Koch Brothers
Publisher: source watch
30 Dec 2011
ALEC Alumni in Congress
ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve "model" bills.
Publisher: Truthout
19 Jul 2011
Koch Brothers’ ALEC Tentacles Creep Into Your State
Thanks to the work from the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), investigative journalists like Beau Hodai and The Nation's expos , we now know that ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council), a front group for major corporations, the Koch brothers and right-wing lobbying groups, actively disseminated model bills promoting its agenda to state leaders.
Publisher: Teamster Nation
8 Dec 2011
Hoosiers oppose right-to-work for less bill pushed by Koch brothers
The Koch brothers are at it again. Through one of their favorite front groups, American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, they're pushing right-to-work for less in Indiana. Yesterday, Indiana Republicans teamed up with ALEC to promote the anti-worker proposal at the Statehouse. Reports the Indianapolis Star,
Publisher: Daily Kos
7 Nov 2011
Proof of ALEC Koch’s U.S. Congressional Influence and Passage of ALEC Bill(s)
Over the years ALEC has steadfastly denied having any influence or involvement in writing or proposing legislation at the federal level. They "proudly" proclaim their effectiveness at the state level through their legislative membership. They've continued these denials of interfering at the federal level since ALEC Exposed with their 800+ Model Legislation became public through a joint Center for Media and Democracy and Nation Magazine project in July.
Publisher: Common Dreams
10 Dec 2011
Koch Brothers, ALEC and the Savage Assault on Democracy
Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch finally got their way in 2011. After decades of funding the American Legislative Exchange Council, the collaboration between multinational corporations and conservative state legislators, the project began finally to yield the intended result. For the first time in decades, the United States saw a steady dismantling of the laws, regulations, programs and practices put in place to make real the promise of American democracy.
Publisher: Badger Democracy
12 Dec 2011
The ALEC-Koch pipeline to Wisconsin Legislators and the Mining Bill
The Mining Bill released by Assembly Republicans late last week is clearly a case of Legislative patronage to a corporate sponsor in this case, Gogebic Taconite Mining, LLC. Not surprising, but more disturbing, are the covert links to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Koch Industries, and closer to home, Hamilton Consulting in Madison. All three have created an expressway of influence to Wisconsin Legislation for co-opting state resources - creating record profits for themselves (which they will ultimately pay little tax on) and untold burdens on middle class taxpayers and the environment. The investigation starts with high(or low)lights of the bill itself.
Publisher: vtdigger
19 Aug 2011
ProPublica’s step-by-step guide to understanding ALEC’s influence on your state laws
For decades, a discreet nonprofit has brought together state legislators and corporate representatives to produce business-friendly "model" legislation. These "model" bills form the basis of hundreds of pieces of legislation each year, and they often end up as laws. As media scrutiny of the nonprofit - the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC - has grown, ProPublica has built both a guide and a searchable database so you can see for yourself how ALEC's model bills make their way to statehouses.
Publisher: Daily Kos
11 Aug 2011
How about some help in battling ALEC, Koch money and their ideologies
Many ALEC supporters claim that the "model legislation" proposed by ALEC and submitted by their legislative members are submitted for the people. We've been told by ALEC National Chairman, Rep. Noble Ellington (R-LA) that the people are represented at the table when these laws are written, because he's there and he represents us.
Publisher: Hot Air
12 Apr 2012
Is ALEC the new Koch Brothers, Halliburton, or Bildebergers
Progressives have launched an attack on the lobbying group ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that does what every other lobbying group does - raise funds and petitions legislators for their agenda, in this case focused on state legislatures. Although I ve barely heard of them before, they must be effective, since the Left has made them their newest, bestest b te noire.
Publisher: The Daily Caller
14 Apr 2012
Kochs fire back at anti-ALEC campaign from Color of Change
Philip Ellender, president and chief operating officer of government and public affairs at KCPS, told TheDC that the anti-ALEC campaign is designed "not only to intimidate, but to silence supporters of free-market principles and those who oppose the current policies that are worsening our already ruinous deficits."
