Levy/Levin

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>=</strong></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>frayda is wife, trump:</strong></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>
</strong></font></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> </font></p><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/koch-brothers-million-dollar-donor-club/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.motherjones.com/politics/<b>2011/09/</b>koch-brothers-million-dollar-donor-club/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mojo</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Exclusive: The Koch Brothers’ Million-Dollar Donor Club</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GAVIN ARONSEN</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read our inside account of the Koch brothers’ Vail seminar, and listen to the exclusive audio.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twice a year, the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch host secretive retreats for an exclusive list of corporate America’s rich and powerful to strategize and raise money for their right-wing political agenda. Mother Jones has obtained exclusive audio recordings that shed some light on the brothers’ latest retreat, held at a resort near Vail, Colorado, in late June.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a speech that is part of these recordings, Charles Koch thanks donors who gave more than $1 million to the cause. We checked the audio against a list of participants at the Kochs’ 2010 seminar in Aspen that was obtained by ThinkProgress.org and did additional research on these individuals. Below are the names Koch read that appeared on the previous guest list.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">John Childs: Childs is the founder and CEO of private equity firm JW Childs Associates. In 2006, Boston Magazine placed the “notoriously media-shy” magnate—a.k.a. “the Republican ATM”—among the city’s wealthiest residents, reportedly worth $1.2 billion. Childs donated $750,000 to outside political expenditure groups in 2010. He’s also been involved in Florida wetlands conservation efforts.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Cortopassis: Dean “Dino” Cortopassi and his wife, Joan, hail from Stockton, California. This article, which identifies the pair as philanthroposts, calls Dino a “wealthy self-made agribusinessman who is Stocktonian of the Year for 2005.” He is suing the state of California for its failure to dredge streams in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Joe Craft: Joseph Craft is president, CEO, and chairman of Alliance Resource Partners, a coal company based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that gave $2.4 million to outside political expenditure groups in 2010. His family is reportedly worth $1.9 billion.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richard DeVos</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The DeVoses: Rich and Helen DeVos hail from Michigan. The cofounder of Amway and owner of the NBA’s Orlando Magic, Rich DeVos is reportedly worth in the ballpark of $4.2 billion. The Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation funds conservative Christian groups such as Focus on the Family. The DeVoses are big enough political donors to have their own profile at OpenSecrets.org.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Farmers: Dick Farmer is from Ohio. The founder and former CEO of the Cintas Corporation, his story is literally rags-to-riches: He turned his father’s Depression-era rag-cleaning business into a $3.5 billion enterprise. Farmer and his wife, Joyce, are longtime Republican boosters; during the 2002 election cycle the couple gave about $1 million to the party.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Friesses: Foster Friess founded the investment firm Friess Associates in 1974 with his wife, Lynn; in 2001, he sold a majority share for $247 million. Friess is a champion of conservative Christian causes and one of Wyoming’s richest men. His son, Steve Friess, helps him run the family’s philanthropic foundation. (Steve’s wife, Polly, was also on the list of Aspen Koch participants.)</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Fullinwiders: Jerry and Leah Fullinwider hail from Dallas. Jerry has pursued oil exploration and development in the United States, Canada, and Russia. He now serves under Ross Perot’s son as vice chairman of Hillwood International Energy, which has operations in Iraq and Jordan as well as the United States and Russia. He also has ties to Hilarion Alfeyev, an anti-abortion Russian Orthodox bishop.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Gilliams: Richard Gilliam and wife, Leslie, are natives of southwest Virginia. Richard founded the Cumberland Resources Corporation, which was one of the nation’s largest private coal mining companies when Massey Energy bought it for nearly $1 billion in March 2010. He’s now a director with the Vancouver-based mining corporation Endurance Gold.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Griffins: Ken and Anne Dias Griffin are a hedge fund power couple from Chicago who wed in 2003. Ken is the founder and CEO of Citadel and is reportedly worth $2.3 billion. Anne founded one of the nation’s largest woman-run hedge funds, Aragon Global Management. Ken bundled money for both President Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain during the 2008 election.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Haworths: Richard “Dick” Haworth is the former CEO and chairman emeritus of Haworth, an international office-interiors manufacturer based in Holland, Michigan, that he took over from his father in 1975. The company reported sales of $1.4 billion in 2005, the year he retired. He is married to Ethie Haworth and has donated more than $100,000 to Republican causes, according to OpenSecrets.org.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Diane Hendricks</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Diane Hendricks: Hendricks is the billionaire former head of the ABC Supply roofing company, which she took over from her husband Kenneth after he died in a construction site accident in 2007. Reportedly worth $2.2 billion, she is the richest businesswoman in Wisconsin and a big Republican Party donor. She recently gave her state’s embattled Republican governor, Scott Walker, $10,000 in advance of a potential recall vote next year.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Humphreys family: Ethelmae Humphreys is the chair of the board of Tamko Building Products, one of the country’s largest independent roofing manufacturers. She also serves on the board of directors of the Cato Institute, a Koch-funded think tank. Her son David is Tamko’s CEO. The two have doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates. That includes David’s $25,000 donation to the successful recount effort this year of conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, who came under fire recently for allegations that he choked a fellow justice. (He wasn’t charged.)</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The Levys:</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Kenneth Levy of Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, cofounded the Jacobs Levy equity management firm and has donated about $85,000 to conservative causes, according to FEC records. His wife, Frayda Levin, is a national director at the Koch brothers’ advocacy group Americans for Prosperity and sits on the board of the <b>Club for Growth.</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">She also cofounded the Motion Picture Institute,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> which “promotes liberty through film,” according to her AFP bio. FEC records show that she has given well over $100,000 to conservative causes.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Marshall family: Elaine Marshall of Dallas is the widow of E. Pierce Marshall, a son of oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall who served on the board of Koch Industries before his death. Elaine was involved in a successful effort to prevent the late Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith, who married Howard when he was 89, from inheriting the family’s wealth. Before Smith’s death, she was investigated by the FBI but never prosecuted in a murder-for-hire plot against Pierce. In the end, Pierce inherited the bulk of his father’s wealth because he and his father had previously helped Charles and David Koch thwart a takeover of Koch Industries; Howard’s eldest son—also named Howard—sided against his father and was disinherited as a result. Meanwhile, Elaine’s son, E. Pierce Marshall Jr., is senior vice president and general counsel at oil exploration company MarOpCo. Another son, Preston Marshall of Houston, is the president of MarOpCo.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Popes</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">: </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Art Pope is a millionaire Republican booster from Raleigh, North Carolina, who inherited his retail fortune from a family business. According to this article, he’s “one of the most trusted members of the Koch’s elite circle” and a regular at the Kochs’ secret seminars, as well as a “valuable junior partner in many key Koch operations.” He’s another national director at Americans for Prosperity and is married to Kathy Pope. According to this October 2011 New Yorker profile by Jane Mayer, who has also profiled the Koch brothers, Pope has dumped millions into sculpting the political landscape in North Carolina, a swing state—including giving money to outside groups that fund malicious attack ads.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Robertsons: Corbin Robertson is CEO and chairman of the board of Natural Resource Partners, a Houston-based fossil fuels company. He’s also been involved with a number of other energy organizations and was listed as the richest US small-business owner in 2007 by CNNMoney. He and wife Barbara have donated to the Baylor College of Medicine and both Democratic and Republican politicians.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Karen Wright: Wright is the founder and CEO of the Ariel Foundation, a private philanthropy group based in Mount Vernon, Ohio. She’s also CEO of the Ariel Corporation, a natural-gas compression company, and on the American Petroleum Institute’s board of directors. She has donated more than $100,000 to Republican causes, according to OpenSecrets.org.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tom Rastin: Rastin shares a Mount Vernon, Ohio, address with Karen Wright. He serves on the board of directors at the Ariel Foundation and is vice president of marketing and engineering at the Ariel Corporation. Last year, he gave $2,400 to the failed congressional campaign of former Democratic Louisiana House Speaker Hunt Downer, who switched to the Republican Party after endorsing the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2000.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The principals with the Services Group of America: SGA is a billion-dollar food services wholesaler; its CEO, Peter Smith of Scottsdale, Arizona, appears on the list of 2010 Koch attendees. Smith took over as CEO last year after its former head, GOP heavyweight Thomas J. Stewart, died in a helicopter crash. According to FEC records, Smith has donated $12,500 to Republican congressional candidates. SGA’s political action committee donates heavily to Republicans.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the event, Charles Koch also read off names that did not appear on the 2010 attendees list, but that mirrored those of well-known GOP donors for whom giving $1 million or more to the Kochs would not seem out of character. You’ll find these names below. We chose not to offer any details on the handful of names for which we could find no association with Koch business interests or conservative political giving. (Listen to Charles Koch reading the donor list.)</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Camerons: Ron Cameron of Little Rock, Arkansas, runs agribusiness giant Mountaire Corporation, which generated $1.22 billion in revenue in 2009. He has donated at least $175,000 to Republicans in recent years, including $5,000 to Sarah Palin’s PAC, according to FEC records. The company itself has given at least $125,000 to outside spending groups over the past decade, according to OpenSecrets.org.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Hamms: Self-made magnate Harold Hamm of Oklahoma City is reportedly worth $8.2 billion. The son of sharecroppers, Hamm soared up the corporate ladder from gas station attendant to CEO of “America’s Oil Champion,” Oklahoma-based Continental Resources. According to OpenSecrets.org, he’s doled out more than $100,000 to political causes and candidates, mostly Republican. Stricken with diabetes, he and wife Sue Ann founded a center at the Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center to help combat the disease.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Haydens: Jerry and Marilyn Hayden of Barrington, Illinois, doled out $400,000 to conservative-leaning outside spending groups in 2010 and about $250,000 to Republicans in 2008. Before retirement, Jerry ran Peacock Engineering, a packaging company. As of September 2008, he served on the board of directors at the United Republican Fund of Illinois. The Haydens recently donated $2.5 million toward an alumni center at their alma matter, Bradley University.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Virginia James: James is an investor from New Jersey. She has donated handsomely to right-wing causes, including a $750,000 gift to the Club for Growth in 2008 and another $350,000 last year. This year, she donated $25,000 to the successful recount of Wisconsin’s Justice Prosser.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Menards: John Menard of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, is the founder of Menards, the country’s third-largest hardware company. He’s worth a reported $5.2 billion and has donated about $80,000 to his state’s Republican Party and federal candidates, mostly Republicans, according to FEC records. His company backed a recent anti-union program that was linked to the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity and supported by Gov. Scott Walker.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">John Moran: Hailing from Palm Springs, Florida, Moran is the former chairman of the Dyson-Kissner-Moran Corporation, an international holding company based in New York City. He also chaired the Republican National Finance Committee from 1993 to 1995. Moran has given more than $900,000 to Republican causes since 1991, according to OpenSecrets.org, and he bundled between $250,000 and $500,000 more for McCain’s 2008 presidential bid. In 1997, he warned that the religious right was putting his party’s future “in jeopardy.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Charles Schwab</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Schwabs: Charles Schwab of San Francisco is founder and chairman of the Charles Schwab Corporation, the country’s largest independent brokerage firm. He is reportedly worth $4.7 billion. Since 1989, Schwab has donated more than $1.6 million to political causes, mostly Republican, according to OpenSecrets.org. Part of that went to his company’s lobbying arm, which has given away millions more.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paul Singer: While Singer is not on the list of Aspen participants, the New York Times noted that “Annie Dickerson, who also runs a foundation for Paul Singer, a hedge fund executive who like the Kochs is active in promoting libertarian causes,” showed up at that seminar. Singer founded the $17 billion hedge fund Elliott Management and recently issued an economic manifesto slamming the Federal Reserve as a “group of inbred academics.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Templetons: John “Jack” Templeton Jr. and his wife, Josephine, of Pennsylvania, gave $50,000 apiece to Wisconsin Justice Prosser’s recount effort this year. Jack, an evangelical Christian, has donated more than $1 million to Republicans, according to state and federal records. He heads the John Templeton Foundation, an organization whose critics—including prominent scientists—say it aims to apply scientific legitimacy to matters of faith. The foundation was started by Jack’s late father, Sir John the mutual fund billionaire, and in 2009 reportedly had $1.7 billion in assets.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Be sure to Read Part 1 of our two-part series: “Exclusive: The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And check back tomorrow for Part 2, on the GOP superstar who rocked the Koch crowd on opening night.</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></b></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/06/rich-rewards-one-mans-shadow-money-network/" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/06/rich-rewards-one-mans-shadow-money-network/</a></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">howard rich 2012</font></p><div open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" margin="margin" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> is the eighth story in an<b> exclusive series about the funding behind politically active tax-exempt organizations that don’t disclose their donors</b>. You can read the other stories in the series <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/reports/moneytrail.php" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">here</a>.</font></span></span></div><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 10px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Long ago, Earth Day rooted itself in the minds of many Americans as a regular annual event — not bad for what started 42 years ago as a “teach-in” about the dangers of an industrial economy running amok.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 10px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But there have always been opponents to the environmentalist agenda, and on Earth Day 2012, they found that they had their own, modern-day “teach-in” — a four-and-a-half minute video posted on YouTube. The slick production, titled “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ-4gnNz0vc" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">If I Wanted America To Fail</a>,” is a laundry list of libertarian grievances against big government billed as a response to the “economic suicide pact” of environmentalism.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If I wanted America to fail, I would create countless new regulations and seldom cancel old ones,” says the narrator, black background and foreboding music adding to an apocalyptic tone. “They would be so complicated that only bureaucrats, lawyers and lobbyists could understand them. That way, small businesses with big ideas wouldn’t stand a chance.”</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He goes on to mock alternative energy, the public education system and other standards of the left. “If I wanted America to fail, I would prey on the goodness and decency of ordinary Americans,” he concludes. “I would only need to convince them that all of this is for the greater good. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">If I wanted America to fail, I…I suppose I wouldn’t change a thing.”</span></font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Heavily promoted by Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing commentators, the video went viral, racking up 2.3 million views since it debuted.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But few, if any, of those millions of viewers understand the complicated web of secretive, densely interwoven political groups from which the video emerged.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the network is built around nonprofits with vague names and grassroots slogans that imply the participation of many ordinary Americans, it’s primarily the handiwork of one man: <b>Howard Rich.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Rich, 72, made his fortune in Manhattan real estate, but since at least the early 1970s, his passion has been libertarian politics. He decamped from the Libertarian Party in the 1980s to establish his own network of like-minded think-tanks and publishing companies.