to them and not just to us,” Stefano said, after taking the stage to the Rocky theme song. “There is no community, no group of people, no barrier that the six states that have agreed to a test of this model would not overcome to advance this new way of introducing Americans again to freedom,” she said. “We have gone in to shelters, rescue missions. We have gone and taken our message to people with intellectual disabilities, those with mental illness.”

Bridge seeks to cultivate relationships with potential activists by holding smaller-group events that bring in “aligned but unengaged” people, according to sources familiar with the planning. A particular focus is women. An AFP survey found women would be more likely to attend events if childcare or child-friendly entertainment is offered, sources said. It also found that events using words like “everyday affordability” were popular with “aligned but unengaged women.”

Bridge’s events are typically held at churches or community centers. They offer “coaches” in areas including “budgeting and finance” and “health and lifestyle, nutrition” and “constitutional and personal rights.” Free workshops are geared towards teaching “how to save money and have economic freedom.”Specific skills have included couponing, healthy and affordable eating and tips for answering the question “Is My Child’s School Any Good?”

It held a “Business, Budgeting and Money Saving Tips” event at a conservative church in Richmond, Va., and a healthcare event in Phoenix, Ariz., where a local doctor discussed how women can lead healthier lives while also criticizing Obamacare as hindering healthcare delivery and medical advances.

One event attendee explained in a promotional video he’s “learned how to flip furniture” and use coupons, as well as better time management.

During the turkey giveaway featured in the video, a participant identified as Alyssa thanked Bridge to Wellbeing for helping her family recover from her husband's lay-off.

“If it wasn’t for you guys, I don’t know how we would have made it the past few months, if you guys hadn’t offered that couponing class, because I didn’t even know how I was going to put groceries in my cabinet,” she said. “And I am incredibly grateful and I really appreciate all the hard work that you guys do and you put into it.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/charles-david-koch-poverty-charity-216631

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We are now seeing yet another iteration of that hardy but misguided western impulse. These state legislative efforts are nothing more than corporate-backed messaging tools that can be traced to conservative front groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, and Americans for Prosperity, as we discuss further below. The proposals run directly contrary to abundant evidence that Americans and westerners support federal management of their public lands and value the economic benefits those lands provide, especially when they are protected from mining and drilling and are used instead for recreation and other more sustainable purposes.

In the past year, legislatures in seven western states?—?Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Idaho?—?have passed, introduced, or explored legislation demanding that the federal government turn over millions of acres of federal public lands to the states. If successful, these bills could be disastrous: Rather than being managed for the benefit and use of the American public, these lands will instead be managed in whatever way each state wants to use them?—?which generally means maximizing private profits through mining, drilling, and other resource extraction.