Publisher: BlueNC
26 Nov 2012
Koch brothers team with ALEC to attack renewable energy
The Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank skeptical of climate change science, has joined with the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council to write model legislation aimed at reversing state renewable energy mandates across the country. The Electricity Freedom Act, adopted by the council's board of directors in October, would repeal state standards requiring utilities to get a portion of their electricity from renewable power
Publisher: Credo Action
8 Nov 2011
Tell Microsoft Stop sponsoring the Kochs’ climate lies
Microsoft's corporate policy says that climate change requires "a comprehensive and global response" and "dramatic innovations to transition the world to a sustainable low-carbon economy." - So why was Microsoft a "gold" level sponsor at the Koch brother's Tea Party Conference in Washington, DC last weekend?2
Publisher: Daily Kos
24 Aug 2010
Boycott Koch Products
This will be short but sweet. It has been well-documented as to the creepy and anti-progressive policies that the Koch brothers support. Their major holdings are very difficult to boycott -- other than the promotion of clean energy and environmental laws, you may be stuck buying their energy products, directly or indirectly. However, they do produce some consumer products that you should put to memory to NEVER purchase again.
Publisher: The Globe and Mail
27 May 2012
Harper is right Foreign radicals are after the oil sands
Stephen Harper s Conservatives have courageously chosen to expose and confront foreign interests that have surreptitiously been infiltrating the Canadian oil industry - and they don t mean their Chinese Communist partners. They are apparently in possession of revelations about these extremists and criminals that, in the words of Senator Nicole Eaton, "would make your blood boil." For six decades around the world, Koch Industries has blazed a path to riches - in part, by making illicit payments to win contracts, trading with a terrorist state , fixing prices, neglecting safety and ignoring environmental regulations. At the same time, Charles and David Koch have promoted a form of government that interferes less with company actions."
Publisher: Mother Jones
9 Mar 2011
David Koch lamenting Cancer Research Cuts, and Bankrolling the GOPers Behind Them
Publisher: NYTimes
6 Mar 2011
Cancer Research Before Activism, Koch Brother Says
More than a thousand miles from the labor tumult in Wisconsin - where his name shows up on the signs of protesters and a liberal blogger impersonating him got through to the governor on the phone and said "gotta crush that union!" - the real David H. Koch was greeted rather more warmly here Friday when he officially opened a new cancer research institute bearing his name.
Publisher: other98
13 Jul 2011
Tell Andrew Cuomo – Stand Strong Against The Kochs
The Koch Brothers are at it again and this time, they ve taken aim at the entire east coast. The Kochs and their Tea Party-funding oil front group, Americans For Prosperity, are suing New York State for taking part in RGGI*, a regional cap-and-trade effort that has forced polluters to pay, and raised over $700 million for the states taking part**. They re trying to argue it s illegal to make huge corporations pay for their pollution output, but it s more than fine for American non-corporate citizens to pay the bill.
Publisher: United Liberty
22 Jun 2012
Is the drama over at the Cato Institute
After the co founder of Cato Institute Niskanen died of stroke complications in October, the Koch brothers claimed that a founding shareholder agreement gave them the option to buy his shares. Crane, current president of CATO held that they should go to Niskanen's widow, which would leave him in effective control of the organization.
Publisher: NPR
28 Mar 2012
Koch Brothers Move To Control Cato Institute
Publisher: Forbes
12 Mar 2012
The Cato Institute Controversy: Why Should Anyone Care What Libertarians Think
Publisher: The Washington Post
11 Apr 2012
Koch vs. Cato Koch brothers file second lawsuit over ‘Board-packing scheme’
Billionaires Charles and David Koch have filed a second lawsuit against the Cato Institute, marking the newest development in the ongoing battle for control over the libertarian think tank. According to court documents filed Monday and obtained by The Washington Post, the Kochs are asking the court to invalidate the results of an "improper election" held recently by Cato's board--an action the Kochs refer to as a "Board-packing scheme."
Publisher: Consortiumnews
13 Mar 2012
Slovakia Defies the Kochs and Cato
For the past decade, the people of the small central European nation of Slovakia have suffered under a harsh and corrupt "privatization" scheme devised by the Koch Brothers' Cato Institute. However, in weekend elections, they defied their oligarchs by voting for a left-of-center "populist" party, reports Mark Ames.
Publisher: Huffington Post
13 Apr 2012
FreedomWorks, Koch Brothers Clash Over Cato Institute Takeover Bid
A split is opening up between two forces that helped to launch the Tea Party in 2009. FreedomWorks, a free market/limited government advocacy group, released a statement Thursday criticizing the move by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch to sue for majority control of the libertarian Cato Institute.
Publisher: The Nation
18 Oct 2011
Charles Koch to Friedrich Hayek: Use Social Security!
