Billionaire conservative US donor David Koch retires

Yahoo – AFP, June 5, 2018

David Koch, pictured in 2011, will retire due to "declining health" (AFP
Photo/NICHOLAS KAMM)

New York (AFP) - Powerful US political donor David Koch, who with his brother Charles built an industrial empire and became kingmakers of conservative American politics, will retire from his company and political activities for health reasons, according to a letter obtained Tuesday by AFP.

In this message to employees of Koch Industries on Monday, Charles Koch said David, 78, has been in "declining health" since 2016 and "continues to deteriorate," so he "is no longer able to get involved in management of the company and other organizations."

"We are deeply saddened by this as we miss David's insightful questions and his many contributions to Koch Industries," the letter said.

The conglomerate, based in Wichita, Kansas, which includes chemicals, energy and finance, helped him build a fortune exceeding $50 billion, according to Forbes.

The brothers used their wealth to fund dozens of political organizations, causes and candidates, including founding the political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity to promote tax cuts, reduced regulation and fiscal responsibility from the government.

They played a pivotal role in the rise of the Tea Party movement, which some credit as a forerunner to the emergence of Donald Trump's candidacy.

However, the Koch brothers, who are supporters of free trade, also are funding a campaign against Trump's protectionist policies and tariffs on key products like steel and aluminum.

Koch brothers sought say in academic hiring in return for university donation

• Florida university receives $1.5m from rightwing billionaires

• Kochs wanted appointment of ultra-rightwing economics faculty

theguardian.com, Ed Pilkington in New York, Friday 12 September 2014

David Koch, above, and his brother Charles donated to 163 colleges
and univerisites in 2012. Photograph: Phelan M Ebenhack/AP

The billionaire Koch brothers attempted to wield political influence over appointments and teaching at a major US university in exchange for donations, newly published documents reveal.

Internal emails and memos from the economics department of Florida State University (FSU) open a window into the kind of direct pressure the Kochs seek to exert over academic institutions in return for their largesse. The 16 pages of documents, obtained by the Center for Public Integrity, show that the energy tycoons demanded through their grant-giving arm, the Charles Koch Foundation, a role in faculty appointments and an emphasis on teaching that was in tune with their radical political views.

Charles and David Koch are major funders of the Tea Party and other ultra-rightwing movements that oppose government intervention and advocate for an unregulated free market.

A memo drawn up by the then chair of the FSU economics department, Bruce Benson, set out the Kochs’ terms for funding, noting that “the proposal is … not to just give us money to hire anyone we want and fund any graduate student that we choose. There are constraints.”

A section of the memo headlined “Constrained hiring” says: “As we all know, there are no free lunches. Everything comes with costs. In this case, the money for faculty lines and graduate students is coming from a group of funding organisations with strong libertarian views. These organisations have an explicit agenda.

“They want to expose students to what they believe are vital concepts about the benefits of the market and the dangers of government failure, and they want to support and mentor students who share their views. Therefore, they are trying to convince us to hire faculty who will provide exposure and mentoring. If we are not willing to hire such faculty, they are not willing to fund us.”

The documents date back to 2007, when the Koch deal was first being negotiated with FSU. Among the other demands made by the foundation was that Benson, a free-market libertarian who shares many of the Kochs’ beliefs, must have his term as chair of the economics department extended for three years as a requirement of the donation.

Dave Levinthal, the centre’s senior political reporter, who broke the story , said: “The documents give a blueprint of what the Kochs wanted and if ultimately they didn’t get everything they demanded it still gives a rare view into their intentions. They were saying ‘We want this, this and that, and if you don’t do it, we are not going to give you any money’.”

The Koch’s financial gift was finalised in 2009 at the sum of $1.5m (£920,000) to be spread over six years – a drop in the ocean for the brothers who own the second largest privately owned company in the US and are valued at $36bn each. The university says that as of April this year it had received $1m.

Under the initial deal with the Kochs, they had direct input into the appointment of faculty members in the economics department through a three-person advisory board set up specifically to liaise with the Charles Koch Foundation over hiring. The terms of the donation have been a running sore within FSU,prompting considerable internal opposition.