</b></font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rich is also prominently attached to leading national libertarian groups — he sits on the boards of directors of the <b>Club for Growth and the Cato Institute. </b>Yet he remains a mysterious figure, rarely interviewed and almost always several steps removed from any direct action.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Still, an examination of the publicity-shy mogul’s efforts makes several things clear. He is deeply committed to his ideological values — willing to spend massive amounts of money to push projects even in places where he has little apparent personal or business connection. He is single-minded in his approach, willing to lash out at conservatives as quickly and as viciously as he will go after liberals. And all indications are that he believes the ends justify the means, sometimes using money as a blunt force object to get his way.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">His involvement in electoral politics usually consists of transferring money — though it’s often difficult to say exactly whose money — into nonprofit groups that don’t disclose their donors. When he funds causes — or candidates — directly, Rich frequently camouflages his donations under any of dozens of nearly anonymous shell corporations. In that way, he’s the antithesis of a Sheldon Adelson, an ultra-rich Republicans who has openly given tens of millions to GOP presidential super PACs. On those occasions when Rich is revealed as the source of contributions, though, he’s been unapologetic about his role</span>.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Internal Revenue Service records analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics<b>, from the early 2000s at least through 2010 Rich was the linchpin holding together a confusing, swirling array of political organizations — all of them nondisclosing nonprofit groups — that spent heavily to influence state and federal politics around the country.</b> The constellation of organizations that operate out of a handful of Rich-related addresses is constantly changing, but some of them are well-known:<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Rich, in his role as chairman of U.S. Term Limits, a <b>501(c)(4) </b>group under tax rules, has for years been the driving force of the movement to curtail how long  elected officials can stay in office. He’s also the chairman of a 501(c)(4) group called <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=Americans%20for%20Limited%20Government" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Americans for Limited Government</a>, which spent $1.02 million in 2010 targeting Democrats running for Congress and distributed millions more to other groups.</span></font></p><div open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If I Wanted America to Fail” is a textbook example of Rich’s tangled web. It was produced by a group called<b> Free Market America, </b>which, according to its website, is a joint project of Rich’s Americans for Limited Government and another group, Citizens for Limited Taxes and a Stronger Economy, Inc. Florida state records show that Citizens for Limited Taxes is registered at a Tampa address that also is home to at least 30 political action committees; the group’s only listed officers are two political operatives and the head of the Florida Chamber of Commerce. State campaign finance records show that in 2010, the group collected and spent more than $12 million helping defeat a proposition that would have slowed development in Florida. Its relationship with Rich? Like so much about his empire, that’s not entirely clear.</font></div><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">OpenSecrets.org</a> made multiple attempts to interview Rich and other individuals involved with his groups, including several board members. But Ray Wotring, Americans for Limited Government’s treasurer, said the group would not allow any representative to comment.</font></p><div open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“You can keep pushing, but we’re not going to talk to you,” Wotring said, </b>complaining that OpenSecrets.org published a “hatchet job on Howie in 2006.” For the record, OpenSecrets.org did not publish any articles about Rich in 2006, and has never written specifically about him.</font></div><div open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Eric O’Keefe, who co-founded U.S. Term Limits with Rich and is currently the CEO of the <a href="http://samadamsalliance.org/about" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Sam Adams Alliance</a>,</b> a tea party group, and board member of the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtedetail.php?ein=452318439&cycle=2012" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Wisconsin Club for Growth</a>, was the only individual close to Rich who would comment for this story. O’Keefe, who is no longer part of Rich’s organizations but said he follows them and counts Rich as a friend, said it is Rich’s deep commitment to libertarian ideals, not an expectation of payback, that drives his donations to political groups and candidates.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Howie has given millions of dollars to these causes,” O’Keefe said. “All of us benefit from a functioning democracy and a functioning market economy, but he has never expected to have a tangible return on his investments.”</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>O’Keefe said Rich is careful to obey laws as they are written, but opposes limits on campaign contributions.</b></font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I can’t speak for him, but I know he pays a lot of money to attorneys to follow the rules,” O’Keefe said. “I know he doesn’t favor the system for limits on contributions” because he believes it favors incumbents.</font></p><div open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Occasionally, Rich grants an interview or offers his opinion more directly — posting columns on his own website, for instance. In 2010, he <a href="http://howardrich.org/?p=55" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">penned one about the Rod Blagojevich scandal</a> in Chicago, in which the former governor of Illinois was accused of selling political favors for campaign contributions. Rich, dripping with cynicism, portrayed the world of politics as a grimy, corrupt place.</font></p><div style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“First of all, if you think this sort of pay-to-play scamming doesn’t go on every single day in Washington D.C. and state capitals all across America, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you,” Rich wrote, continuing:</font></p></div></div><blockquote open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" margin-left="margin-left" px="px" border-top-style="border-top-style" none="none" border-right-style="border-right-style" border-bottom-style="border-bottom-style" font-size="font-size" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 1em; border-left: 0.35294rem none rgb(225, 225, 225); padding-left: 1.17647rem; display: inline-block;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It may not always be so mindlessly overt (and the tape recorder may not always be on), but in the post-Jack Abramoff world we live in – a world of “free home renovations” for U.S. Senators and cash hidden away in Representatives’ freezers – let’s not delude ourselves.</font></span></p></blockquote><div open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><div open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><b style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The network</font></b></div><div open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One way to begin tracing Rich’s network is to follow the numbers — for example, 9900. At least six of the groups affiliated with Rich are based out of an office at <b>9900 Main Street in Fairfax, VA.</b></font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Suite 303</b> of that four-story office building is home to Americans for Limited Government Inc., Americans for Limited Government Foundation, U.S. Term Limits, Inc., U.S.Term Limits Foundation, Legislative Education Action Drive and Parents In Charge Foundation. Some are 501(c)(3) charities under the tax code, and some are 501(c)(4)s.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rich is the chairman or president of all of them, with a tight circle of trusted lieutenants in key positions. Bill Wilson, a libertarian political operative who has worked with Rich since the 1990s, is a paid employee of all of the groups. And their various boards of directors are strikingly similar — <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">and dominated by other prominent libertarians, like Ed Crane, the president of the Cato Institute, who in 2010 was a board member of four of Rich’s groups<b>. Frayda Levy, who sits on the board of Club for Growth, is listed as a director of two of Rich’s groups.</b></span></font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Together, these six groups listed $11.6 million in revenues in 2010, the most recent year for which a report is available, and $12.8 million spent on things like political consultants, mass mailings and grants to other politically-oriented nonprofits. There tax status prevents them from having to publicly disclose their funders, so almost none of the $11.6 million these groups reported in revenue can be traced to a specific source.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One exception: A <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/05/cppr.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">recent OpenSecrets.org investigation</a> into a previously unreported group called the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Center to Protect Patient Rights found that the group gave tens of millions to major conservative 501(c)(4) organizations — including $5.6 million to Americans For Limited Government, Inc., in 2010.</span> But that trail dead-ends at a post office box in Arizona, with no indication of who is providing the Center’s funds. And there’s very little indication where the rest of Rich’s network gets its money — although Rich’s own pocket is a possibility.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">O’Keefe declined to say whether Rich’s own money drives his organizations.