There's right-wing hypocrisy, and then there s this: Charles Koch, billionaire patron of free-market libertarianism, privately championed the benefits of Social Security to Friedrich Hayek, the leading laissez-faire economist of the twentieth century. Koch even sent Hayek a government pamphlet to help him take advantage of America s federal retirement insurance and healthcare programs.
Publisher: deerfield patch
21 Jun 2011
Legislative Intern Takes Aim at Koch Brothers
Publisher: cleanenergy
6 Jun 2011
Koch Brothers Invest in Climate Change Denial
Over the past year, industrialists Charles and David Koch have garnered considerable media attention for their extensive funding of conservative infrastructure. In August of 2010, The New Yorker magazine published an in-depth profile of the brothers, 'Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.' The article drew considerable attention to their support of conservative causes, which previously had not been widely recognized.
Publisher: Grist
17 Mar 2011
Koch-funded group mounts cut-and-paste attack on regional climate initiatives
Publisher: Mother Jones
1 Apr 2010
Inside Koch’s Climate Denial Machine
Who s behind a multi-million dollar campaign to seed doubt about climate change? It s not just Exxon and Chevron it s also Koch Industries, an oil and gas giant that most people have never heard of, according to a new report from Greenpeace. Koch's extensive funding of anti-climate work makes it the "financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition," says Greenpeace.
Publisher: The Guardian
9 May 2012
Conservative thinktanks step up attacks against Obama’s clean energy strate
A network of ultra-conservative groups is ramping up an offensive on multiple fronts to turn the American public against wind farms and Barack Obama's energy agenda. A number of rightwing organisations, including Americans for Prosperity, which is funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, are attacking Obama for his support for solar and wind power. The American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which also has financial links to the Kochs, has drafted bills to overturn state laws promoting wind energy.
Publisher: MN Progressive Project
27 Jan 2013
Dollars for Denial Koch Brothers Funding of Anti Climate Change Movement
This will not be a big surprise, but the order of magnitude involved may be a bit shocking. Over the last two days a number of findings have been released related to the funding of anti-climate change science activities, by Big Oil but mainly the Koch Brothers. I wrote up an overview, which, in turn points to the major news stories, so when you go to work Monday Morning you'll know all about it!
Publisher: Politicus USA
4 Jan 2015
The Koch Brothers Launch A Surrogate War Against Pope Francis
The Pope already drew the wrath of both evangelical and Catholic Republicans in Congress for criticizing the greed and income inequality championed by the GOP, but now he has the undivided attention of the Koch brothers, Exxon, and their dirty energy cohorts. The cause c l bre for the Koch-funded evangelical movement is the Pope s recent announcement that it is beyond high time for the world, and all Catholics to join the fight to reduce the existential threat to human beings from anthropogenic climate change.
Publisher: Mother Jones
24 May 2011
Waxman Targets the Koch Brothers
What do the infamous Koch brothers have to do with the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which, if approved, would run 1,661 miles from Alberta, Canada to Texas, carrying 900,000 barrels of oil from Canada's tar sands to US refineries? TransCanada has requested permission to build the pipeline, but Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) want more information about how project might also benefit the right-wing financiers and their energy conglomerate, Koch Industries.
Publisher: Wichita Eagle
6 Mar 2011
Kochs’ influence grows in Congress
Publisher: Rolingstone
24 Sep 2014
Inside the Koch Brothers’ Toxic Empire
The Koch Brothers are among the largest polluters on the planet. Under the nearly five-decade reign of CEO Charles Koch, the company has paid out record civil and criminal environmental penalties. And in 1999, a jury handed down to Koch's pipeline company what was then the largest wrongful-death judgment of its type in U.S. history, resulting from the explosion of a defective pipeline that incinerated a pair of Texas teenagers. The volume of Koch Industries' toxic output is staggering. According to the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Political Economy Research Institute, only three companies rank among the top 30 polluters of America's air, water and climate: ExxonMobil, American Electric Power and Koch Industries
Publisher: ghanaweb
20 Oct 2008
Guarding Against The Stealing Of Ghana’s Oil
CBS News reported: " This is the story of a blood feud, a battle between brothers. As we told you when we first reported this story last November, the Koch family of Wichita, Kansas is among the richest in the United States, worth billions of dollars. Their oil company, Koch Industries, is bigger than Intel, Dupont or Prudential Insurance, and they own it lock stock and barrel. The trouble is a former employee says the brother who controls the company grew rich through fraud and theft, stealing from the taxpayers of the United States.
