Free Republic

During a closed-door gathering of major donors in Southern California on Monday, the political operation spearheaded by the Koch brothers unveiled a significant new weapon in its rapidly expanding arsenal — a super PAC called Freedom Partners Action Fund. The new group aims to spend more than $15 million in the 2014 midterm campaigns — part of a much larger spending effort expected to total $290 million, sources told POLITICO., The vast network of political nonprofit groups they helped build has mostly funneled its unprecedented political spending into issue-based campaigns that usually slam Democrats for supporting big government but seldom...

Tea Party Patriots has filed a complaint against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) with the Senate Ethics Committee to protest his repeated attacks against Charles and David Koch. Jenny Beth Martin, the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, filed the complaint, charging Reid with “unlawfully and unethically targeting private citizens.” The complaint further states that Reid “has misused Senate staff or resources to engage in partisan campaign activity in violation of federal laws and Senate rules.” Reid has repeatedly slammed the Koch brothers, two of the richest men in the world, for funding attack ads against Democratic candidates. Americans for...

WASHINGTON — Frustrated by the “sewer” of modern American political campaigns, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Wednesday said that he would bring a constitutional amendment to the floor granting Congress the ability to set strict new limits on campaign contributions, warning he will force multiple votes if necessary to pass the measure. “When I came to Congress, when you got money you had to list who you got it from, what their occupation was, address, and phone numbers if you had it. Then I saw things change. In 1998, [former Sen.] John Ensign and I ran against one another and...

Gore blames Koch brothers for GOP position on climate By Mario Trujillo - 05/13/14 01:04 PM EDT Former Vice President Al Gore blamed Republicans’ fear of crossing the mega-donor Koch brothers for the GOP's skepticism on climate change. Gore, during an interview Monday, said it is not "complicated why they have all been cowed into abandoning" their position on the issue, asserting that Republicans fear facing opponents financed by billionaires Charles and David Koch, who have poured millions into the midterm elections this year. "Anyone who wants to set his or her aspirations on the Republican nomination for the presidency...

The most Republican-leaning company in the country, based on political donations, isn’t Koch Industries. It’s the company that makes Wonder Bread. The political action committee of Flowers Foods, a Georgia company that produces the pillowy sandwich bread, Tastykakes and Nature’s Own baked goods, has given more than 99 percent of its political contributions since 1979 to Republicans. Only three Democratic congressional candidates have gotten money from its PAC since 1984, and not one in the past 20 years.

Charles and David Koch are one of the “main causes” of climate change, charged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the Senate floor. “While the Koch brothers admit to not being experts on the matter, these billionaire oil tycoons are certainly experts at contributing to climate change. That’s what they do very well. They are one of the main causes of this. Not a cause, one of the main causes,” Reid said. Now in his fifth month of flogging the billionaire conservative benefactors on the Senate floor, Reid dubbed them “multizillionaires” on Wednesday and mockingly applauded their spokeswoman for saying...

Don’t expect Harry Reid to launch a tirade against Nevada businessman Sheldon Adelson anytime soon. Speaking with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, the Senate majority leader explained why he targets the Koch brothers exclusively while leaving other wealthy donors for both parties out of his senate-floor criticisms. “They are in it to make money,” Reid said. “That’s their whole goal here: To add zeros to their billions.” When pressed why Adelson gets a pass, Reid got very defensive, pointing to his personal relationship with the magnate. “I know Sheldon Adelson — he’s not in this for money,” he said “He’s in it...

It was one of the more astonishing political images of the year: a newspaper advertisement that linked Osama bin Laden, the suspected international terrorist, with Senator Spencer Abraham, the Michigan Republican. Why is the senator, asked the advertisement that ran in some of Michigan's largest newspapers, ''trying to make it easier for terrorists like Osama bin Laden to export their way of terror to any street in America?''

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is firing back at Mark Zuckerberg and his pro-immigration reform group, calling the Facebook CEO a "liberal billionaire" who should "go back to San Francisco." Earlier this month the Zuckerberg-backed super PAC FWD.us released ads in Iowa and online attacking King for his controversial remarks on immigration, such as when the congressman compared granting veterans citizenship to handing out "M&M's or Tootsie Rolls" at a parade.

Do I have any issues with a Tom Steyer using any of his legitimately earned billions of dollars to donate to political causes, candidates, campaigns, and super PACS in which he believes? Absolutely not. Do I have a problem with Tom Steyer smearing other billionaires for doing so, funding a perniciously targeted misinformation campaign full of flat-out falsehoods against the Keystone XL pipeline, and pretending that he has some sort of imagined moral high ground in this arena? Yes, yes I do. Via Politico: Liberal billionaire Tom Steyer insisted Tuesday that heÂ’s not the leftÂ’s version of the Koch brothers....

