Real Koch Facts

The Koch brothers are the top donors to their super PAC

October 16, 2014

Earlier this year, the “secret bank” for the Koch brothers’ political network announced it was forming yet another entity, the Freedom Partners Action Fund, a super PAC. At the time, the formation of the super PAC was noted as being novel for two primary reasons. First, it would, unlike other Koch groups confined to thinly-veiled “issue advocacy,” be able to directly encourage voters to vote for extreme, Koch-approved Republican candidates. Secondly, as such, it would be required to disclose its donors in FEC filings.

POLITICO dug in to the first of these filings with an eye for the new PAC’s donor list. In a surprise to no one, the Koch brothers combined were the top donors to their new organization, contributing $2 million each. While the report notes that there are other super wealthy contributors to the organization, the Koch family remains firmly atop the list. POLITICO […]

Federal judge with ties to Kochs rules in Scott Walker’s favor

October 15, 2014

Enforcement of campaign finance laws in Scott Walker’s Wisconsin is the ultimate nursery tale gone bad, with the fox guarding the henhouse at every turn. Case in point: a federal judge with ties to the Koch brothers ruled yesterday that outside groups, like the many organizations receiving Koch funding, can legally coordinate on “issue advocacy” with political campaigns, like that of Koch favorite Governor Scott Walker.

Given that Walker faces an ongoing John Doe investigation into potential illegal coordination of efforts with outside groups during the 2012 recall election, it was hardly a surprise when his Attorney General, J.B. Van Hollen, declined to represent the state’s Government Accountability Board in a lawsuit challenging the coordination rule. The lawsuit was argued before U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa, who issued an injunction yesterday overturning the Wisconsin state law banning coordination between political campaigns and “independent” political groups, provided that the groups […]

Koch network shifts TV spending to its “secret bank” to avoid disclosure

October 10, 2014

The sprawling, secretive network of Koch-backed groups have vowed to spend exorbitantly to influence this fall’s midterm elections, to the tune of $500 million. Although numerous groups comprise the “Kochtopus,” two entities are particularly central to the billionaires’ political spending activities: their political arm, Americans for Prosperity, and their “secret bank,” Freedom Partners Action Fund. According to a recent Bloomberg report, Koch spending on TV ads this cycle has shifted from the former to the latter, in what amounts to just the latest move in the Kochs’ ceaseless, expensive political spending shell game.

To date, AFP has purchased significantly more airtime than Freedom Partners — from January 7 to September 30 of this year, AFP has run 28,735 ads in Senate races to Freedom Partners’ 8,185, according to Bloomberg. Yet as ofSeptember 5, AFP has all but “gone dark” on the airwaves, transitioning television spending to Freedom […]

Koch-founded CATO Institute lauds Kochs’ favorite governors

October 3, 2014

Earlier this week, the CATO Institute, a Koch-founded think tank, issued its 2014 “Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors.” Given the organization’s close ties to the billionaire brothers, it’s of little surprise that the report card issued “A” ratings to a handful of Republican governors who have implemented the Kochs’ self-serving agenda in their states and “F” ratings to eight governors, all Democrats who prioritize support for working families.

High atop CATO’s “A” list is Pat McCrory, the governor of North Carolina and reckless steward of what the Kochs’ political arm, Americans for Prosperity, lovingly refers to as their “model state.” He has implemented an extreme conservative agenda, dictated by the Koch brothers and one of their top lieutenants, Art Pope, who only recently stepped down from his lofty position as budget director in McCrory’s cabinet. In giving McCrory a top score, CATO cites a

Christie Angrily Defends Koch Brothers After Ducey Is Caught Professing Love To Them

Yesterday, The Nation released more damning audio from a recent secretive summit hosted by the Koch brothers and attended by key Republican candidates. This time, the cajoler-in-chief was Arizona gubernatorial candidate Doug Ducey, who made his adoration for the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity clear, saying “I can’t emphasize enough the power of organizations like this.”

In his attempt to solicit Koch money, Ducey promises to enact an extreme agenda similar to the one Scott Walker jammed through in Wisconsin — one which is highly unpopular, gutted education funding, and has left Wisconsin’s economy reeling.