Publisher: ABC News
8 Oct 2011
Koch Industries Report Reveals ‘Secret Sins’
Charles and David Koch, the secretive billionaire brothers behind the Koch Industries, are a huge financial force in the conservative political movement. According to one estimate, they've contributed more than $100 million to conservative political causes, and a foundation that they back has trained thousands of Tea Party activists.
Publisher: Bloomberg
4 Oct 2011
Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales
In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the world s largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France. In less than a week, she discovered that the company had paid bribes to win contracts.
Publisher: CBS News
27 Jan 2011
Blood And Oil
This is the story of a blood feud, a battle between brothers. As we told you when we first reported this story last November, the Koch family of Wichita, Kansas is among the richest in the United States, worth billions of dollars. Their oil company, Koch Industries, is bigger than Intel, Dupont or Prudential Insurance, and they own it lock stock and barrel. The trouble is a former employee says the brother who controls the company grew rich through fraud and theft, stealing from the taxpayers of the United States
Publisher: channeling reality
17 May 2011
Koch loses Oil Fraud case
Publisher: AllBusiness
8 Oct 1998
Koch Industries Charged with Plotting to Steal OilFrom Federal and Indian Lands.
According to papers filed in federal district court here on Friday (Oct. 2) on behalf of plaintiffs William J. Koch and William Presley, Koch Industries Inc. engaged in a systematic, management-directed scheme to steal crude oil from producers on federal and Indian lands throughout the United States.
Publisher: Public Integrity
10 Dec 2014
Luxembourg tax deals for Disney, Koch brothers empires revealed
A new leak of confidential documents expands the list of big companies seeking secret tax deals in Luxembourg, exposing tax-saving maneuvers by American entertainment icon The Walt Disney Co., politically controversial Koch Industries Inc. and 33 other companies. Disney and Koch Industries, a U.S.-based energy and chemical conglomerate, both created tangles of interlocking corporations in Luxembourg that may have helped them slash the taxes they pay in the U.S. and Europe, according to the documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Publisher: The Daily Pulp
19 Mar 2011
David Koch, Billionaire Tea Party Funder, Is in Jeffrey Epstein’s Black Book
What does a Republican fundraiser and wealthy oilman have in common with sleazy sex offender Jeffrey Epstein? Who knows, but it's something worthy of exchanging digits. David Koch, the billionaire Tea Party bankroller, makes an appearance in Epstein's address book. He joins an illustrious group of celebs now tainted by Epstein's practice of hiring of underaged girls to massage and service him. Former President Bill Clinton and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also appear in the book, according to the Palm Beach Daily News.
Publisher: palm beach post
19 Feb 2012
David Koch intends to cure cancer in his lifetime and remake American politics
In a sense, David Koch is becoming the Andrew Carnegie of his age. Carnegie, a Gilded Age steel tycoon, founded libraries and universities, and famously battled organized labor. The parallels with David Koch exist on both scores. Koch's $100 million pledge to MIT has created the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.
Publisher: ThinkProgress
4 May 2011
Tea Party Billionaire David Koch Disses Donald Trump As Motivated By Publicity, Not QualifiedÂ’
Speaking with the New York Daily News at a party on Saturday night, petrochemical billionaire David Koch dismissed Donald Trump as not really qualified to be President. Trump, who has rocketed to the top of the polls for GOP voters, has dominated the headlines in recent weeks with his conspiracies about President Obama s birth certificate and college admissions.
Publisher: AlterNet
6 Mar 2011
H. Koch Trustee at Boston PBS Station
David H. Koch is many things -- billionaire, Tea Party funder, general party thrower. But there's one totally unexpected position Koch holds: trustee at WGBH Boston, PBS's largest affiliate and producer. This is curious in itself, particularly considering many of Koch's cronies in Congress want to totally defund PBS.
Publisher: The Raw Story
6 May 2011
David Koch ‘Hardcore socialist’ Obama is ‘scary to me’
Publisher: Huffington Post
9 Nov 2011
Koch Brother Walks Through D.C. Protest Crowd Noticed
After seeing The Huffington Post's recent story about David Koch reportedly walking unnoticed through a crowd of protesters -- who were protesting David Koch -- Joe Smyth, a media officer for Greenpeace, emailed over a video of David Koch being noticed and confronted by protesters at Friday's Defending the American Dream Summit.
Publisher: MyFDL
6 Mar 2011
NYT Gives Us David Koch, Public Benefactor
The New York Times Michael Cooper gives us a fawning tribute to billionaire David Koch, he of the infamous Koch Brothers and fifth most wealthy man in America, using the dedication of a cancer center at M.I.T. funded by Mr. Koch to extol his virtues as a great humanitarian and philanthropist. Oh, please.
