Real Koch Facts

Not A Surprise: Scott Walker Touts The Koch Agenda In New Health Care Plan

August 18, 2015

As Scott Walker continues to take pages from the playbooks of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump to save his plummeting campaign, today he’s reminding the Koch brothers that he’s still relevant by trumpeting their health care agenda in Minnesota.

Other than growing their own bank accounts, repealing Obamacare has been priority #1 for the Kochs. Over the past few years, they’ve put their money where their mouth is, spending millions to upend the Affordable Care Act, bankrolling legal challenges to the ACA, and using scare tactics to spread lies about health care reform.

Even as the uninsured rate falls below 10% — the lowest in 40 years — the Kochs show no signs of ending their high-dollar crusade to deny Americans health care.

And in Walker’s latest attempt to court a slice of the $900 million the Kochs plan to spend propping up Republican candidates, today he attacked Mitch McConnell and other Washington […]

The Kochs’ Criminal Justice Reform “Stalking Horse”

August 17, 2015

A “stalking horse for their long-standing efforts to protect corporate criminals and roll back environmental, health, and safety laws.” You don’t need to take our word that the Koch brothers’ criminal justice initiative is an attempt to mask the recent exposure of the their’ dirty business practices and egregious political spending — that’s how federal prosecutor David Uhlmann characterized the motivation of the Kochs’ interest in criminal justice reform in the Washington Post this weekend. Read more:

Liberal watchdog group Bridge Project last month released a report, “The Koch Brothers’ Criminal Justice Pump-Fake,” attacking their work on criminal justice issues, saying the Kochs’ interest in reform stems from a 97-count indictment and prosecution charging the Koch Petroleum Group and several employees with violating the Clean Air Act at its refinery in Corpus Christi, Tex.

David Uhlmann — the federal prosecutor who was head of the environmental crimes section of the Justice Department — described the lawsuit as “a […]

Kochs Attack CEO Pay Transparency Rule

August 17, 2015

It’s hardly shocking that the Koch brothers, long dedicated to disrupting, delaying, and preventing the implementation of Dodd-Frank regulations, are having a go at another Dodd-Frank rule.

Two weeks ago, the SEC adopted a Dodd-Frank CEO pay disclosure rule that would require public corporations to disclose “their chief executives’ total annual compensation as a ratio to their workers’ median pay,” as NPR described it.

So, the rule would promote corporate transparency, highlight income inequality, and conceivably lower CEO pay as corporations are exposed for contributing to the growing income inequality gap.

The least surprising news of — perhaps — all time?

Mercatus Center, a Koch-created, Koch-backed, and Koch policy-promoting think tank — where billionaire CEO of Koch Industries Charles Koch is a board member — opposes the CEO pay ratio disclosure rule and continues to lobby against it, even as its implementation proceeds.

In an opinion piece for Real Clear Markets, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center

Jeb And The Kochs’ Fight Against Veterans

August 17, 2015

Today Jeb Bush is rolling out his plan to partially privatize the VA during a town hall organized by the chief advocates for VA privatization — the Koch brothers’ “veterans” group, Concerned Veterans for America.

Jeb’s claiming he wants to be the “most veteran-friendly” candidate but Jeb and the Kochs’ plan for partially privatizing the VA does just the opposite of helping veterans. Even worse, Bloomberg reports that the Koch/Jeb plan for the VA wouldn’t benefit vets, but big insurance companies — including Jeb’s former employer that payed him millions.

As revealed in a Bridge Project and VoteVets.Org report, “The Vets Group That Fights Against Veterans,” CVA promotes extreme, right-wing polices that stand in opposition to nearly every other veterans group. From pushing a plan to privatize the VA health care system to proposing a transition from the current military retirement system to a private 401(k)-like plan, CVA follows the radical conservatism of the […]

Battling Op-Eds: The Latest In The Koch PR Joke

August 14, 2015

The Orange County Register became the frontlines of the Koch PR war today after it published two opposing op-eds.

The first, “Kochs resist an overbearing government holding America back,” was authored by Koch donor Gavin Herbert. Apparently listening to the Freedom Partners’ call, Herbert does his best to “shift attention away” from the brothers’ hypocrisy… by stepping in his own.

In his op-ed, Herbert argues that the government’s overbearing regulations hurt businesses:

Today, federal red tape costs businesses roughly one dollar of every 10 created in the economy, or nearly $2 trillion in total. The American Action Forum estimates that more than $550 billion in regulatory costs have been added since President Obama took office in 2009.