Well, last night, Brahm Resnik at KPNX in Phoenix, called Ducey out, asking him about his connection to these shady billionaires. But as luck would have it, fellow education raider and noted loudmouth Chris Christie was in town, so before Ducey was forced to defend himself, Christie went into one of his patented angry, dismissive rants, […]

Koch-backed NFIB endorses GOP Senate candidates

The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) desperately wants you to believe it has the interests of small business owners at heart, as do the eleven GOP Senate candidates the group has endorsed in this fall’s midterm elections. In reality, the group’s biggest patrons are the oil baron Koch brothers and it is firmly in favor of tax cuts that would benefit the wealthy substantially while benefiting the vast majority of small business owners not at all.

NFIB has been issuing endorsements throughout the midterm cycle on behalf of extreme Conservative candidates like Joni Ernst and Terri Lynn Land. The most recent Senate candidate to receive the NFIB’s endorsement is none other than Koch bro Scott Brown, who in 2011 gushed to David Koch that “your support during the election, it meant a ton. It made a difference and I can certainly use it again.” Not […]

What Grinches Would Cause an End to Flights to the North Pole?

October 2, 2014

Frontier Airlines is ending its season flights to Fairbanks, and it’s all the Koch brothers’ fault. Actually though.

According to KTUU, “A spokeswoman for Fairbanks International Airport says the airline cited the closure of the Flint Hills Resources refinery in North Pole and higher fuel costs as a major factor in the decision. Flint Hills ended production in May.”

Flint Hills, a Koch Industries subsidiary, came under fire after closing their North Pole refinery in February, killing 80 jobs and facing accusations of violating environmental standards. And Alaska continues to pay the price for the Koch brothers’ self-interested decision to close the refinery — from the toxic groundwater they left behind, to increased costs on road construction. Frontier flights to Fairbanks are the latest victim.

The Koch brothers continue to bankroll ads attacking Dan Sullivan’s opponent in their attempt to buy him a Senate seat. What he needs is an airplane […]

To the Surprise of No One, Kochs Spend Big to Buy Access to Republican Governors

September 25, 2014

The New York Times reported yesterday that the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a government and ethics watchdog group, uncovered a treasure trove of documents exposing the major corporate donors to the Republican Governors Association. Names on the list include Walmart, Exxon Mobil, and – yep, you guessed it – Koch Companies Public Sector, a.k.a. Koch Industries’ lobbying arm.

While that isn’t surprising, it does shed some light on just what the Kochs and their big-money pals are trying to buy: golf outings, policy breakfasts, secret donor meetings, an “intimate gathering” with Republican governors and Republican VIPs (whatever that means), and the Republican governors’ ears. In short: Access. Influence. Sway.

These donors would be model residents in Kochville, the Koch brothers’ self-serving utopia where horrible things like the minimum wage, social security, and environmental protections don’t exist. And, for the low, low price of $100,000 – or two easy payments of $50,000 – […]

Freedom Partners creates more tentacles for the Kochtopus

September 24, 2014

Known as the Koch brothers’ “secret bank,” Freedom Partners is notoriously covert in its dealings and purposefully opaque about the flow of money in and out of the organization. Freedom Partners’ opacity is a hallmark of the many groups comprising the Koch network, known not-so-affectionately to some as the “Kochtopus.” Through what details are available, Freedom Partners seems to be quite central to the Kochtopus, if not the head. The Koch network and Freedom Partners continue to grow tentacles upon tentacles — way more than just eight — in a deliberate attempt to obscure their political spending activities.

Recently, our friends at CREW dug into Freedom Partners’ most recent tax return, covering November 1, 2012 to October 31, 2013. CREW finds several notable, if not troubling, details in the returns.

Freedom Partners bills itself as a trade organization, yet its revenue and spending dropped off during this off-election […]

Gov. BrownNose (R-KS) Swaps Wind Energy For Koch Love

September 24, 2014

Sam Brownback has done the unthinkable: he’s made himself — an incumbent Republican governor in Kansas — the underdog in this year’s gubernatorial election. And he’s done it by giving his home state a terrible, horrible, Koch-fueled makeover, handing out massive tax cuts for the wealthy that have decimated the state’s economy, gutted education funding, and alienated his constituents across the board.

But there was at least ONE issue where Sam Brownback seemed he would stand up to the Koch brothers for the good of Kansas. That issue was his career-long support for wind energy in the form of the Renewable Portfolio Standard. Well that’s no more.

For background, RPS is extremely popular in Kansas. So popular, in fact, that despite advertisements from the Kochs’ Americans For Prosperity urging lawmakers to vote for a bill that would have repealed the bipartisan initiative, the Kansas House shot down that attempt with a decisive 77-44 vote. […]