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But O’Keefe said that he and Rich share the belief that donors have a constitutionally protected right to contribute to political causes (though not candidates) without having to reveal their names.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Our position was always that we were always happy to have people brag about their money, but it’s not our business to brag about their donations,” O’Keefe said.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Repeating an argument often made by those who oppose disclosure, O’Keefe said that when donors’ names are made public, they become targets for solicitations from other people seeking money, and it opens them up to retribution from powerful interests.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“That’s a real and ongoing concern,” he said. “We viewed it as our role to protect [donors] from that.”</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The churn</font></b></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trying to trace the cashflow between Rich’s groups is a little like watching a Rube Goldberg contraption: there are a lot of moving parts. For instance, in 2010, Americans for Limited Government Foundation gave the<b> Parents In Charge Foundation a grant of $225,000, </b>and the U.S. Term Limits Foundation a grant of $234,000. But it also owed $1 million to its 501(c)(4) sibling, Americans for Limited Government, Inc.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Americans for Limited Government, Inc., in turn, gave a grant of $125,000 to U.S. Term Limits Inc. — and then lent it $346,000 more.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet the same year, U.S. Term Limits Foundation lent $85,000 back to Americans for Limited Government, Inc.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Confused yet? This may well be the point, or, according to tax attorney and former top IRS official Marcus Owens, it may be a clever system to skirt restrictions on how the organizations can operate. Because of the similarities between the various groups — their staffs, board members, missions and organizations they fund — the churn of cash back and forth raises questions, Owens said.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s the same group, at the same address, with occasionally some new faces and they all seem to act on the same set of principles — limited government and term limits — so it seems kind of implausible that there is some sort of benefit from these internal financial relationships other than to disguise and modify the character of the money,” he said.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For example, grants from a 501(c)(3) organization, such as U.S. Term Limits Foundation, couldn’t be used by a 501(c)(4), such as Americans for Limited Government, Inc., for political activity. Loans from the same group, structured as ordinary business transactions, would have no such restrictions, Owens noted.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also, tax law requires 501(c)(4)s like Americans for Limited Government, Inc., to spend the majority of their resources on “social welfare” activities. Spending too much on politics can lead to a challenge of their tax-exempt status.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>“If you have a 501(c)(4) that’s heavily engaged in political activity, it needs to somehow establish that 51 percent of what it does, isn’t political — how do you do that quickly? Make a grant,”</b> Owens said. “You could have a sort of circular cycling of dollars that attempts to support the tax status of all the (c)(4)s in the network.”</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And moving money between groups may help Rich’s organizations appear to be funded by multiple sources. Receiving all its donations from a single source can be problematic for an organization trying to maintain its favorable tax status, according to Owens, as it suggests the group’s purpose is to benefit that single donor.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The fact that Rich lends money to the groups in his network is unusual, Owens noted.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2010 Rich lent $772,000 to U.S. Term Limits, Inc., through Rich Lending Corporation. In previous years he lent money to Americans for Limited Government, Inc., and sometimes the group lent money back to Rich Lending Corporation, as well.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Owens, this may be a way to gain a tax benefit for funding a politically active nonprofit. Simply donating money to the group money might not be tax deductible as a business expense — particularly if the group engages in lobbying or political activity, which Americans for Limited Government does. But if the money is loaned by a for-profit company it can be used for any purpose by the recipient and the source of the funds would avoid limitations on business deductions.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If they loan money, then it’s not an expenditure, it’s a business transaction and any related expenses would likely be deductible,” Owens said.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The spread</font></b></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Rich’s network, though, isn’t entirely a closed system. The groups also spend money on political campaigns directly. OpenSecrets.org data shows Americans for Limited Government spent $1.02 million on mailers attacking Democrats in 2010 — the biggest target being Sen. <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00006692&cycle=2012" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Barbara Boxer</a> (D-Calif.) Another $6 million was spent hiring political consultants and direct-mailing firms in Utah, California and Arizona, according to the group’s tax form.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And Rich’s groups also distribute to an array of other nondisclosing nonprofits in the form of grants.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In 2010, Americans for Limited Government sent $250,000 to <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cycle=2010&cmte=Americans%20for%20Job%20Security" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Americans for Job Security</a>, </b>a nonprofit closely linked to several of George W. Bush’s top political advisers. Americans for Job Security spent almost $9 million in 2010, targeting mostly Democratic congressional candidates. It also stepped into an Alaskan state ballot initiative fight, spending $1.6 million supporting a local 501(c)(4) in an effort to try to defeat a referendum limiting mining. In response to complaints filed about the local group and its claims to be a grassroots organization, the Alaska Public Offices Commission opened an investigation to determine the group’s funding sources.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Americans for Job Security has no purpose other than to cover various money trails all over the country,” the commission’s report concluded.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">AJS, whose executive director shared office space with the Karl Rove-linked organization <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=American%20Crossroads/Crossroads%20GPS" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">American Crossroads</a>, was also accused in the report of being an improper conduit for money from the mine’s owner. Though AJS never admitted wrongdoing, it paid a <b>$20,000 settlement.</b></font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Most of the grants Americans for Limited Government gave in 2010 seemed to follow a similar playbook: at least $1.1 million went to other 501(c)(4)s in three states — Colorado, South Carolina and Alaska. Those groups, in turn, passed much of the money on to other groups, which then intervened directly in local and state elections. Rich’s other groups made similar donations to many of the same local groups.</font></p><p open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In Alaska, Americans for Limited Government sent $66,000 to a 501(c)(4) called Alaskans for Open Government — which in turn sent most of the money to another group called Clean Team Alaska. That group spent heavily to promote a ballot measure that would have banned virtually anyone who received public money — government contractors, municipalities, public employee unions (<a href="http://howardrich.org/?p=583" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">a regular hobgoblin in Rich’s writings</a>) — from lobbying the government or contributing money to political campaigns. The <b>effort was <a href="http://www.adn.com/2010/08/25/1423598/ballot-measure-1-soundly-rejected.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">abruptly abandoned</a> just before the Alaskan Public Offices Commission required the Alaskan groups to disclose their funders.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" /></font></p><div open="Open" sans="Sans" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" fira="Fira" droid="Droid" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Rich is fond of <b>ballot initiatives</b> for a very simple reason, U.S. Term Limits co-founder O’Keefe says.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“They don’t change their mind after the election,” he said. “They don’t renege on campaign promises. It’s a policy, not a candidate. You don’t actually know what you’re getting back from a candidate.</span>”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[dyn graph] cf</font></p></div><div style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; margin: 20px 0px 20px 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;">Rich’s Network:</b> This interactive graphic displays some of the groups that are either part of Rich’s network of non-disclosing 501(c) organizations, or have received money from them, based on 990 forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service. You can zoom in or out, reduce the number of organizations to see only the larger ones, or reshape the network. To see the data behind this visualization — including the value and type of transaction between each group — click <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/RichNetwork.xlsx" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">here</a> to download an Excel (.xlsx) spreadsheet. </font></span></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palmetto State Politics</font></b></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Rich may have made his biggest mark in South Carolina </b>—<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> a state where he appears to have no personal connections or obvious business interests. But since 2006, Rich has spent large sums in the state, largely to pursue one of his favored causes: School <b>vouchers </b>to allow parents to send their children to educational institutions other than their local neighborhood schools.