Publisher: NYTimes
6 Apr 2014
To Strike at Kochs, Democrats Revive Tactic That Hurt Romney
By drawing public attention to layoffs by subsidiaries of Koch Industries across the country - a chemical plant in North Carolina, an oil refinery in Alaska, a lumber operation in Arkansas - Democrats are seeking to make villains of the reclusive billionaires, whose political organizations have spent more than $30 million on ads so far to help Republicans win control of the Senate.
Publisher: The Guardian
6 Dec 2013
State conservative groups plan US-wide assault on education, health and tax
Conservative groups across the US are planning a co-ordinated assault against public sector rights and services in the key areas of education, healthcare, income tax, workers' compensation and the environment, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal. The strategy for the state-level organisations, which describe themselves as "free-market thinktanks", includes proposals from six different states for cuts in public sector pensions, campaigns to reduce the wages of government workers and eliminate income taxes, school voucher schemes to counter public education, opposition to Medicaid, and a campaign against regional efforts to combat greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
Publisher: Salon
18 Jan 2015
Koch brothers/charter school nightmare: “White kids get to go to a school with a Montessori approach while children of color get eye control”
A fight over education in Nashville might come your way next: It's a proxy for dangerous right-wing education ideas. "We know we need to do something about students who are not achieving in our schools." That anxious appeal - along with its many variations - has become the refrain now firmly embedded in speeches and opinion columns about American public education.
Publisher: Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
2 Feb 2012
University Students Recoil at Koch Influence
At any serious university, allowing donors to dictate the content of teaching or research would be a cardinal sin. FSU officials have denied that their deal with the Charles G. Koch Foundation violates academic freedom. Bruce Benson, the Economics Department chair at FSU, told the Washington Post that while the Koch money paid for two new professor positions, the Koch people didn t suggest candidates for the job. "It was the other way around," Benson said. "The department gave such a list to the foundation."
Publisher: Idaho Mountain Express
2 Jun 2011
Universities don’t go better with Kochs
The Koch family, most recently brothers Charles and David, has operated on the far-right edge of traditional politics, supporting Americans for Prosperity, the tea party and the John Birch Society. The latter has spent Koch resources hunting communists, fellow travelers and dupes supposedly hidden among the clergy and high school and college faculty. Koch Industries is an energy and chemical company that is the nation's second-largest privately held company.
Publisher: Forbes
15 Jan 2015
A Frightening Trend in Higher Education: Politically-Motivated Assaults on Academic Freedom
The thousands of students and hundreds of scholars supported by folks like Charles Koch have had their lives enriched, and with that has come a greater appreciation of the remarkable powers of markets in promoting human welfare. We should be thanking these philanthropists for their largess, rather than harass them. And gutless administrations should be condemned for permitting these attacks to occur in an unanswered fashion. People have the right to disagree with the findings of Koch funded scholars and students, but no right to try to silence them.
Publisher: YouTube
15 Aug 2011
Why do the Koch brothers want to end public education
Publisher: AlterNet
29 Feb 2012
Publisher: Tucson Weekly
6 May 2011
Freedom From Regulation
Notions of academic independence gained a fresh twist recently, when the new Freedom Center found a home on the UA campus. Administratively, the UA Freedom Center is tucked within the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and soon will enjoy its own digs at the Marshall Building on Park Avenue. The think tank already features an impressive roster of UA faculty members, including at least two endowed Philosophy Department instructors
Publisher: The Nevada View
10 Aug 2011
Is Koch Brothers Money Killing Nevada’s Schools
Do we REALLY want David and Charles KOCH foundations to try to influence legislation in Nevada that kills public education. Do we REALLY want a conservative sitting behind a desk in Washington, deciding how we fund our NEVADA public schools? Could there be groups like this? Groups which have a goal of establishing think tanks in every state to kill public education?
Publisher: opednews
4 Jun 2012
Jeb Bush Rebukes Koch Brothers, Karl Rove’s Political Machine; Calls For Total Campaign Disclosure
BUSH: In a perfect world, we could have a different financing system. I love the idea of having campaigns be funded directly, rather than indirectly. And have no limits and total transparency so if people were offended by a large donor, the candidate, he or she, would have to accept responsibility for the message and the for the amount of money and who gave it
Publisher: mcall
18 Sep 2012
Koch and Adelson campaign money tests integrity of election
Dave Koch ran as the Libertarian vice presidential candidate in 1980 on a platform to abolish Social Security and corporate taxes. He was also against campaign spending limits, and he and his brother evidently now realize that this opens the door to the other two goals. Adelson is also grateful for the Supreme Court's convenient outlook that money has nothing to do with corruption, stating in a jaw-dropping admission of what moral integrity means to him: "I'm against very wealthy people attempting to or influencing elections, but as long as it's doable, I'm going to do it."