In the face of widespread criticism, the university authorities in 2013 revised the terms of the Koch funding to weaken the brothers’ grip on appointments. A statement from the university released earlier this year said that “the decision was made to eliminate any role whatsoever of the advisory group in the hiring of tenure-track faculty members in the department of economics”.

Benson did not immediately reply to questions from the Guardian. But he told the Center for Public Integrity that the documents had been intended for internal use and were written at “early stages of discussion” over the Koch grant, well before it was finalised in 2008.

Florida State University is not the only academic institution that the Kochs have financial relationships with. According to the CPI, the brothers dispensed $13m in 2012 to 163 colleges and universities.

David Koch, chairman of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, funds some

of the largest dark money networks. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File) | AP

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Facebook and Microsoft help fund rightwing lobby network, report finds

State Policy Network rejects climate change, opposes workers' rights – and is backed by some top US tech and telecoms firms

theguardian.com, Ed Pilkington in New York, Thursday 14 November 2013

Microsoft, Facebook and Time Warner each sponsored SPN’s most recent
annual meeting in Oklahoma City. Photograph: Dado Ruvic/Reuters

Some of America’s largest technology and telecoms companies, including Facebook, Microsoft and AT&T, are backing a network of self-styled “free-market thinktanks” promoting a radical rightwing agenda in states across the nation, according to a new report by a lobbying watchdog.

The Center for Media and Democracy asserts that the State Policy Network (SPN), an umbrella group of 64 thinktanks based in each of the 50 states, is acting as a largely beneath-the-radar lobbying machine for major corporations and rightwing donors.

Its policies include cutting taxes, opposing climate change regulations, advocating reductions in labour protections and the minimum wage, privatising education, restricting voter rights and lobbying for the tobacco industry.

The network’s $83.2m annual warchest comes from major donors. These include the Koch brothers, the energy tycoons who are a mainstay of Tea Party groups and climate change sceptics; the tobacco company Philip Morris and its parent company Altria Group; the food giant Kraft; and the multinational drugs company GlaxoSmithKline.

More surprisingly, backers also include Facebook and Microsoft, as well as the telecoms giants AT&T, Time Warner Cable and Verizon.

The CMD study uncovered a public document that listed SPN’s funders in 2010. They included: AT&T and Microsoft, which each donated up to $99,000; and Time Warner Cable and Verizon, which each contributed up to $24,000. In addition, Facebook, Microsoft and Time Warner each sponsored SPN’s most recent annual meeting in Oklahoma City in September.

Lisa Graves, the director of the Center for Media and Democracy, said it was “disappointing” that Facebook and the other technology and telecoms companies had “put their hat in the ring, given SPN’s extreme agenda that includes climate change denial, making it harder for Americans to vote, and attacking workers’ rights.” She called on the firms to “reconsider their support, as it is at odds with science and common sense.”

Tracie Sharp, the president of SPN, rebutted the charge that it operates as a rightwing lobbying network. In a statement, she said that the network was dedicated to providing “state-based, free-market thinktanks with the academic and management resources required to run a non-profit institution”. Each of its 64 member thinktanks were “fiercely independent, choosing to manage their staff, pick their own research topics and educate the public on those issues they deem most appropriate for their state.”

But she added that “every thinktank, however, rallies around a common belief: the power of free markets and free people to create a healthy, prosperous society.”

The State Policy Network operates a tech/telecom policy exchange in which it campaigns against taxes on internet shopping and against the regulatory activities of the Federal Communications Commission. Though much of that thinking could not reasonably be characterised as what the CMD report calls an “extreme rightwing agenda”, the tech and telecoms companies' inclusion on the list of funders puts them alongside some strange bedfellows.

The Guardian invited the technology and telecoms companies to respond to the allegation that they have sponsored a network devoted to “extreme” rightwing causes, but most either declined to comment or had not responded by the time of publication.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Microsoft said: “As a large company, Microsoft has great interest in the many policy issues discussed across the country. We have a longstanding record of engaging with a broad assortment of groups on a bipartisan basis, both at the national and local level. In regard to State Policy Network, Microsoft has focused our participation on their technology policy work group because it is valuable forum to hear various perspectives about technology challenges and to share potential solutions.”