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2010 alone, Rich’s organizations gave more than $1.7 million to a handful of South Carolina non-profits — groups like South Carolinians for Responsible Government and Conservatives In Action. South Carolinians for Responsible Government is actually two separate nonprofits, one a 501(c)(3) and another a 501(c)(4). Both groups are based at the same address and have the same president and identical boards of directors. Combined, they listed having more than $1.6 million in revenue in 2010.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“South Carolinians for Responsible Government is a statewide grassroots non-profit organization,” the group claims on its <a href="http://www.scrgov.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">website</a>. “Unlike our opponents, who use tax dollars to fund their operations, we depend entirely on the generosity of citizens like you.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But that’s true only if “citizens like you” includes four of Rich’s groups, which, according to their tax filings, made five grants to the two South Carolina organizations totaling $1.5 million — about 90 percent of the recipient groups’ revenues. It’s a classic Rich maneuver, indirect and complicated.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As is Rich’s sidestepping of South Carolina’s campaign finance laws: A <a href="http://www.thestate.com/2012/04/08/2225730/ny-dollars-flow-into-sc-school.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">recent investigation</a> by The State newspaper found that since 2008, Rich had contributed at least $188,000 to 38 members of the South Carolina House of Representatives. An OpenSecrets Blog review of South Carolina’s campaign finance disclosures indicate that since that article was published, Rich has given at least another $19,000 to three state Senate candidates facing primary fights.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But since South Carolina caps individual donations at $2,000, Rich had to be creative. Instead he made his gifts through shell companies with names like Stillrich LLC, Coolcal LLC, 188 Claremont LLC, 123 LaSalle, Inc., and 51 First Avenue, LLC. The companies, many of which appear to linger from Rich’s time in real estate – a realm in which it’s common for each property to exist as its own LLC — all list 1420 Walnut Street, Suite 1011, Philadelphia, PA, as their address.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>That’s the address of the Center for Independent Thought, the libertarian think tank run by Rich’s wife, Andrea Millen Rich.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dick Harpootlian, the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, is blunt in his assessment of Rich.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“He owns the whole fing state,” Harpootlian said recently in an interview with OpenSecrets Blog.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Phil Noble, a Democratic party activist who in 2010 traveled the state confronting candidates for taking Rich’s campaign contributions, is almost as blunt.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“He’s basically bought the Republican Party and virtually all the state House candidates is what it boils down to,” Noble told OpenSecrets Blog. “God knows how many millions he has spent here.” According to Noble, Rich first came to the state to back former governor Mark Sanford, who was a prominent school voucher proponent.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Noble said that Rich has targeted candidates, often moderate Republicans, in primary contests, usually shortly before an election.</b> One left-wing South Carolina blog found that in 2008, LLCs and individuals affiliated with Rich contributed $40,000 to a conservative state Senate candidate, Lee Bright, in the final two weeks before he faced off against an incumbent Republican. The contributions, which were not made public until after the vote, accounted for 20 percent of Bright’s funds in that election.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Simultaneously, the South Carolina Club For Growth — a group affiliated with the national Club For Growth, where Rich is a board member — dropped <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFwoAEGdNuA" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">an attack ad on the incumbent</a>, blasting him for taking money from trial lawyers.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bright narrowly won the race.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Noble blames Rich for corrupting South Carolina’s political culture by encouraging the development and use of secretive non-profits to attack political enemies.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“He was sort of the impetus for the the creation of a whole (c)(4) support network for Sanford and his agenda,” Noble said. “He brought that whole culture with him.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Furthermore, said Noble, Rich and his network “don’t care at all” about bad publicity. “They just spend what they have to, and they keep spending big.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Continuing to Spend</font></b></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There are indications that increasingly Rich is aiming his operation at federal politics. For the past two years, OpenSecrets.org data shows, Americans For Limited Government, Inc., has <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000060083&year=2012" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">employed a federal lobbyist</a>. So far this year, the group has lobbied in support of two anti- union bills, including one sponsored by Rep. <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00030752&cycle=2012" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Jeff Duncan</a> (R-S.C.), to whose campaign Rich personally gave $2,500. <a href="http://netrightdaily.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">NetRightDaily.com</a>, an online publication sponsored by Americans for Limited Government, has <a href="http://netrightdaily.com/2012/05/nlrb-secret-ballot-election-attack-defunded-in-u-s-house-of-representatives/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">trumpeted</a> the role the group played helping Duncan develop the legislation.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In March, Rich gave $50,000 to the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00487470&cycle=2012" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Club For Growth Action Fund</a>, a super PAC affiliated with the libertarian Club For Growth where Rich is on the board. Characteristically, Rich shrouded the donation under cover of a shell corporation, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/usearch/index.php?q=ashborough+investors&searchButt_clean.x=0&searchButt_clean.y=0&searchButt_clean=Submit&cx=010677907462955562473%3Anlldkv0jvam&cof=FORID%3A11" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Ashborough Investors LLC</a>, which lists his wife as the manager.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He has given another $48,500 directly to candidates like <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?cycle=2012&id=INS1" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Richard Mourdock</a>, the Indiana Tea Party challenger who successfully upset long-time incumbent Republican Sen. <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00001764&cycle=2012" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Dick Lugar</a>, as well as to PACs — including Club for Growth and the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?cycle=2012&strID=C00286880" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Term Limits America</a> PAC.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If Rich is gearing up his operation for a big effort at the federal level, there will likely be a liberal pushback — his name is often mentioned on liberal blogs in the same breath as the Koch brothers (although CRP found no direct connection between Rich and the Kochs).</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But if Rich is pushed on his campaign finance activities, expect him to push back.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2008, when a liberal group took it upon itself to notify conservative donors with ties to non-disclosing outside spending groups that they were being watched for possible election and tax law violations, Howard Rich — despite his own extensive involvement with political groups that hide their funding sources — sent a <a href="http://www.accountableamerica.com/files/letter.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">similar letter</a> to liberal donors.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“As a donor to one or more of these organizations and efforts, you have been able to engage in these activities without notice, operating in relative obscurity. I am writing to inform you that this will no longer be the case,” Rich wrote in his letter. “Your name has been put in our database. We are monitoring all reports of a wide variety of leftist organizations. As your name appears in subsequent reports, it is our intent to publicize your involvement in your local community.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Center for Responsive Politics researcher Robert Maguire contributed to this story.