Publisher: MN Progressive Project
9 Oct 2012
Koch Brothers shutter plant in Duluth, Nolan calls out Cravaack for doing nothing
"When we lost 141 jobs here, our congressman was nowhere to be found," said his DFL opponent Rick Nolan. "Chip Cravaack has been all show and no go - when the working men and women in this district are looking for a champion to fight for their jobs - he's no where to be found." "And now the Koch brothers are spending millions to protect Chip Cravaack and others because they know he will always be a vote for their interests, not the working men and women who rely on these jobs," Nolan continued.
Publisher: ThinkProgress
1 Apr 2011
Koch Operative May Have Deceived Officials To Take $2.7M In Taxpayer Money For Governor’s Race
Publisher: Opposing Views
27 Oct 2013
Publisher: CBS News
7 Nov 2014
Midterm 2014 ad spending: How Karl Rove, NRA, Koch brothers fared
Conservative mega-donors had a good night Tuesday. Two days after Republicans seized control of both congressional chambers, big spenders backing the new majority party are celebrating after seeing much higher returns on their investments than those who supported Democrats. Among the 20 outside groups that tossed the most cash into the 2014 midterm elections, those bankrolled by Karl Rove, the NRA and the Koch brothers all enjoyed more than an 85 percent investment return.
Publisher: Scaling Green
14 Jun 2014
Koch Brothers Launching New “Seven Figures” Effort to Promote Dirty Energy; Trash Clean Energy and the Environment
The energy initiative is being created under the umbrella of the largest Koch network nonprofit in apparent response to a number of developments: the commitment by liberal billionaire Tom Steyer to steer $100 million into ads in several states to make climate change a priority issue in the elections; numerous setbacks at the state level where Koch network backed advocacy groups have been fighting against renewable energy standards; and the new EPA regulations to curb carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
Publisher: ibtimes
31 Dec 2014
Top Election Donors 2014: Mike Bloomberg, Sheldon Adelson, David Koch Were Biggest Contributors
Koch, the influential vice president of Koch Industries, which owns a number of chemical and energy companies, backs multiple super PACs and the company s political action committee with his brother, Charles Koch. While David Koch personally contributed $6.2 million toward the 2014 midterm elections, the Koch brothers super PAC, Americans for Prosperity, spent $125 million on the election, according to Politico.
Publisher: Breitbart Unmasked
19 Apr 2014
Oligarchy Defined Koch Brothers Worth $100 Billion, Buy GOP For Just $412 Million
In the 2012 election, Charles and David Koch spent at least $412 million to swing elections across the country, an amount greater than the ten largest unions combined. Now Bloomberg reports that the Koch brothers combined net worth has exceeded $100 billion, with no sign that their advertising campaign against the Affordable Care Act is ever going to stop.
Publisher: The Washington Post
29 May 2014
Harry Reid’s attacks on Koch brothers send GOP donors into the shadows
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid s relentless attacks on the billionaire Koch brothers are having an unforeseen impact: spurring other wealthy Republican donors to give more money to groups that keep their supporters names secret. Several prominent pro-Republican advocacy groups say they are benefiting from a burst of cash as some donors - fearful of harsh public attacks such as those aimed at the Kochs - turn away from political committees that are required by federal law to reveal their contributors.
Publisher: Bloomberg
13 Dec 2014
Koch Brothers Sue California to Keep Donations Secret
Billionaires David and Charles Koch, who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars helping Republicans, are suing to stop the grotesque backlash they d face from being forced to disclose donors to their nonprofit group. California Attorney General Kamala Harris, the target of their lawsuit, says she isn t trying to expose contributors to the Kochs Americans for Prosperity Foundation. The state is required by law to collect the information and also to keep it secret, according to her spokesman.
Publisher: NOLA
29 Sep 2014
The Koch Brothers’ money – the worst, but not the most: James Varney
The Koch Brothers can be - and are - featured as the villains on any topic. If you follow the money, however, what is disappointing about the Koch Brothers' kind is that there isn't more of it. Despite the endless and unseemly harangues of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Koch Brothers aren't donors in the same league with their left-wing counterparts.