Harry Reid’s jihad against the Koch Brothers has already yielded a hilarious video compilation (by the Free Beacon) of his 134 mentions of their name. But now with new information, his Koch addiction can become a potent tool in the hands of Republicans. Call it karma, if you like, but the former boxer now leading the Senate majority has left himself wide open.It turns out that Koch Industries employees and PACs have donated to quite a large number of Congressional Democrats. The data was right there on Open Secrets when Jeff Dunetz of Truth Revolt picked it up and posted...

A Super PAC ad in support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.) blasts the Koch Brothers, but declines to mention that the Democratic incumbent has received more than $50,000 from the philanthropists since 2000.

On Feb. 26, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took to the Senate floor and declared that billionaire Republican businessmen Charles and David Koch were "un-American." He's barely been able to stop talking about the "Koch brothers" ever since. On March 4, Reid declared that Senate Republicans were "addicted to Koch." On March 13, Reid mentioned the "Koch brothers" in a floor speech 25 times. This week, he said Republicans should wear Koch insignia on their suits—like NASCAR drivers. It's all part of Reid and the Democrats' calculated efforts to summon a suitable villain in 2014. Reid believes that the Kochs,...

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday said Democrats’ counterattacks on billionaires Charles and David Koch will be effective in this year’s election.  In an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Schumer cited a poll that found 48 percent of the U.S. public doesn't know of the Koch brothers. Schumer said that by October, 90 percent of the country will.  Schumer said Democrats must pursue a “positive agenda” on top of their strategy to expose the Koch brothers’ efforts to fund conservative campaigns and political ads. “We also have to have a shield that protects us from these ads, and I think...

Add Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) to the list of Senate Democrats who have benefitted from Koch money. In fact, he might as well pay one of his grandchildren to stitch Koch insignias onto his suit to denote their sponsorship: According to campaign finance records, former Koch Industries lobbyist Robert P. Hall III donated $500 to Reid’s campaign in 2003. Hall worked for Koch Industries from 1998 to 2004, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He was previously a lobbyist for INVISTA, the Koch Industries subsidiary that Democrats are targeting in their latest campaign to “other” the...

Some folks who’ve had enough of Reid’s shenanigans are starting to weigh in, such as American Commitment President Phil Kerpen. His group is sponsoring an Internet-only ad buy – which is the way smart people are starting to do things – attacking the alliance between the Steyers and Reid. The ad uses footage of Reid saying nasty things about conservatives Charles and David Koch, two men whom the Nevada Democrat has alleged more than once have the entire Republican establishment in their hip pocket, but in a way that cleverly hints that such things could just as easily and more...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid preemptively slammed the budget proposal Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will release Tuesday, calling it a document written to pander to the Koch brothers and other billionaires. “It’s a blueprint for a modern… how would we say this? Koch-topia. Yes, that’s it,” Reid said. “Call it whatever you want. We might as well call it the Koch budget because that’s what they’re doing, protecting the Koch brothers.” Reid’s remarks mark the latest volley in Democrats’ mid-term election year strategy of attacking the Kochs repeatedly, hoping to fire up their liberal base and associate Republicans with the...

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE www.nationalreview.com PRINT March 31, 2014 4:00 AM Inside the Koch-Funded Ads Giving Dems Fits A years-long campaign is bearing fruit. By Eliana Johnson In one of the ads Americans for Prosperity (AFP) has put on the air this year, a thirtysomething actress stands against a white backdrop and looks into the camera. “People don’t like political ads,” she says plaintively. “I don’t like them either. But health care isn’t about politics, it’s about people, and millions of people have lost their health insurance, millions of people can’t see their own doctors, and millions are paying more and...

So far, I have heard nothing in response to my email to Washington Post reporters Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson about their possible coordination with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Congressman Henry Waxman or other Democrats in writing the article about the Keystone pipeline that I critiqued here> and here. I will follow up with them in due course. In the meantime, I have written the following letter to Whitehouse and Waxman: Dear Senator Whitehouse and Congressman Waxman: On March 26, you wrote a letter to David Robertson, President of Koch Industries, about Koch’s ostensible relationship to the Keystone Pipeline. I found

At 63, Chuck Schumer can still dance—for awhile. But eventually, age or ambition caught up with the New York senator. On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough grilled Schumer over Harry Reid's accusation, uttered on the floor of the Senate, that the Koch brothers are "un-American." For as long as he could, Schumer moonwalked away from Scarborough's question as to whether the Kochs are un-American. As one of Harry Reid's top lieutenants—and a lean and hungry senator who almost surely aspires to take Reid's leadership role when the opportunity arises—Schumer was on the spot. But Scarborough to his credit was relentless,...