</font></span></p></div></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/trump-koch-brothers-231863</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no links</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Charles Koch once likened the contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to being asked to choose cancer or a heart attack.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>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.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">From White House Counsel Don McGahn and transition team advisers <b>Tom Pyle,</b> Darin Selnick and Alan Cobb to Presidential<b> Inaugural Committee member Diane Hendricks </b>and transition-team executive committee members Rebekah Mercer and Anthony Scaramucci, Trump has surrounded himself with people tied to the Kochs.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“In creating the Koch network, I don’t think that we ever envisioned that we would be</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> supplying staffers to this semi-free market, semi-populist president,” said </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Frayda Levin,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> a donor to the network who chairs the board of its main voter mobilization group, Americans for Prosperity</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. “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.”</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Trump's baseless assertions of voter fraud called 'stunning'</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">By ANDREW RESTUCCIA</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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 <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Trump’s press office didn’t respond to requests for comment.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Setting aside the personal and policy conflicts, Trump’s willingness to draw from the Kochs’ operation makes sense in several ways.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But there’s an added appeal for Trump.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“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.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>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</b> — none of whom responded to requests for comment for this story.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>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.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Short landed in Trump’s orbit when the Republican nominee tapped as his running mate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. </b>A longtime ally of the Koch network, Pence had previously employed both Short and Lloyd, who later went to work for Koch Industries</span>, 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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>
</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Lewandowski </b>had 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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Cobb is currently working for the transition team, which also is getting advice from Selnick and Pyle.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Selnick is a senior adviser and consultant to Concerned Veterans for America,</b> 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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“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.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>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,</b> 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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>McGahn, who last week was named White House counsel, represented Freedom Partners and its affiliated super PAC</b> — work he continued for a time even after signing on with the Trump campaign. He didn’t respond to a request for comment.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“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.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“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.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Then there’s the question of whether Trump will even want to collaborate.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Several operatives around the Koch network said there’s concern that the Trump administration will have no incentive to work with the network.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>
</strong></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong></strong></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong><a href="http://littlesis.org/person/87610/Frayda_Levin">http://littlesis.org/person/87610/Frayda_Levin</a></strong></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>
</strong></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>little sis</strong></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>
</strong></font></div><div><div class="relationship-section" style="box-sizing: content-box; border-width: 0px; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-bottom-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-left-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="501(c)4 focused on cutting spending, privatizing social security, and deregulation." href="http://littlesis.org/org/38196/Club_for_Growth" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;">Club for Growth</a></strong>   <span class="related_entity_blurb" style="box-sizing: content-box;">501(c)4 focused on cutting spending, privatizing social security,...</span></font></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/120091" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;">Board Member</a></span>   [<a class="toggler" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); cursor: pointer; background: rgb(238, 238, 238);"> +1 </a>]</font></li></div></div><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="view profile" href="http://littlesis.org/org/38195/Moving_Picture_Institute" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moving Picture Institute</font></a></strong></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/120088" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Co-founder</font></a></span></li></div></div><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="Koch political advocacy group c(3) arm" href="http://littlesis.org/org/38173/Americans_for_Prosperity_Foundation" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;">Americans for Prosperity Foundation</a></strong>   <span class="related_entity_blurb" style="box-sizing: content-box;">Koch political advocacy group c(3) arm</span></font></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/120090" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Director</font></a></span></li></div></div><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="view profile" href="http://littlesis.org/org/38194/Foundation_for_Economic_Education" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Foundation for Economic Education</font></a></strong></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/120087" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Board Member</font></a></span></li></div></div><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="Conservative political advocacy group" href="http://littlesis.org/org/133874/Americans_for_Prosperity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;">Americans for Prosperity</a></strong>   <span class="related_entity_blurb" style="box-sizing: content-box;">Conservative political advocacy group</span></font></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/664365" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Board Member</font></a></span></li></div></div></div><div class="subsection" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.4em 0.4em 0.2em 0.2em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Education</font></div><div class="relationship-section" style="box-sizing: content-box; border-width: 0px; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-bottom-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-left-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="Public research university" href="http://littlesis.org/org/42367/University_of_Connecticut" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;">University of Connecticut</a></strong>   <span class="related_entity_blurb" style="box-sizing: content-box;">Public research university</span></font></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/319892" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Undergraduate ⋅ BA</font></a></span></li></div></div><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="public research university in Charlottesville, VA" href="http://littlesis.org/org/15083/University_of_Virginia" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;">University of Virginia</a></strong>   <span class="related_entity_blurb" style="box-sizing: content-box;">public research university in Charlottesville, VA</span></font></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/319893" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Graduate ⋅ MBA</font></a></span></li></div></div></div><div class="subsection" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.4em 0.4em 0.2em 0.2em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Family</font></div><div class="relationship-section" style="box-sizing: content-box; border-width: 0px; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-bottom-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-left-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="Jacobs Levy Equity Management (JLEM)" href="http://littlesis.org/person/75924/Kenneth_N_Levy" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;">Kenneth N Levy</a></strong>   <span class="related_entity_blurb" style="box-sizing: content-box;">Jacobs Levy Equity Management (JLEM)</span></font></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/319911" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">husband</font></a></span></li></div></div></div><div class="subsection" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.4em 0.4em 0.2em 0.2em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donation/Grant Recipients</font></div><div class="section_meta" style="box-sizing: content-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0.3em 