SPN works in parallel with the American Legislative Exchange Council, Alec, a forum that brings together largely Republican legislators and corporations to devise model bills that are used to attack workers’ rights in various US states.

The Koch brothers have donated directly to the network either personally or through corporate funds from Koch Industries and from family foundations. Two closely-related funds, the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, described by Mother Jones as the “dark money ATM of the conservative movement”, give at least $1.5m a year – channeling money to the network from individual donors whose identity the funds obscure.

Several prominent rightwing billionaire donors are also involved, including Art Pope, an ally of the Koch brothers; the Walton family of Walmart, which funds SPN members in Arkansas, California, Massachusetts and Washington state; the foundation of billionaire Republican donor Richard Mellon Scaife; and the Searle Freedom Trust, created out of the fortune of the creator of NutraSweet, which funds a number of conservative causes.

Graves said that the individual thinktanks who make up SPN present themselves as “neutral, non-partisan groups, but are in fact part of a national network to project the voices and interests of some of the most powerful corporations and families in the country”.

Gordon Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon, said that SPN groups were actively targeting the rights of often non-unionised employees. His research had uncovered attempts to expand the use of child labour, cut the minimum wage, reduce unemployment benefit, make it harder to sue employers for sex or race discrimination, or even to police wage theft where companies refused to pay workers over-time or any wages at all.

“These are a very dramatic package of proposals at a time of economic hardship, and they are being rolled out in a cookie-cutter fashion from state to state, and affecting the lives of working people across the country.”

Lafer added: “This looks like scholarship from local organisations, but in fact it is neither – neither scholarship, nor local.”

David Koch, chairman of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, funds
some of the largest dark money networks. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File) | AP

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Dark Money Groups Are Funded By Dark Money Groups That Fund Dark Money Groups That Fund...

The Huffington Post, Paul Blumenthal,  11/09/2013

David Koch, chairman of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, funds
some of the largest dark money networks. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File) | AP

WASHINGTON -- A recent million-dollar settlement in California has stripped back the curtain on how "dark money" is secretly moved in and around electoral politics. Documents and interviews revealed how a networks of nonprofits passed dark money -- that is, money whose source is not disclosed to the public -- from one to another to another to further obscure the original sources.

Examples of similar financial transfers uncovered by The Huffington Post, in addition to a host of examples reported by the Center for Responsive Politics and NPR, demonstrate that the California case is no isolated incident.

Networks of nonprofits are being created across the country, at the national and state levels, to secretly fund candidate and ballot initiative campaigns, according to tax documents and campaign records accessed through Guidestar, CitizenAudit.org and the National Institute for Money in State Politics. Their tactics are similar to the schemes adopted by the global rich to hide their wealth -- except instead of avoiding tax collecting authorities, they're trying to skirt disclosure laws.

The best known of these networks are those tied to the billionaire Koch brothers. Linking the groups together are two dark money hubs: the Center to Protect Patient Rights, which doled out as much as $182.2 million to other dark money groups from 2010 through 2012, and Freedom Partners, which gave $236 million to other dark money groups, including $115 million to the Center to Protect Patient Rights.

But dark money networks have also grown at the state level. They played a notable role in the clashes over labor rights in Wisconsin and Ohio in 2011.

The Wisconsin battle erupted over a controversial budget bill, supported by Gov. Scott Walker (R) and passed in March 2011, that stripped public employees of their collective bargaining rights. An April vote for a state Supreme Court justice turned into a referendum on the legislation, and nine state senators were targeted in a recall election that August. Outside interest groups flooded these elections with millions of dollars, much of it spent on issue ads.

At the center of this effort were the Wisconsin Club for Growth, a spinoff of the national organization working to enforce conservative orthodoxy within the Republican Party, and the WMC Issues & Mobilization Committee, the political arm of the business trade group Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce. These two dark money groups not only spent money on their own issue ads, but also funded the activities of other nonprofits in the state.

In 2011, the Wisconsin Club for Growth gave $4.62 million to Citizens for a Strong America, which ran ads in two of the recall elections and in support of conservative incumbent Justice David Prosser. The only other contribution to Citizens for a Strong America that year totaled $25, making the organization merely a shell for Wisconsin Club for Growth cash. The "citizens" group has also been linked to staffers at the nonprofit Americans for Prosperity, the main political organization run by the Koch brothers.

Citizens for a Strong America, in turn, made big donations to two anti-abortion groups -- $916,045 to Wisconsin Family Action and $347,582 to Wisconsin Right to Life -- and to two gun rights groups -- $235,000 to United Sportsmen of Wisconsin and $77,908 to Safari Club International. All of these groups turned around and spent money on issue advertising in either the recall elections or the court race.

The $916,045 contribution to Wisconsin Family Action, which opposes gay marriage along with abortion, constituted 82 percent of its total moneys -- meaning that it too was almost entirely funded by the Wisconsin Club for Growth in 2011. As for Wisconsin Right to Life, the contribution from the Club for Growth spinoff that was funneled through Citizens for a Strong America constituted nearly half of its budget that year.

This dark-money shell game allowed the Wisconsin Club for Growth to influence the elections with both its own ads and those of seemingly unrelated conservative groups with different public agendas.

The one thing all these dark money nonprofits share is that they are not required by law to disclose their donors to the Federal Election Commission or any similar state agency. But they do report their own donations to the Internal Revenue Service. In other words, the trail of cash moving from dark money nonprofit to dark money nonprofit can be traced, in part, through public records of the groups contributing it.

Information available from the IRS on those contributing to the Wisconsin Club for Growth in 2011 turns up more links among dark money groups. These records showed a $225,000 contribution from the Center to Protect Patient Rights, $1.06 millionfrom the Wisconsin Homeowners Alliance, $988,000 from the WMC Issues &Mobilization Committee, $227,500 from the Wisconsin Insurance Alliance, $140,000 from the Building Industry Council and $75,000 from the Jobs First Coalition. None of these groups reveal their donors.

A similar situation unfolded in Ohio, also in 2011, when the state's residents were asked to vote on a ballot initiative to decide the fate of Republican Gov. John Kasich's bill to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights.

The primary funding vehicle to support the anti-union measure was a dark money nonprofit called Building a Better Ohio, which transferred all its funds to a ballot initiative campaign of the same name. Corporations, unions and nonprofits have been able to contribute unlimited amounts to such campaigns since a Supreme Court decision in the 1980s.

More than half of the $12 million spent by the Building a Better Ohio campaign came from two other dark money nonprofits. Make Ohio Great, which was created by the Republican Governors Association solely for the ballot effort, contributed $1.55 million, and Ohioans to Protect Jobs gave $5.21 million. The only publicly known donor to Make Ohio Great was the Republican Governors Public Policy Committee, a dark money affiliate of the RGA that gave $2.85 million.

The Building a Better Ohio nonprofit did voluntarily release a list of donors but not the amounts given, leaving the public to guess its biggest funding sources.

The Wisconsin and Ohio cases, moreover, are only two high-profile examples of the endless layers obscuring dark money from the public's eye. In Arizona and Ohio, recent ballot initiative campaigns against health care reform were almost entirely funded by nonprofits, particularly those in the Kochs' orbit.

From 2009 to 2010, the Center to Protect Patient Rights, one of the main dark money hubs, gave $1.43 million to the U.S. Health Freedom Coalition and $275,000 to the Benjamin Rush League, another name for the U.S. Health Freedom Coalition, which turned around and gave $1.47 million to an Arizona ballot initiative campaign seeking to opt the state out of Obamacare's health insurance mandate. This was an effort endorsed by Americans for Prosperity, the Kochs' main political voice.

In 2011, Ohioans for Healthcare Freedom, campaigning for a ballot initiative identical to Arizona's, received nearly all of its funds from dark money groups. Donations included $198,438 from Ohio 2.0, $165,000 from Ohio Liberty Council and $100,000 from the U.S. Health Freedom Coalition -- three groups that all received substantial sums from the Center to Protect Patient Rights. The same year, the latter group gave $565,000 to Ohio 2.0, $210,000 to Ohio Liberty Council and $125,000 to the U.S. Health Freedom Coalition. The Center to Protect Patient Rights also gave $61,953 directly to the ballot campaign.

These dark money transfers are attracting more attention from other states' officials following the California case. Investigations exposed similar hide-the-source games in both Idaho and Kentucky.

Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysura (R) forced Education Voters of Idaho to reveal the funders behind its efforts to pass a ballot initiative gutting collective bargaining rights for teachers. A court required the group to disclose its donors, which included New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Wyoming investor Foster Friess. The Republican Governors Public Policy Committee also contributed $50,000.

In Kentucky, a conservative nonprofit called Restoring America was formed just months before the 2011 gubernatorial race and then funded a political committee of the same time, which ran ads attacking Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear. A court order forced those ads off the air until the group disclosed its donors. Terry Williams, the former father-in-law of Republican gubernatorial candidate David Williams, was revealed as the source of nearly all of Restoring America's funds.

An effort by Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller (D) to force Americans for Prosperity to disclose its donors, however, was blocked in state courts last month.

Faced with this evidence of large sums of hidden cash moving into their realms -- and knowing the unlikelihood of any quick congressional action -- multiple states are looking to take more proactive steps. Election officials and watchdogs in Alaska, California, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New York, New York City and Washington have banded together to form the States' Unified Network Center to collaborate on ways to prevent dark money from flooding future elections.

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Storm brews over control of US newspaper group

Google – AFP, Rob Lever (AFP), 26 May 2013

Protesters demand the Los Angeles Times not be sold to the Koch Brothers,

May 23, 2013 in Beverly Hills, California (AFP, Joe Klamar)

WASHINGTON — With a sale likely of a prominent group of US newspapers, the interest of a potential buyer tied to right-wing causes has galvanized opponents fearing the dailies could become political tools.

The Tribune Co. dailies, including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and five others could be sold in what may be one of the biggest newspaper deals in US history.

Although no official bids have been announced, the mere hint of interest from billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch -- famous for bankrolling conservative causes -- has some activists in a frenzy.

Protests have taken place in Los Angeles, Chicago and Baltimore, and more are planned.

"It's unlikely the Koch brothers would take over these papers and not try to use them to advance their conservative agenda," said Angelo Carusone of Media Matters, a watchdog group with the avowed mission of countering "conservative misinformation" in the news media.

"These are not just run-of-the-mill papers," Carusone said. "We are talking about eight publications which are either exclusive or influential in the local communities."

The Los Angeles Times building is seen

 on June 7, 2012 in Los Angeles, California

(Getty Images/AFP/File, Kevork Djansezian)

Rick Jacobs of the progressive advocacy Courage Campaign, which has organized some of the protests, said the group is working on a coalition to block a sale to the Koch brothers.

"We want genuine journalists to have good jobs and be free to report the news," Jacobs said.

"The Koch brothers have never been involved in newspapers," he said. "The only reason they would be interested is to further their political goals."

According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, some 40 potential buyers have expressed interest in one or more of the newspapers, but the company would like to sell the group in a single transaction.

Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University, said that by selling the newspapers in a single deal, "you end up with only very wealthy potential buyers," such as the Koch brothers or Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

"Local people who are more invested in their communities are likely to be better stewards of community journalism in the long run," Kennedy said, noting that "people buying newspapers to advance a political agenda is nothing new."

He said the furor over the Koch brothers owes to the fact that "not only are they extreme libertarians, but because they seem to hate the media."

Murdoch, on the other hand, despite criticism over his political views, has a long history in the newspaper industry in Australia, Britain and the US, where he owns The Wall Street Journal and New York Post.

"If I were at one of those newspapers, I would find myself rooting for Murdoch rather than the Koch brothers," Kennedy said.

The intense reaction to the Koch brothers highlights a bitterly partisan political landscape, with the family in focus for backing policy groups such as the libertarian Cato Institute think tank in Washington.

The Koch brothers also were behind the formation of the Americans for Prosperity political action group, which supports many causes backed by the ultra-conservative Tea Party, although they are not formally affiliated.

Koch Industries, which focuses on petroleum refining and chemicals and pipelines, said in a statement that it was "constantly exploring profitable opportunities in many industries and sectors."

