Free Republic

Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is warning Americans that two ultra-conservative billionaire brothers will soon hold more political power than both the Democratic and Republican Parties. While speaking to a group of supporters in Iowa last week, Sanders explained why he was considering a run for the president of the United States in 2016. "It is likely in a very short period of time that the Koch brothers themselves will have a stronger political presence than either the Democratic or the Republican Party," the lawmaker noted. "I am prepared to take on the billionaire class."Sanders said that a lot...

A federal court on Tuesday blocked efforts by officials in California to force a conservative group to hand over the names of its donors, saying the order could violate those donors’ First Amendment rights. Kamala Harris, California’s attorney general and a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, demanded last year that the Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF) turn over its donor rolls. The court enjoined that demand pending the outcome of AFPF’s suit attempting to invalidate the order. AFPF claims that the disclosure would subject its donors to “grotesque threats” similar to the routine attacks against Charles and David Koch,...

War makes strange bedfellows. Over the past decade, the Koch Brothers have become a major political force, funneling money from their family company into organizations that support conservative politicians and causes--including the denial of climate change. So Charles and David Koch wouldn't seem like enthusiastic supporters of electric-car maker Tesla Motors. Yet the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity is one of 10 signatories on a letter sent to U.S. governors and legislators urging them to support Tesla's direct-sales business model.

In Rebuke of Tennessee Governor, Koch Group Shows Its Power "In December, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, got the deal he wanted from the Obama administration: Tennessee would accept more than $1 billion in federal funding to expand Medicaid, as allowed for in the Affordable Care Act, but Obama aides would allow Haslam to essentially write staunchly conservative ideas into the program's rules for the state. He dubbed the reformed Medicaid program "Insure Tennessee." But the state's chapter of Americans for Prosperity, the national conservative group whose foundation is chaired by controversial billionaire David Koch, argued Haslam was just...

LOS ANGELES — Backstage on Friday night at CBS Studio Center, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro was about 30 minutes from appearing live on the edgy HBO comedy show “Real Time with Bill Maher.” He was cramming for his spot on the show’s panel, reviewing topics with Scott Carter, the show’s executive producer. Castro should expect to talk about the Koch brothers, Mitt Romney, Saudi Arabia. Carter peppered the congressman with questions. Castro, 40, offered one-sentence answers. “Do not feel like you have to be concise for us,” Carter said. “If anything, be expansive.” Another topic Maher might cover: The Iowa...

If you want to understand America's painful lurch toward plutocracy, look no further than these mega-millionaires. It is time to stop talking about the Koch brothers and instead talk about the Koch Party, the nation’s third largest political network that is a full-blown but private political operation. The Koch Party has come into view in 2014, as some of the country’s best investigative reporters have traced and exposed various elements of their operation. The Koch Party is not as large as the Democrats or the Republicans, but is still unprecedented in size, scope and reach. Like other political parties, it...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, whose speech to activists in Iowa last weekend drew strong reviews, has taken the first formal step toward a presidential candidacy in 2016, establishing a committee that will help spread his message and underwrite his activities as he seeks to build his political and fundraising networks in the months ahead. Walker filed papers to set up the committee, called "Our American Revival," and a new Web site for the organization was scheduled to go live later Tuesday. The steps come after a busy weekend of pre-presidential events that included his address at the Iowa Freedom Summit,...

Four leading Republican presidential prospects are expected to appear this weekend in the California desert before an exclusive gathering of rich conservatives convened by the Koch brothers’ political operation, several sources tell POLITICO. Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida, and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, received coveted invitations to speak to the vaunted network assembled by the billionaire industrialist mega-donors Charles and David Koch, the sources said. The meeting, set to be held at a Palm Springs hotel, is the annual winter gathering of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the nonprofit group...

On a warm fall day in South Dallas, ten revolutionaries dressed in kaffiyehs and ski masks jog the perimeter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park bellowing "No more pigs in our community!" Military discipline is in full effect as the joggers respond to two former Army Rangers in desert-camo brimmed hats with cries of "Sir, yes, sir!" The Huey P. Newton Gun Club is holding its regular Saturday fitness-training and self-defense class. Men in Che fatigues run with weight bags and roll around on the grass, knife-fighting one another with dull machetes. "I used to salute the [expletive] flag!"...

At first glance, Gov. Scott Walker’s re-election last month looks like a carbon copy of his victory four years earlier. He won the same kinds of voters. He won the same parts of the state. And he won with virtually the same share of the vote: 52.25% in 2010 and 52.26% in 2014. But on closer inspection, there is an important difference: Wisconsin is even more polarized today than it was four years ago. Based on almost everything we know about the Nov. 4 election, the state’s fault lines are deeper and more sharply defined, its voters are more divided...

