The Koch brothers have created a monster: The 37 members of the Freedom Caucus have seized control of the House of Representatives. Whomever hopes to be the next speaker of the House needs their blessing, and will be expediently ousted should they revoke it. The election’s a week out, but the Freedom Caucus already has the next speaker in a choke-hold.

The 37 members of the influential House Freedom Caucus present themselves as hard-line conservative mavericks, but a new Politico report suggests that they’ve been extensively propped up by the Koch brothers and the Club for Growth. Regarding the members’ history of Club for Growth financing, a joint Politico-Center for Responsive Politics analysis found:

[T]he Club for Growth, the free-enterprise advocacy group that claims 100,000 members, has contributed $1.77 million [to the Freedom Caucus’s 37 members]…The club was the No. 1 donor for 11 members — more members than any other benefactor.

Meanwhile, […]

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), “a political advocacy group with ties to the Koch brothers,” is spending $1 million on TV and digital ads in an attempt to influence the Pennsylvania Supreme Court race.  The ads will benefit the Republican field and target Democratic candidate Kevin Dougherty, according to the Post-Gazette.

Charles and David Koch just can’t say “no” to an opportunity to tip the scales. The Post-Gazette reports that the RSLC is the beneficiary of a $100,000 donation from Koch Industries, and has also received funding from the Koch-allied U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which shares Charles and David’s pro-corporate interest, anti-climate and working family agenda.

No surprises here, just another election where the Kochs are bringing in out-of-state, special-interest money to influence an electoral outcome and advance their selfish agenda — this time to buy a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

When you push the envelope like Charles and […]

Barely surviving in the polls, Jeb Bush is still hoping the GOP’s favorite billionaire brothers will throw him a bone and help him win the nomination. Tonight, Jeb will join the Kochs’ Latino front group, the LIBRE Initiative, for a public policy forum in Nevada.

Former Governor Bush has been a Koch loyalist from the start of his campaign — pushing their top policy positions on the Export-Import Bank, the oil export ban, and more. But no Koch organization fits Bush quite as well as LIBRE.

Jeb came into the race claiming he would be able to win over Hispanics because of his family ties and values, but he quickly took a hard right turn and has been pushing extreme right-wing immigration policies ever since. Just like Bush, LIBRE claims they are advocating for the best interests of the Latino community. However, the group is focused on taking advantage of the […]

National Review gets an inside look at the Kochs’ political operations in Nevada and discovers the real reason their so-called constituency groups exist — to feed voters’ personal information back to the Kochs’ for-profit data collection machine, i360.

Perhaps most important, those signing up to see Jeb Bush (or for the driving classes, tax-preparation help, or health checkups that Libre offers) provide their names and contact information. That flows back into an enormous voter database owned and controlled by another Koch group, i360, which the donor network hopes will replace the Republican National Committee’s data trove. Many say it already has.Data collected from canvassing conducted by other groups in the network — Americans for Prosperity, Concerned Veterans for America, Concerned Women for America — flows back to the same place, and i360 is amassing detailed voter profiles and developing the sort of technological wherewithal that propelled President Obama to victory in both […]

Koch front-group Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) is launching a “six-figure digital and mail ad campaign” against Colorado Senator Michael Bennet,according to Politico. The campaign will also target three other Democratic senators up for re-election in 2018. The ad focuses on the VA scandal and a new CVA-sponsored bill, but the Koch organization that claims to be a “grassroots” initiative fails to mention its priorities when it comes to veterans.

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 here.)

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.

Recently released audio even revealed CVA’s CEO, Pete Hegseth, admitting the group only cares about politics, […]

Today, Marco Rubio released his energy plan, promising to help American “take full advantage of our energy potential.” But his plan reads like a Koch Industries wishlist: Rubio pushes to end the oil export ban, build Keystone despite environmental concerns, and phase out the Renewable Fuel Standard.

In response to Rubio’s plan, American Bridge President Jessica Mackler released the following statement:

“Marco Rubio says his energy plan will bring the country into a the 21st century. However, the ever-absent senator’s policies aren’t original or groundbreaking. Rubio is advocating for outdated practices that would take us back decades in addressing climate change. Just like Jeb Bush and the rest of the GOP field, Marco Rubio’s plan promises to protect big oil and the Koch brothers, instead of growing clean energy and protecting the environment.”
Rubio And The Kochs

AFP’s 2015 “Wish List” Includes “Approve The Keystone XL Pipeline, Repeal The Oil Export Ban, Fight The New EPA […]

With Scott Walker’s recent departure from the presidential race, Marco Rubio has been leaning in to his role as new Koch favorite. Rubio’s positions on ending the Ex-Im Bank, blocking a minimum wage increase, and pushing a tax plan that would give tax breaks to the top one percent mean that the Florida senator has been in the running for the Kochs’ invisible primary since its start.

In the past month, he’s taken on even more extracurricular Koch activities to impress the brothers. Earlier this week, the candidate held a town hall in Nevada with the Koch front group, the LIBRE Initiative. And next week he’ll do a town hall with another Koch front group, Concerned Veterans for America.

Now, it seems that the so-called “frugal” campaign that Rubio is running has been spending big bucks to get an in with the Kochs. According to Politico, the campaign “spent about $271,000 […]

Students are seeing right through Charles and David Koch. Last week, a University of Wisconsin student called out the Kochs’ selfish agenda and decried their sponsorship of the school’s athletic program. This week, a University of Maryland student, Daniel Alarcon, suggested that the Kochs may be using donations to the university to “[advance] their political agenda.”

“Considering the Koch brothers have announced that they will donate a total of almost $900 million during this presidential election cycle, it is unlikely that they would donate to our school without any contractual stipulations,” writes Alarcon in an opinion for The Diamondback. 

Such Koch “stipulations,” Alarcon continues, have in the past included giving “the industrialists unprecedented influence over [beneficiary universities’] programs, such as faculty hiring and veto power.” And the two brothers’ previous attempts to exert influence over such institutions has run political and ideological as well, Alarcon points out: “[T]hey’ve even funded similar programs to deny climate […]

The reviews are rolling in for Charles Koch’s new book and it doesn’t look like many of them will end up on the walls of his corner office. Earlier this week, Bridge Project exposed how Charles Koch is using his new book to whitewash his record in business and politics and fact checked the early themes of the book. Now check out what others are saying about Charles Koch’s new book and the PR campaign around it:

Publisher’s Weekly gave Koch’s book a brutal early review calling it a “rambling rah-rah for his company’s operating philosophy,” “a book-length advertisement for Koch Industries’ products, and for himself as a businessman,” and “self-congratulatory and slim.” 

Koch’s hometown paper, the Wichita Eagle, highlights how despite the Kochs’ attempt to rebrand themselves, still little is known about what makes the Kochs tick politically and the book “reveals little about political operations” of the Koch network and […]