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em; border-bottom: 0px solid rgb(250, 250, 250); overflow: hidden; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1-10 of 95 :: <a href="http://littlesis.org/person/87610/Frayda_Levin/recipients" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background: transparent;">see all</a></font></div><div class="relationship-section" style="box-sizing: content-box; border-width: 0px; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-bottom-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-left-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="Former Governor of Massachusetts" href="http://littlesis.org/person/34136/Mitt_Romney" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;">Mitt Romney</a></strong>   <span class="related_entity_blurb" style="box-sizing: content-box;">Former Governor of Massachusetts</span></font></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/562107" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2 contributions ⋅ $27500 ('12)</font></a></span></li></div></div><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="view profile" href="http://littlesis.org/org/32524/National_Federation_of_Independent_Business_{Save_Americas_Free_Enterprise_Trust}" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">National Federation of Independent Business/ Save Americas Free Enterprise Trust</font></a></strong></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/207656" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;">1 contribution ⋅ $1000 ('04)</a></span>   [<a class="toggler" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); cursor: pointer; background: rgb(238, 238, 238);"> +1 </a>]</font></li></div></div><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="The Grand Ol' Party" href="http://littlesis.org/org/28778/Republican_National_Committee" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;">Republican National Committee</a></strong>   <span class="related_entity_blurb" style="box-sizing: content-box;">The Grand Ol' Party</span></font></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/562106" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2 contributions ⋅ $22500 ('12)</font></a></span></li></div></div><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="US Senator and Representative from Arizona" href="http://littlesis.org/person/13287/Jeff_Flake" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;">Jeff Flake</a></strong>   <span class="related_entity_blurb" style="box-sizing: content-box;">US Senator and Representative from Arizona</span></font></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/509780" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8 contributions ⋅ $15800 ('00→'11)</font></a></span></li></div></div><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="view profile" href="http://littlesis.org/org/96718/Citizens_for_Prosperity_in_America_Today_PAC" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Citizens for Prosperity in America Today PAC</font></a></strong></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/562112" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3 contributions ⋅ $15000 ('11→'12)</font></a></span></li></div></div><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="view profile" href="http://littlesis.org/org/32580/Club_for_Growth_PAC" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Club for Growth PAC</font></a></strong></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/509782" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3 contributions ⋅ $15000 ('07→'10)</font></a></span></li></div></div><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="Republican U.S. Senator from Texas" href="http://littlesis.org/person/96583/Ted_Cruz" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;">Ted Cruz</a></strong>   <span class="related_entity_blurb" style="box-sizing: content-box;">Republican U.S. Senator from Texas</span></font></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/562103" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5 contributions ⋅ $12500 ('11)</font></a></span></li></div></div><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="President, Heritage Foundation | Former US Senator and Representative from South Carolina" href="http://littlesis.org/person/13241/James_Demint" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;">James Demint</a></strong>   <span class="related_entity_blurb" style="box-sizing: content-box;">President, Heritage Foundation | Former US Senator and Representative...</span></font></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/509779" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7 contributions ⋅ $11200 ('04→'09)</font></a></span></li></div></div><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="US Senator and Representative from Pennsylvania" href="http://littlesis.org/person/13799/Patrick_Joseph_Toomey" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;">Patrick Joseph Toomey</a></strong>   <span class="related_entity_blurb" style="box-sizing: content-box;">US Senator and Representative from Pennsylvania</span></font></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/509781" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7 contributions ⋅ $10600 ('02→'09)</font></a></span></li></div></div><div class="related_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 1.3em; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.4em 0.3em;"><div class="related_entity_entity" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 20px; overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong class="text_big" style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a title="US Representative from New Jersey" href="http://littlesis.org/person/13298/Scott_Garrett" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.2em; background: transparent;">Scott Garrett</a></strong>   <span class="related_entity_blurb" style="box-sizing: content-box;">US Representative from New Jersey</span></font></div><div class="related_entity_relationship" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding-top: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.5em;"><li style="box-sizing: content-box; margin-left: 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: content-box;"><a class="relationship" title="view details" href="http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/207649" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 170); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; margin-top: 0.2em; background: transparent;">3 contributions ⋅ $1000 ('07)</a></span>   [<a class="toggler" style="box-sizing: content-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 136); cursor: pointer; background: rgb(238, 238, 238);"> +2 </a>]</font></li></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>=</strong></font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong /></font><div><strong><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>
</strong></font></strong></font></strong></strong></strong></div><strong>The Levys:<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Kenneth Levy of Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, </span><a href="http://www.jacobslevy.com/principa.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">cofounded</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span><span class="print-footnote">[50]</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> the Jacobs Levy </span>equity <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">management firm and has donated about $85,000 to conservative causes, according to FEC records. His wife, Frayda Levin, is a </span><a target="blank" href="http://www.americansforprosperity.org/about/directors" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">national director</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span><span class="print-footnote">[51]</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> at the Koch brothers' advocacy group </span><a target="blank" href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_for_Prosperity" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Americans for Prosperity</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span><span class="print-footnote">[52]</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> and sits on the board of the </span><a href="http://www.clubforgrowth.org/aboutus/?subsec=0&id=122" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Club for Growth</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span><span class="print-footnote">[53]</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. She also cofounded the Motion Picture Institute, which "promotes liberty through film," according to her AFP bio. FEC records show that she has given well over $100,000 to conservative causes.</span></strong><div><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></strong></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/09/koch-brothers-million-dollar-donor-club
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div>pre noble bust?</div><div>
</div><div><div><b> The Assault on Healthcare Reform</b></div><div>
</div><div>Conservative groups backed by wealthy donors are attacking the legislation at the state level.</div><div>By Nicholas Kusnetz  OCTOBER 6, 2010</div></div><div>
</div><div>ALEC</div><div>...</div><div>
</div><div>Cunningham says a grassroots movement pushed the measure over the top, with more than 70 percent of voters approving it. But it also attracted some large donations. Ethelmae Humphreys, who sits on Cato’s board, gave $25,000, more than 20 percent of all the money raised. Humphreys and her husband have also given at least $100,000 over the past few years to the libertarian Mercatus Center, based at George Mason University in Virginia. On the board of that group is another prominent donor to the Missouri initiative, Menlo Smith. "This is what the right does," Sinema tells me. "They take an issue or two, test it in a state to see how it does, and then take it around the country."</div><div>