Critics of the Koch brothers accuse them of funding efforts to quash labor unions, especially in a highly contentious battle over public sector unions in Wisconsin.

Koch Industries' Melissa Cohlmia said in a statement that about 30 percent of the company's employees are represented by a union.

"Koch has mutually respectful and productive relationships with the unions that represent its employees -- this has been true for more than 50 years," she said.

File photo of the Chicago Tribune building

 in Chicago, Illinois (Getty Images/AFP/

File, Tasos Katopodis)

Some civic organizations have been seeking to raise funds for alternative bids. A group called "The Other 98 Percent" has launched a crowdfunding effort for the newspapers.

"This is a way for Americans to say that they're tired of billionaires fighting over who gets to control our media," said the group's Nicole Carty.

Politics aside, the economics for any buyer of any of the newspapers will be daunting.

The publishing operations had been valued at $623 million during Tribune Co. bankruptcy proceedings, but media analyst Ken Doctor said "the value of these properties is dropping month by month, year by year."

"We know revenue is down, and they are struggling with circulation.

"If they are maintaining their profits they are only doing that by significant cutting," including of newsroom staff, Doctor said.

There could be pitfalls for any new owners, be they politically motivated investors or civic organizations.

"There is a three- to five-year turnaround at this point," Doctor said, as newspapers find a way to manage a transition to digital. "They will need to beef up news coverage and digital innovation."

But if the Koch brothers make the newspapers "plainly partisan," it would drive away subscribers "and they turn more quickly into irrelevance."

Charles Koch  and David Koch

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Men on a mission: The Koch brothers and US conservatism


"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…6 - The News

Number six. I'll be brief. Watch for your news to change. It has to. When the media realizes that Human Beings are changing their watching habits, they're going to start changing what they produce for you to watch. Eventually, there's going to be something called "The Good News Channel," and it will be very attractive indeed. For it will be real and offset the drama of what is today's attraction. This is what families at night, sitting around the table, will wish to watch. They'll have something where the whole picture of a situation is shown and not just the dramatic parts. You will hear about what's happening on the planet that no one is telling you now, and when that occurs [we have no clock, dear one], it's going to compete strongly with the drama. I keep telling you this. Human nature itself is starting to be in color instead of black and white. Watch for it. And that was number six ….”

Men on a mission: The Koch brothers and US conservatism

Deutsche Welle, 10 May 2013

Charles and David Koch have a plan: They want to give the US a conservative makeover and are reportedly interested in buying some of the country’s biggest newspapers. What makes the billionaire brothers tick?

What do the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, the Independent Women's Forum and the Washington Legal Foundation have in common?

They, like dozens of other groups that make up the ever expanding universe of Koch-aligned organizations across the United States, received money from the billionaire brothers.

While some of them like the Cato Institute, Americans for Prosperity and the Heritage Foundation are known beyond their immediate libertarian-conservative ecosystem others like the Property and Environment Research Center or the now defunct Environment Literacy Council aren't. However, all of them regardless of their size and scope share a strong disdain for government coupled with a fervent belief in unfettered markets and their connection to the Koch brothers.

Men with a plan

"The Koch brothers have a multifaceted approach," explains Joseph Aistrup, professor of political science at Kansas State University, the home state of Koch Industries, the brothers' conglomerate. Unlike some other rich financiers of the political left and right in the US, the Kochs do not just write checks for candidates or causes in an election season, but have a long-term strategy.

The Cato Institute is a Koch-connected
think tank

Their funding is continuous and spans across what could be called the entire ideological supply chain, from research at universities to think tanks and policy organizations to grass roots and legislative affairs groups at the state and national level.

For the 2012 election campaign, the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity alone spent $36 million - according to political money tracker Open Secrets - almost all of it to defeat Barack Obama.

Since the Kochs conduct most of their political operations via so-called shadow money outfits that do not have to reveal their funders, it is impossible to fully know how much exactly they dished out. But given that Charles Koch had called the 2012 election a fight "for the life and death of this country" in a secret audiotape obtained by Mother Jones magazine, the $400 million-figure that Koch-connected organizations reportedly were planning to spend according to a Politico article from last May seems entirely possible.