Other than the Koch brothers, there is arguably no one outgoing-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid disdains more than the Tea Party. And no one represents the Tea Party in the Senate more than Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Yet, after hours of tedious wrangling, Reid on Friday agreed to allow a vote on a measure from Cruz questioning the constitutionality of President Obama’s executive order on Deferred Action, which does, in effect, grant de facto amnesty to upwards of 5 million illegal aliens. Cruz told Breitbart News that a Senate vote on Obama’s executive action was important for two reasons: “First,...

Conservative think tank Americans for Prosperity (AFP), co-founded by principals of Koch Industries, sued in federal court to prevent ultra-liberal California Attorney General Kamala Harris from using her office to disclose the names and addresses of their 90,000 donors. Harris may have a problem with AFP being a major force behind the Tea Party movement and its support of free markets, entrepreneurship, lower taxes, and limited government spending and regulation. As a federally registered 501(c)(4), not-for-profit educational organization, Americans for Prosperity is allowed under federal law to raise and spend money educating the public regarding issues associated with political campaigns...

Reclusive billionaire David Koch, a powerful donor in American conservative politics, says he’s a “social liberal.” “I’m basically a libertarian, and I’m a conservative on economic matters, and I’m a social liberal,” Koch told ABC News’ Barbara Walters.... Koch, who supports abortion rights and gay marriage, said he isn’t concerned with candidates he supports who don’t share some of his views. He said his primary concern when choosing a candidate to support is their fiscal policies.

In what is likely a sign of things to come in 2016, the conservative Koch brothers-backed group Americans For Prosperity released an ad on Wednesday seeking to tie Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) to controversial ObamaCare adviser Jonathan Gruber. Gruber made headlines earlier this year for saying it was the “stupidity of the American voter” that helped the Obama administration pass the Affordable Care Act. The ad says Landrieu repeated President Obama’s ObamaCare “Lie of the Year” that if you liked your healthcare plan you could keep it, before launching into the Gruber attack. “An ObamaCare architect bragged about deceiving Americans...

Treasury Department investigators completed but never released a 2011 law enforcement probe of White House economic advisor Austan Goolsbee, The Washington Examiner has learned. The investigation by the Treasury Department Inspector-General for Tax Administration was sparked by Goolsbee's remarks during an Aug. 27, 2010, White House news briefing in which he appeared to possess confidential tax information on Koch Industries, the private conglomerate controlled by the Koch brothers, Charles and David. "So in this country we have partnerships, we have S corps, we have LLCs, we have a series of entities that do not pay corporate income tax. Some of...

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.

Democrats are so desperate to hold on to the Senate, they're willing to repeal the First Amendment to do it. HotAir's Noah Rothman reports for the November issue of Townhall Magazine. Well before the pundit class accepted that November 4 was fated to be a good night for Republicans, Democrats saw a disaster looming. The president’s party tried just about every trick in the book to get the average grassroots liberal voter enthused about casting a vote for the in-party, often in ways that exposed revealing and unattractive characteristics about the liberal coalition. In the effort to combat apathy among Democratic base voters,...

It is a fairly safe bet that next to the Koch brothers, Heritage Foundation, Senate Conservative Fund, and the Club for Growth, no-one in Washington was as excited with the results of the midterm elections as corrupt Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell. It is also likely that McConnell has yearned to be Majority Leader throughout his political career, and although he may end up winning that coveted title, he will be Majority Leader in name only because pure conservatives at Heritage Action, Club for Growth, and the Senate Conservative Fund already have anointed Texas Ted Cruz as de facto leader of...

Democrats are doubling down on their attacks against the Koch brothers. Prompted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrats spent millions of dollars spotlighting Republican ties to the billionaire conservative megadonors Charles and David Koch. But despite Republicans — and some Democrats — publicly decrying the strategy after Tuesday’s GOP wave as an ineffective waste of money, Reid told allies on election night that he planned to continue hammering the brothers, according to an operative close to him. Continue Reading Text Size And big-money liberal groups ranging from the Democrats’ Senate campaign arm and House super PAC to the outfits...

1:30AM -- I think it was contemplating the fact that both Sam Brownback and Paul LePage both may have survived as governors that was the last straw for me tonight. Brownback has wrecked his state. Even Kansas Republicans believe that. LePage is a local embarrassment who became a national embarrassment in the final days before the election. Even Maine Republicans believe that. But Brownback will go back to wrecking his state, and LePage will go back to embarrassing his because of an attitude that Republicans, and the conservative movement that has powered the party, have cultivated carefully over the last...