</div><div>A key player in this campaign is the "Kochtopus," the political machine created by Charles and David Koch and detailed in a recent investigation by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker. The Kochs, who run the oil and chemical giant Koch Industries and who together are worth $35 billion, have spent the past few decades building a conveyor belt for right-wing and libertarian policies. Mostly through various charities, they have showered more than?$100 million on dozens of think tanks and advocacy groups—including the Goldwater Institute, the Pacific Research Institute, Cato, Mercatus and ALEC—which push antiregulatory policies that coincide with Koch Industries’ and other large corporations’ financial interests. The Kochs started Americans for Prosperity in 2004 and have since given it more than $5 million. That group has been the driving force against healthcare reform since it sent angry protesters to disrupt town hall meetings in the summer of 2009. The healthcare freedom acts are the latest, loudest product of this antiregulatory policy web. ALEC’s role also suggests corporate influence. The organization’s $7 million budget comes almost entirely from groups like PhRMA, ExxonMobil, Bayer and AT&T, which are represented on ALEC’s Private Enterprise Board and task forces and must approve any legislation the organization passes.</div><div>
</div><div>As the Americans for Prosperity rallies raged in the summer of 2009, Bob Ingram, then vice chair of pharmaceuticals for GlaxoSmithKline, received the Adam Smith Free Enterprise Award at an ALEC meeting in Atlanta. Standing in front of a photograph of a capitol dome, Ingram told the crowd that as Congress took up healthcare reform, they needed to energize the entire business community to ensure that ALEC’s values—free enterprise, competition and personal responsibility, as he put it—help shape the debate. "I just want to say to all of you as ALEC members, you have my commitment, but more importantly, GlaxoSmithKline’s commitment, to increase our partnership with you," he said. He promised to encourage the seven other corporations on whose board he sat to do the same. Donations to ALEC are not public, so it is impossible to account fully for the group’s finances. But tax records show that PhRMA gave ALEC nearly $380,000 in 2008. The group’s members, including Bayer, Glaxo and Pfizer, which sit on ALEC’s board, surely gave many thousands more in membership dues.</div><div>
</div><div>The initiatives’ backers acknowledge that they are targeting more than healthcare reform. Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s attorney general, has led that state’s legal challenge. He told the Heritage Foundation that healthcare was "secondary to the real important aspect of the case, and that is to protect the Constitution as we essentially define the outer limits of federal power."</div><div>...</div></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Most of the nearly $2 million given to the Arizona effort has come from a nonprofit started by Novack and other supporters. Donations to that group are anonymous, but the committee supporting the measure list</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">s <b>Frayda Levin </b>among its top funders. In addition to their Arizona contributions, Levin and her husband, Kenneth Levy, have given enough money to the Cato Institute for that organization to lend the couple’s names to the roof garden of its Washington headquarters</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Another large donor to the Arizona measure is Jeffrey Yass, a member of Cato’s board of directors. Once the movement went national, Novack was named a senior fellow at Americans for Prosperity and advised the group on healthcare policy (he says he no longer fills this role).</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://www.thenation.com/article/assault-healthcare-reform/</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><b>‘We believe that Judaism supports the free markets’</b></div><div>
</div><div>Mountain Lakes couple hosts a confab in Israel on Milton Friedman</div><div>
</div><div> </div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Frayda and Ken Levy with Corinne Sauer, center, director of the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.</div><div>
</div><div>by Robert Wiener</div><div>NJJN Staff Writer</div><div>March 7, 2012</div><div>
</div><div>Fervent believers in the free-market philosophy of Rutgers-trained economist Milton Friedman,<b> Frayda and Kenneth Levy of Mountain Lakes are hosting a conference in Israel in honor of what would have been Friedman’s 100th birthday.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Supporters of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ and free-market think tanks like the Atlas Economic Research Foundation and Americans for Prosperity, the Levys believe Israel needs to hear Friedman’s message of minimal government and maximal individual liberty.</div><div>
</div><div>The Levys are also supporters of the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, which is sponsoring the conference, “Economic Liberty & Religion: A Match Made in Heaven?,” at the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem from May 20 to 24.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Speakers will include Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute; Corinne and Robert Sauer, coauthors of Judaism, Markets, and Capitalism: Separating Myth from Reality; Iddo Netanyahu, physician, playwright, and brother of the prime minister; </b>and Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad.</div><div>
</div><div>Kenneth Levy, cofounder and partner in Jacobs Levy Equity Management of Florham Park, along with business partner Bruce Jacobs of Morristown, another supporter of UJC MetroWest, recently made a $12 million gift to the Wharton School of Business to form the Jacobs Levy Equity Management Center for Quantitative Financial Research.</div><div>
</div><div>Frayda Levy owned and managed a book distribution business and cofounded the Moving Picture Institute, which produces and promotes films from a libertarian perspective. She spoke about the conference in a telephone interview with NJ Jewish News.</div><div>
</div><div>NJJN: Why are you holding the conference in Jerusalem?</div><div>
</div><div>Frayda Levy: We wanted to find a great way to celebrate [Milton Friedman’s 100th] birthday, and what better way than in Israel? He was a supporter of Israel. We also want to bring attention to the fact that Israel is not a free-market economy and how much more prosperous it could be. A lot of religious people ought to understand their religion very much depends on a free-market economy if it is going to flourish.</div><div>
</div><div><b>NJJN: What about the notions in Judaism and Christianity and other religions about caring for the poor?</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Levy: Is the best way to do it by creating entitlement programs and breeding generations of dependency, or by private charity? And there would not be the need for charity if you had a much more prosperous society.</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>We can all live at $10,000 a year. We can have equality. Would that be better than if some people have billions, some people have millions, some people have $100,000, some people have $50,000? Equality is not our goal. We can all live at $10,000 a year, but I don’t think it would be a great world.</b></div><div>
</div><div>NJJN: What is the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies?</div><div>
</div><div>Levy: It is a pro-free market think tank. One of the misnomers about what is going on in Israel is that a lot of the economic ills are the results of capitalism. In fact, Israel probably has one of the worst of what we call ‘crony capitalist’ systems in the world. Seven families basically control its economy. That is not the capitalism we believe in.</div><div>
</div><div>NJJN: How would you compare what you call ‘crony capitalism’ in Israel with the capitalism in the United States?</div><div>
</div><div>Levy: Unfortunately, we are starting to look more and more like Israel. Israel is rated as one of the least economically free countries. A lot of land there is still owned by the government.</div><div>
</div><div>NJJN: How do you explain the Israeli tent cities that were formed last summer to protest high food and housing prices? Weren’t the protesters’ grievances the result of Israel’s capitalist structure?</div><div>
</div><div>Levy: How is it capitalism when the industries they are complaining about are heavily controlled by government?</div><div>
</div><div>NJJN: What would happen if they were deregulated?</div><div>
</div><div>Levy: Look at what happened with our computer industry. See all the innovations you saw with telephones. Look at all the kinds of food we can buy here. You can buy organic. You can buy vegetarian. You can buy vegan. You can buy really expensive food. You can buy really cheap food. And mind you, we have heavy government intervention in agriculture in our economy, and we believe it would be even better without all these subsidies.</div><div>
</div><div>NJJN: Is there a Jewish component to your political and economic philosophy?</div><div>
</div><div>Levy: We do believe that Judaism supports free-market economics, but to be honest, I am not that religious. I am more of a cultural Jew. But I look at the amazing Jewish community centers built in this country and the nice synagogues, and one of the things I realized is that without economic liberty, we would not exist. Economic liberty creates wealth. People are very generous with their wealth. They gave away amazing amounts of money. Jews are philanthropic in the United States. Jews are not philanthropic in Israel.</div><div>
</div><div>NJJN: Why not?</div><div>
</div><div>Levy: Because Israel is a socialistic country. They have a socialist mentality, which is the government will do it. The philanthropic mindset comes from a free-market civil society.</div><div>
</div><div>NJJN: If you could write a prescription for changing Israel’s economy, what would it be?</div><div>
</div><div>Levy: Obviously, open up the markets. The tax on products coming into Israel is horrible. Everything is so expensive. Don’t subsidize industries. Sell off the government land. Kibbutzim just breed mediocrity.</div><div>
</div><div>NJJN: Are you optimistic about changes in Israel along the lines you advocate?</div><div>
</div><div>Levy: I am not an optimistic person.</div><div>===</div><div>
</div></span></div><div>
</div></div>