Free Republic

The donor-class Koch network headed by GOP mega-donor Charles Koch is now admitting they failed to turn the American people against President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports. In June 2018, the Koch network of organizations — which include Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Partners, and the Libre Initiative — launched a campaign against Trump’s economic nationalist policies that have helped weaken China’s economy and brought the U.S. steel industry roaring back, mostly by imposing tariffs on various foreign imports. The goal of the Koch network’s campaign was to champion free trade at all costs by claiming tariffs are increasing prices on...

The pro-mass immigration Koch brothers’ network of billionaire, donor-class organizations is readying to financially back Democrats, so long as they promise to support amnesty for illegal aliens and vote to advance free trade at all costs. In a memo to its staff, the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (AFP) organization announced that the economic libertarian group is set to back any elected official in Washington, DC, — including Democrats — who support their agenda of amnesty for illegal aliens and endless free trade, and oppose the GOP voter-preferred economic nationalist agenda of less immigration and tariffs to protect American jobs. The...

FAIRLESS HILLS, Pa. (AP) — To the Republicans in the red "Can't Afford Katie" T-shirts, it's as if Donald Trump doesn't even exist. These activists have been sprinting through Pennsylvania neighborhoods, talking to people about how bad Democrat Katie McGinty would be as a U.S. senator. Here to help save Republican Sen. Pat Toomey — and, more broadly, the party's control of the Senate — are employees and volunteers for Americans for Prosperity, the best-known group financed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch.

<p>Last month, the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch convened their political network to discuss a path forward. Top on the list was criminal-justice reform — a passion the Kochs share with President Obama.</p> <p>The strange bedfellows, Obama and the Kochs, argue that crime can be tackled even as punishments are reduced, but they are running headlong into Donald Trump’s counternarrative that crime is on the rise and “law and order” must be restored.</p>

Dear Reader (including those of you born in Canada), I guess we should start there. I find this birther stuff to be a lot like women's prison movies: compelling, entertaining, and totally ridiculous. Other than the presidency, there's no place in American life where the distinction between "naturalized" and "natural-born" citizenship matters. But imagine if it did? Imagine that your American-born mother just happened to give birth to you in Canada or Belize while on vacation. Your American-born mom and dad bring you home days later and raise you exactly as they would have had they been in Cleveland the...

After investing a sizable fortune into building a political machine that now rivals the size and budgets of both major political parties, the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch are seeing some of their top operatives take jobs with the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. The fact that many of Trump’s political positions are at odds with those of the Koch brothers does not seem to be a factor. Take Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, who spent many years of his career working for the Koch political network, first as an assistant at the Koch-led group Citizens for a...

While thousands streamed into a football stadium Friday evening in Mobile, Alabama to see Donald Trump, a much smaller crowd of committed conservatives unwound at a bar and mused over the good, the bad and the unknown of the unlikely Republican presidential front-runner. They were volunteers and staff for Americans for Prosperity, a non-profit group funded by industrialist billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, two of the most effective conservative activists in U.S. politics. According to AFP, 3,600 people came to this year's annual Defending the American Dream Summit from around the country Friday and Saturday, taking in appearances by...

COLUMBUS, OHIO — Texas’ Sen. Ted Cruz was the hands-down favorite of the Americans for Prosperity annual summit in Columbus, Ohio, this weekend, if the number and volume of ovations during the speeches of five presidential candidates who addressed the annual convention of tea party activists was the measure. The reception to former Gov. Rick Perry’s energetic appearance at the event was somewhat muted by the fact that he was its very last speaker. At the other end of the spectrum was former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a newcomer to events financed by conservative industrialists Charles and David Koch. Bush...

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Casting himself as a tax-cutting, passionate government reformer, Jeb Bush drew merely polite applause Friday from thousands of the nation's most-active tea party conservatives gathered at the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers' summit. Only when the Republican presidential candidate wrapped up his 20-minute speech by calling for a military buildup did the more than 3,000 conservatives from around the nation join in a sustained cheer for Bush, a familiar face in American politics but a newcomer in front of the tea party crowd. "I promise you, if I'm elected president of the United States, I will restore the...

Link only, due to copyright issues: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-08-03/ted-cruz-jeb-bush-shine-at-koch-brothers-event

DANA POINT, Calif. — Ted Cruz made the case Sunday that he can win the Republican nomination because of his strength in the South. The Texas senator was a crowd favorite at the Koch network donor summit here. He got the normally mild-mannered donors laughing and cheering with his red meat. But many worry privately whether he can win, and they’re desperate to take back the White House in 2016. Recognizing this, Cruz did more to stress his viability than any of the four other 2016 presidential candidates who got a chance to pitch the 450 mega donors who have...

Opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline are stoking fear about the project by connecting it to two of the biggest bogeymen in politics: Charles and David Koch. The claim goes that the Koch brothers stand to make $100 billion if the pipeline gets built. The figure, which would effectively double the Kochs’ net worth, has bounced around liberal news organizations and was repeated this month by progressive radio talk show and TV host Thom Hartmann on his RT show. Take it with a block of salt, a PunditFact analysis finds.

This yearÂ’s midterm elections produced a number of winners and losers. Among the losers we can count the likes of Hillary Clinton, Tom Steyer, Sandra Fluke, Wendy Davis, Ron Paul, Barack Obama (obviously), Harry Reid, and other enemies of freedom. Winners include: America, Mitch McConnell, moral progress, and, above all, the Koch brothers.The Republican wave was a crucial step on the road to Kochtopia, which would be like heaven on earth for pot smokers, gay marriage advocates, bald eagles enthusiasts, art lovers, people who like hospitals and equality in education, and those who love America.Democrats tried to run against the...

News that the billionaire Koch brothers have donated $25 million to the United Negro College Fund spurred Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev) to demand an investigation. "In the midst of a raft of phony scandals the GOP has been trying to cook up on the IRS, Benghazi, and now the terrorists traded for a POW, we see that the two most dangerous men in America are extending their tentacles into yet another sector of society," Reid complained. "I, for one, find this latest development frightening. What sinister plan are they trying to implement?" Reid contrasted "the very live threat represented by...

Repeated rants against the Koch brothers appear to be insufficient to calm Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev). “What's needed,” says Reid, “is a Constitutional Amendment aimed specifically at stopping them.” “These two men are an existential threat to America,” Reid argued. “They are, perhaps, the single biggest factor behind global warming. We cannot afford to treat them like ordinary citizens. Extraordinary measures must be taken to stave off their attacks on our Government.” The “attacks” Reid wants to stave off are studies that contradict Administration policies and candidates that vie to unseat Democratic officeholders—both funded by donations from the...

Let’s do a thought experiment. If Charles or David Koch got invited onto NBC’s Today show to talk about their efforts to advance their political agenda, would either or both get partnered with Savannah Guthrie for a softball interview? Would their interview include suggestions that one of them should run for President? Kyle Drennen at Newsbusters notes that two weeks prior to Michael Bloomberg’s appearance on Today, the network took a much different approach to money in politics: (VIDEO-AT-LINK)The clip just provides the highlights. Newsbusters has the whole transcript up, but let me just note the tough questions asked by...

Democrats have conducted a full-court press in North Carolina, not against Republicans or a GOP candidate, but against two libertarian billionaire brothers. Just as Harry Reid demonized David and Charles Koch on the Senate floor and the Democratic Party got four Pinocchios for its own attack two weeks ago, the party started flooding some battleground states with fundraising pitches and attack ads going after the Koch brothers for their free-market activism. National Journal looks at a non-partisan poll and calls the strategy a flop — at least for now: After absorbing millions of dollars in outside spending from groups connected...

Beleaguered, adrift, defensive, angry, eager to escape from attacks on Obamacare, President Obama and his allies have a secret weapon with which to rally their base. This voice-activated device is incredibly easy to use. One need only utter the words “Koch brothers,” and the financial apparatus of the Democratic Party begins to whir. Connecting the billionaires of the Democracy Alliance to the labor, green, and race groups of the Democracy Initiative, linking the trial lawyers and Hollywood producers to the DNC and campaign committees, tying in the bumper-sticker activists to Ready for Hillary, the Democratic money machine generates a lot...

One tactic liberals love to use in dealing with conservative or libertarian ideas is not to respond to an argument, but to say that you are advocating a position solely because you’d been paid off by some insidious entity. Offer some skeptical views about the notion that the world will inevitably be ruined by climate change, and well, obviously you’re the tool of energy companies, aren’t you? George Zornick makes this claim in a blog entry for the Washington Post.... ... According to Zornick, “climate-denial (sic) money has largely been driven underground to dark-money sources.” How does Zornick know this?...

The Koch brothers have become the nation’s leading cheerleaders for free markets where consumers, employees, entrepreneurs and investors are free to pursue their own selfish interests without interference from government or unions or anyone else for that matter. Now comes word that the billionaire brothers want to buy up Los Angeles Times, one of the nation’s last remaining quality newspapers, or its parent, the Tribune Co., which has only recently emerged from bankruptcy reorganization following the disastrous takeover by real estate mogul Sam Zell. All this has come to a head because the bottom-fishing hedge funds that grabbed control of...