Healthy finances

That's because for the Koch brothers who control the US' second largest private company and rank number six in this year's Forbes list of the world's richest billionaires with a net worth of $34 billion each, money is not an issue. But despite their great wealth and their large political role the brothers try to avoid the public spotlight. "My guess is is probably most people wouldn’t know them if they saw them out on the street", say Aistrup.

And yet their spending prowess coupled with the dedication and determination to shape America's political landscape makes them "the most significant conservative financiers of the 21st century," says Alan Lichtman, a history professor at American University in Washington, DC:

"Their political influence has been immense and it cannot be overemphasized."

Koch Industries is the second
largest private US firm

And it goes back to at least 1980 when David Koch ran as the vice presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party outflanking Ronald Reagan on the right by vowing to essentially shutting down large parts of the US government by abolishing the Federal Reserve, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a host of other programs like social security should the ticket get elected.

"They are anti-government activists, indeed extremists," says Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace USA who tracks the political activity of the Koch brothers. "They were running for president to close the government which is a fairly extreme point of view."

Shift to the right

The Kochs soon realized however that in the US two-party system, the Republican Party was a much more promising entity to popularize their ideas than the fledgling Libertarian Party and that leading political campaigns from behind can be as - if not more - effective than running on the ticket. As a consequence they essentially built their intellectual and ideological network from scratch to promote their cause.

"And over the course of time the country as a whole in terms of its politics has drifted toward them," notes Aistrup. "And as the Republican Party has become increasingly rightward-driven and Libertarian perspectives have really become a more dominant aspect of the Republican Party, the Koch Brothers have really seen their efforts bear fruit."

While their strategy has changed over time, their positions have not.

"They truly believe when it comes to economic matters in a minimal government that taxes very little, that doesn’t regulate industry," says Lichtman. "I think they are true believers in their opposition to unions." That’s why they recently supported the controversial efforts of Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin to undermine public employee unions and why they were instrumental into turning the Tea Party movement into a nationwide force, adds Lichtman.

Climate change

The Koch brothers' anti-regulation and anti-government stance culminated in a widely reported climate change denial campaign for which they have spent at least $67 million since 1997, according to a Greenpeace expose from 2012. And while their political activism is clearly aligned with the corporate interests of Koch Industries, a major oil and gas company that owns pipelines and refineries, that is not what makes them tick.

The tea party was Koch-supported

"I don’t think it’s merely about profit," says Aistrup, who has observed how the Koch brothers "purged the Republican Party of the moderate element" in their home state of Kansas. "The story goes the entire Koch family became more politicized because their dad had worked in the Soviet Union and had basically been cheated out of some money by the Communist government there."

In any case, adds Aistrup, "there is a lot more going on than simply trying to line their own pockets. Anybody who thinks that the Koch Brothers do not fervently believe in their cause, does not really understand them."

"I think they are true believers," says Lichtman, who like Aistrup is not surprised by their reported interest to buy the newspaper arm of the Chicago-based Tribune company that includes some of the country’s biggest dailies including the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.

"If they go after these media outlets, primarily newspapers, that just adds on more pieces to making sure that their particular perspective is reported on in the news and is reflected more positively in the broader mass media," notes Aistrup.

"Buying the media would obviously in their eyes be the strongest remedy to the alleged liberal bias of the media," says Lichtman.

No comment

The Tribune group owns nine English
and three Spanish dailies

The Koch brothers were not available for an interview for this article. Koch Industries referred to their previously released statement that the company does "not comment on deals or rumors of deals we may or may not be exploring."

Regardless of the outcome of their alleged interest in buying the Tribune newspapers, the Koch brothers will keep trying to grow their political influence in the US, say the experts.

Their goal, explains Lichtman, is an even more conservative government that taxes wealth even more lightly than the current government, that virtually eliminates any control or regulation over business and that snuffs out the last remaining remnants of the union movement and substantially cuts down social programs like social security.

"It’s in essence in many ways turning back the clock to the conservatism of the 1920s, of Calvin Coolidge and Warren Harding."

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