Publisher: The Washington Post
30 Apr 2015
Koch brothers cater to Latinos, hoping for votes
For Republicans, the road to warming the hearts and winning the votes of Latinos may begin at a Las Vegas flea market. On a recent morning, inside the Eastern Indoor Swapmeet Las Vegas, a group funded by the billionaire Koch brothers helped 250 Latinos - some of them illegal immigrants - pass the Nevada driver s test.
Publisher: Think Progress
30 Sep 2014
Inside The Koch Brothers’ Multi-Million Dollar Campaign To Win Over Latinos
Koch brothers are using disaproval of obamacare and faith based messaging to win over latinos - Opposition to the President s health care reform may be LIBRE s signature issue, but it isn t their only one. John Mendez, an Evangelical minister who serves as LIBRE s Director of Faith Initiatives told ThinkProgress that it s just one piece of their free market message. His job, he explained, is to put that message "in a theological context."
Publisher: Huffington Post
11 Aug 2014
Koch Brothers Reach Out To Hispanic Voters
Looking to make inroads with the rising number of Hispanic voters, conservative activists are offering English classes, health checkups and courses to help Spanish-speakers earn high school diplomas. Picking up part of the tab: Charles and David Koch. The billionaire industrialists are working to patch a gaping hole in the GOP coalition that could spell a generation of irrelevance if Republicans cannot build some credibility with Hispanic voters, who typically shun the GOP.
Publisher: The Nation
2 Oct 2014
Brothers Are Molding the Next Scott Walkers
The tape shared by The Undercurrent with The Nation illustrates how gubernatorial candidates appealed for the blessing not just of the Kochs but of the network of wealthy donors that can provide support both for specific campaigns and for "independent" projects such as a primary-season ad blitz highlighting Walker s endorsement of Arizona s Ducey. As Ducey told the Koch brothers summit on June 16, I can t emphasize enough the power of organizations like this. Why does the Koch power matter so much? That s easy. The policies that governors like Walker have outlined and implemented are not popular. Despite an $18 million investment by the RGA and its allies in Walker s Wisconsin experiment, Cox acknowledged at the Koch summit that the governor has no easy route to re-election. "This is a race we re going to have to be engaged in right on until the end," he said of this year s race in Wisconsin, where recent polls have had Walker in a tied race or actually trailing.
Publisher: htr news
27 Oct 2014
Walker works at bidding of Koch brothers
It is no secret the Koch brothers, along with other wealthy tycoons, have flooded Scott Walker with money in exchange for favors which have stopped progress and set Wisconsin backward. Walker rejected a paid-in-full railway system and also pushed some windmill companies out of business because of stronger regulations.
Publisher: American Progress
11 Aug 2014
Koch Brothers and D.C. Conservatives Spending Big on Nonpartisan State Supreme Court Races
The 2014 judicial elections could see even more campaign cash, thanks to unprecedented plans by national partisan groups to spend millions to influence this year s judicial races. The Washington, D.C.-based Republican State Leadership Committee, or RSLC, is now the first national party organization focused on electing judges. The RSLC was the biggest spender in the May 5 North Carolina Supreme Court primary election, and four of the seven seats on the court are up for grabs in November. The RSLC tried unsuccessfully to unseat three Tennessee Justices on August 7. The group s opposition campaign was aided by its strategic partner group, the State Government Leadership Foundation, or SGLF, and the Koch brothers-affiliated Americans for Prosperity, or AFP, both of which are organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Publisher: Salon
8 Nov 2014
The Koch brothers’ underhanded attack on wind energy
Well that took absolutely no time at all. A coalition of conservative groups lead by the Koch-affiliated American Energy Alliance (and including the Koch-affiliated Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-affiliated Competitive Enterprise Institute, among others) are showing up in force against renewable energy, urging congressional Republicans to allow a key wind energy tax credit to expire. Wind power's Achilles heel, for the time being, is that it's not yet sustainable on its own - without tax credits, it collapses. According to the American Wind Energy Association, capacity and construction drop a full 84 percent when the wind production tax credit (PTC) isn't available.
