A new report from the Center for Public Integrity reveals the motivation behind the billionaire Koch brothers’ big “philanthropic” investments in higher education across the country: advancing their political agenda.

During 2013, a pair of private charitable foundations Charles Koch leads and personally bankrolls combined to spread more than $19.3 million across 210 college campuses in 46 states and the District of Columbia, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Internal Revenue Service tax filings.

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The Kochs’ giving, however, has a laser-like focus on a specific, politically relevant discipline — free market economics — unmatched by other political mega-donors. Koch officials routinely cultivate relationships with professors and deans and fund specific courses of economic study pitched by them.

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But it’s clear where there is an ideological bent to their giving: Tax returns, as well as emails and private documents exchanged among Charles Koch Foundation officers and various college and university officials, indicate the foundation’s […]

A bipartisan coalition voted to renew the Export-Import Bank yesterday, marking another huge loss for the Koch brothers. It’s unclear whether the Senate will follow suit considering the many vulnerable Republicans leaning on the Kochs for their re-election, but either way, today marks a victory for the American economy and a hit to the Kochs’ bottom line.

Read more about the effort against the Kochs below:

Big Loss For The Kochs On Ex-Im, Consequences Coming For GOP Members

A bipartisan discharge petition on the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank reached the necessary 218 signatures this afternoon, according to POLITICO’s Jake Sherman. The petition will force the bill out of the House Financial Services Committee and to a vote on the floor on October 26.

After a huge lobbying effort from the Kochs and their biggest front group, Americans for Prosperity, the Ex-Im expired at the end of June. […]

Ahead of tomorrow’s GOP debate in Boulder, Fox Business correspondent Charlie Gasparino sets the stage by revealing what everyone else knows but won’t admit — that the entire GOP field is pandering to Charles and David Koch in hopes of winning their support and a piece of the nearly $900 million they plan to spend in 2016. Watch: 

CHARLIE GASPARINO: Everybody is going to change their message at some point — everyone of these candidates — from Rubio to Kasich. And they do have a legitimate shot at that money….I’ve been getting this from the fundraisers over the past couple weeks. Everybody is looking to hone their message to appeal to them right now.

Tomorrow, Bridge Project will roll out a debate primer highlighting how if Republicans and the Kochs win, the middle class loses.

Marco Rubio isn’t voting in the Senate, raising money, or hitting the campaign trail but he is running on all cylinders to woo the Koch brothers and win the Koch primary with another stop today with one of the Kochs’ “constituency” groups.

This morning in South Carolina, Marco Rubio is doing a town hall with Koch front group Concerned Veterans for America.

Despite claiming to work for veterans, CVA pushes the Koch agenda first and foremost — that means standing in opposition with nearly every other veterans organization and advocating for extreme right-wing policies that hurt our nation’s heroes.

Over the summer, Bridge Project teamed up with VoteVets to put out a report on the shady group’s true intentions. (Check out the full report, The Veterans Group That Fights Against Veterans, here.)

Concerned Veterans for American operates under the auspices of promoting policies that are good for veterans and their families — but they’re really only interested in pushing […]

Charles Koch wants to make one thing clear: He and his brother didn’t get involved in politics until 2003, and that’s a fact. Well, except… it isn’t. 

According to an interview (read: PR stunt) with Marketplace,

Koch: I’ve been working in this arena for over 50 years, and for the first 40 we didn’t get into politics, so we didn’t have this. Then in 2003, because of what the Bush administration was doing, we said, “Gosh, we’ve got to get involved in politics.”

Ryssdal: So let’s be clear, that’s George W. Bush, a Republican president, who’s doing things you didn’t like. Growing government, and all of that.

Koch: Increasing destructive regulations which led to the great recession.

But Charles and David were politically active at least twenty years earlier when David made a bid for the vice presidency, when they felt that Republicans supporting environmental laws and the oil export ban would hurt their […]

With news that the Obama Administration is preparing a proposal to assist Puerto Rico with its $72 billion of debt, the Koch brothers are doubling down on their campaign to treat Puerto Rico unequally under U.S. bankruptcy code.

In a report and several posts, Bridge Project has on several occasions delved into the Koch brothers’ Puerto Rican priorities — their agenda to at all costs prevent Puerto Rico from accessing Chapter 9 protection. Why are they against it? Because, should Puerto Rico be allowed to declare bankruptcy, Koch allies stand to lose a lot of money. So they’re spending a lot of money to make sure that doesn’t happen. It’s textbook Koch Think: Never compromise your own personal profits for the betterment of others.

Big money special interests have been busy. $490,000 was spent lobbying against a House of Representatives Puerto Rican debt bill — in Q2 2015 alone, according to The Bond Buyer. And 60 Plus, “a […]