Real Koch Facts: Kansas

New report highlights same old Koch education scheme

November 20, 2014

In addition to myriad political entities and nonprofits, the Koch brothers’ network — or the “Kochtopus” — also comprises Koch-funded education initiatives designed to impart their extreme libertarian views on our nation’s young people. These initiatives — like Youth Entrepreneurs — wield influence in our schools the same way the Kochs do politically: by buying it. Standard operating procedure among the Kochtopus’ tentacles, but as a new report from Huffington Post highlights, it’s especially craven when you consider the Kochs’ open hostility toward public education, and the drastic education funding cuts that some of their favorite elected officials have presided over in North Carolina, Kansas and Wisconsin.

Huffington Post digs into the machinations of the Bill of Rights Institute (BRI), an organization that has received millions in funding from the Koch organizations that came together to launch BRI in 1999, including the Charles Koch Foundation and […]

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despite advertisements from the Kochs’ Americans For Prosperity urging lawmakers to vote for a bill that would have repealed the bipartisan initiative, the Kansas House shot down that attempt with a decisive 77-44 vote.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

Kochs scramble to protect their investment in Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback

August 1, 2014

The Koch brothers and their political entity, Americans for Prosperity, are spending millions in support of candidates who share the billionaires’ extreme conservative, anti-working families agenda. We’ve recently recapped their efforts to push this agenda in North Carolina, Colorado and Wisconsin, but one needn’t look any further than the Kochs’ own backyard for the latest example. According to the Washington Post, they’re coming to the defense of Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, whose failed far-right policies are threatening his reelection prospects.

The Kochs’ support for Governor Brownback is hardly surprising, as the Governor has championed several pieces of extreme legislation straight out of the Koch playbook. During his first term, Brownback cut taxes for the wealthiest Kansans, while slashing state spending and cutting public jobs, according to the Post. As the economy continues to recover, other states have been able to […]