Publisher: DailyKos
4 Feb 2015
Koch Brothers, Rick Scott And Jeb Bush Exposed In Florida Pipeline Scandal
Florida Attorney Steve Medina has been working on a case, pro bono, to expose the environmental corruption which has been taking place in Tallahassee and Putnam County, Florida. Tons of toxic waste is being dumped into St. Johns River, daily, by the Koch Brothers company, Georgia-Pacific. Aspects of the deal allowing Georgia Pacific to massively assault the environment, were misleading, sometimes illegal, and unbeknownst to the local citizens. Florida Governor Rick Scott and former Governor (and Republican presidential hopeful), Jeb Bush, are also involved.
Publisher: The Guardian
6 Jul 2015
Koch Industries spent 0.5m Euro lobbying EU on environmental protection
A notorious funder of climate sceptics in the US has spent at least 550,000 ( 390,908) lobbying the EU on environmental protections and energy issues over the past three years. An obscure entry on the EU s voluntary transparency register shows that up to 750,000 ( 533,049) may have been spent by Koch Industries, the largest private energy company in the US, on trying to influence EU policy.
Publisher: Saint Peters Blog
25 Nov 2014
Koch Brothers group calls on U.S. Reps Bilirakis and Buchanan to oppose wind subsidies
On page three of your Tampa Bay Times this morning is a quarter-page ad paid for by Americans for Prosperity, calling on Republican Congressmen Gus Bilirakis and Vern Buchanan to oppose wind subsidies. The ad says that Extending the wind energy handout will cost $13 billion over the next decade, with one photo of a wind farm and another of dollars being printed. It then advocates that readers call the two GOP representatives to oppose such wind subsidies.
Publisher: Think Progress
25 Apr 2014
Koch Brothers And ALEC Expand Fight On Clean Energy Users
The Koch brothers, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist and some of the nation's largest power companies have backed efforts in recent months to roll back state policies that favor green energy. The conservative luminaries have pushed campaigns in Kansas, North Carolina and Arizona, with the battle rapidly spreading to other states.
Publisher: Center for Media and Democracy
27 Jan 2011
American Politics is Getting All Koch’ed Up
The grassroots pressure group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), that actively fought health care reform, boasts "our citizen activists" are "the heart and soul" of the organization. So AFP wants the public and the media to believe. But an exhaustive report in the August 30, 2010 issue of The New Yorker magazine, shows that the heart and soul behind AFP are really the oil billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch of Koch Industries, whose privately-owned oil enterprise has made them among the richest men in America
Publisher: OpenSecrets Blog
18 Sep 2013
Koch Group’s IRS Report Unlocks A Few Mysteries
IRS filing shows funding and connections of Koch front groups - Five of those groups -- Americans for Prosperity, 60 Plus Association, American Future Fund, Concerned Women for America and American Commitment -- laid out just shy of $70 million in outside spending (mostly for TV ads) benefiting Republican candidates in the 2012 elections.
Publisher: NYTimes
27 Jan 2014
The Koch Party
Democrats have been staggered by a $20 million advertising blitz produced by Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group organized and financed by the Koch brothers, billionaire industrialists. The ads take aim at House and Senate candidates for re-election who have supported the health law, and blame them for the hyped-up problems with the law s rollout that now seem to be the sole plank in this year s Republican platform.
Publisher: The Atlantic Wire
12 Nov 2013
Anti-Obamacare Group Bros Out with Booze and College Girls
Generation Opportunity is a Koch brothers-funded group that wants young people to opt out of Obamacare because it's a "bad deal." We've noted before that GenOpp is still "working on" the math to back up this claim. Still, the group has been rolling along with its "Opt Out" campaign since September, offering up creepy Uncle Sam ads and now, apparently, booze.
Publisher: Pundit Fact
20 Apr 2014
Doonesbury says Koch brothers outspent unions 3-1
"You know, the Roberts court really did screw us over with Citizens United," she said to Mike Doonesbury, speaking about the U.S. Supreme Court and a decision that allows corporations and unions to contribute unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns. "Last election cycle, a pair of nasty billionaires spent three times what the top 10 unions spent combined."
Publisher: The Washington Post
18 Jun 2014
An expanding Koch network aims to spend $300 million to shape Senate fight and 2016
The political network backed by the Koch brothers, already spending tens of millions of dollars this year to boost Republicans chances of retaking the Senate, is expanding its national playbook as part of a long-term strategy designed to strengthen conservatives heading into the 2016 presidential campaign. The effort, part of an overall budget that organizers expect to total nearly $300 million this year, includes broadening outreach to veterans, viewed as an energized constituency in the wake of the recent Veterans Affairs scandal, and messages tailored for Latinos and young people, long considered core Democratic constituencies.