My own company struggled under the weight of over-regulation in recent years. We developed eye-care products from our founding in 1950 until we sold the company this year. (Our most famous product was Botox, which we initially […]

What Happens When You Don’t Listen To The Kochs, Ohio Edition

August 14, 2015

The Columbus Dispatch reports that half a million more Ohioans have health insurance thanks to Medicaid expansion in the Buckeye state– and it’s costing a whopping $2 billion less than anticipated.

This is exactly what happens when you don’t listen to the Kochs, who staged a full court press against expanding Medicaid. It’s clear the Kochs were only concerned about their own interests, not the half a million Ohioans who now have health insurance.

Columbus Dispatch: Ohio’s Medicaid costs $2 billion less than estimates

The Koch Brothers’ Puerto Rican Priorities

August 14, 2015

From the start, there was something suspect about the anti-Puerto Rican bailout lobbying campaign being championed by Koch network-affiliated front groups.

If you follow the money however, it all clears up pretty quickly.

In its report last month, “The Kochs’ Wealth Versus the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,” Bridge Project exposed the Koch connection: Supporters of Charles and David Koch’s network stand to lose a lot of money should Puerto Rico be allowed to access Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. It’s pure self-interest, not libertarian idealism.

Now, The Bond Buyer reports that lobbying spending on the House of Representatives’ Puerto Rico bankruptcy bill doubled to $490,000 in the second quarter.

And the Koch brothers aren’t sitting this one out — they’re running a full court press. According to The Bond Buyer’s Jack Casey:

[T]he National Taxpayers Union, the Center for Individual Freedom and 60 Plus, a senior’s advocacy group with connections to the Koch brothers, also spent money opposing the bill, but it is hard to know […]

“Third Koch Brother” Launched Flurry Of Political Spending After Leaving Gov’t Job

August 13, 2015

The Kochs’ favorite North Carolinian is back on the dark money scene. Newly released documents show that “third Koch brother” Art Pope waited just 11 days after resigning as Gov. McCrory’s state budget director to start issuing checks again.

According to the Institue for Southern Studies,

During his time as state budget chief, Pope and Variety Wholesalers halted their political spending. Pope stepped down on Sept. 5, 2014, and speculation began as to whether he would resume his political advocacy. It didn’t take long: Only 11 days later, Variety Stores — the wholly owned subsidiary of Variety Wholesalers, where Pope is chairman and CEO — gave $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association (RGA), the Washington, D.C.-based super PAC that spends millions to help Republican gubernatorial candidates. Last year the governors group spent big and racked up key victories in states including Florida.

The same day it donated to the RGA, Sept. […]

Profit Margins And The Koch Bros.’ Climate Change Contrarianism

August 13, 2015

The Koch brothers, climate change deniers extraordinaire, have a long history of bolstering climate change denying candidates and groups, and opposing environmental regulations, while simultaneously advocating increased regulatory regimes on alternative energy industries.

Dangling the carrot that is the $889 million they plan to spend in the 2016 elections, the Kochs have already “successfully persuaded many elected officials — including presidential hopefuls Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul — to sign a pledge that would ‘oppose any regulation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue,’”according to NPR.

The Kochs’ climate change denial isn’t ideological — it isn’t about disputing the scientific consensus.

It’s not about questioning the indisputable facts of global warming, either — it’s about protecting the profit margins of their pollutant-expelling business interests.

The numbers speak for themselves. NPR’s Lauren Leatherby reports on a University of Massachusetts Amherst study that says it […]

The Koch PR Joke, Interrupted

August 12, 2015

Koch PR consultants continue to work overtime to enhance the brothers’ aura of beneficence and foster an illusion of accessibility.

Why? They’re nervous.

“The Koch brothers could be depicted as comic-book villains,” a Koch network donor recently lamented, according to Time. “They never really wanted the attention,” he reportedly said, continuing, “Our side has done a very bad job telling our story. We’ve been defined by the other side.”

The point is, as Time’s Philip Elliott put it: “[T]he Koch brothers are starting to contemplate their legacies.” And for the Kochs, “contemplating a legacy” equates to “buying a legacy” — to wit: further revving up the best PR machine their billions can buy.

It’s a narrative the Kochs and their cadre of PR professionals, through familiarity, have become quite good at spinning, but they aren’t fooling everyone. News outlets are catching on to the immense degree of Koch control governing any of the brothers’ media […]