Real Koch Facts: Minnesota

Community Disorganizers: Friendly Neighborhood Kochs Don’t Care About Your Neighborhood

March 11, 2016

On March 6, 2006, the community of Gaylord, Minnesota suffered an enormous loss courtesy of Charles and David Koch. Over two-hundred residents lost their jobs when Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia Pacific decided to close its Gaylord plant — the largest of its kind east of the Mississippi, according to the Gaylor Herald Times.

Georgia Pacific manufactures wood, adhesives, fertilizer, cardboard, and paper products — including Dixie cups and Brawny paper towels, among other things. This particular Georgia Pacific facility in Gaylord was a particle board plant. But, most importantly, it was a community staple — and had been since it produced its first wood panel on April 16, 1965.

The economic impact of the Georgia Pacific plant’s closure was devastating. Not only were 155 suppliers impacted by its shut-down, but there was also the “$8 million in [lost] annual wages paid directly to” employees in the community — and a “secondary […]

Even non-attending Koch cronies get shout out at secret donor conference

August 27, 2014

As revealed by new reporting from The Nation and Huffington Post, GOP Senate candidates Mitch McConnell, Joni Ernst, Tom Cotton and Cory Gardner all had their chance to kiss the ring at the Koch brothers’ secretive donor conference earlier this year. Luckily for some of their compatriots, in-person attendance to pander to the high-rolling “seminar” attendees wasn’t a prerequisite for receiving shout-outs from the presidents of Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners, two key organizations in the Kochs’ political network.

From East to West, AFP president Tim Phillips and Freedom Partners president Marc Short highlighted the Senate campaigns of Virginia’s Ed Gillespie, North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, Minnesota’s Mike McFadden and Oregon’s Monica Wehby, illustrating that two of the Kochs’ top operatives consider all of these candidates to be exemplary of the anti-working class agenda the billionaires are pushing in this fall’s midterm elections. Put simply, all of these candidates are carrying water for the Kochs, AFP and Freedom Partners, or else Phillips and Short wouldn’t have sung their praises to the Kochs’ network of mysterious donors. Phillips told donors at the event that North Carolina’s Tillis offers “the best opportunity” and that McFadden is “a good candidate,” while Wehby is “running a strong campaign” despite being in “a tough blue state.” In extolling the virtues of Gillespie and Cassidy, Phillips and Short noted that Virginia is a “key state for us” and that energy issues (near and dear to Koch Industries’ heart, of course) represent a “key battleground” in Louisiana.

With the Freedom Partners network committing to spend $500 million in this midterm cycle, including AFP’s pledge to pour over $125 million into the election, these new revelations shed light on which candidates the billionaire Koch brothers view as a sound investment. More on Phillips’ and Short’s’ comments lauding key Senate candidates after the jump: