Free Republic

Inside the Koch brothers' secret plan to absorb Trump's ogre DNA, alter reality and attack Hillary from the left. Before the final commercial break of Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate in Cleveland, Megyn Kelly teased the possible appearance of God in the next segment, giving us that quizzical sidelong glance that has made her America’s free-thinking right-wing sweetheart. (I am well aware that’s a sexist response. Of course it’s a sexist response. The primary function of the Megyn Kelly persona is to provoke a sexist response.) To my knowledge, the Almighty did not show up in Quicken Loans Arena. If...

<p>The Koch brothers’ political machine is expanding into new states and recruiting new donors as it seeks to shape the Republican Party — and its presidential field — headed into 2016, according to interviews with multiple sources, as well as confidential donor briefing documents obtained by POLITICO. The documents detail plans to beef up the network’s state-of-the-art data system, and pay hundreds of staff embedded in local communities across the country in preparation for get-out-the-vote efforts that are unprecedented from a third-party group.</p>

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker won a surprising nod in an informal straw poll of major conservative donors gathered by the Koch brothers’ operation last weekend in Orange County, Calif., according to sources familiar with the gathering. In a closed-door session that included about 100 donors, Republican pollster Frank Luntz asked donors to clap to indicate their choice for the Republican Party’s nomination. While Luntz did not formally track or announce the results, sources say it was clear that Walker got the most applause, followed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who received roughly the same...

Jeb Bush, now the undisputed king of fundraisers in both parties, came prepared on Sunday to address head-on the immigration issue, one of his biggest vulnerabilities with Republican core voters. He told an audience of major donors that the longest-running, unaddressed problem the U.S. faces has been legal “chain” immigration. Mr. Bush said it allows relatives beyond the immediate family to migrate to the U.S. legally. He said that the unending influx crowds out “economically driven immigrants” — that is, people who come to the U.S. to find jobs and education that will allow them to better themselves. He said...

Can Donald Trump merely be an undisciplined bomb thrower driven by a massive ego? Or is there more going on with Trump than most of us would suspect? Is he so ego-driven that he would abandon his prior liberal positions on social issues and link arms with those on the far right? Trump is not an idiot. He knows he can't win with his self-destructive performance. I think what he's doing is preparing a pathway for the person he wants to win, Ted Cruz. It's a brilliant plan really. Trump's attacks bring down the moderate opposition for the Republican nomination...

As we all remember, the media completely freaked out after the Supreme Court decided Citizens United in favor of free speech. Taking aim primarily at the right-leaning Koch Brothers, the media posed as defenders of democracy against the corrupting influence of outside money in politics. As usual, the facts prove that the media are big fat liars. Although legions of left-wing corporations like NBC News, Politico, MSNBC, CNN, CBS News, ABC News, The Washington Post, LA Times, NPR, PBS, Univision, Comedy Central, MTV, HBO, and ESPN spend billions of dollars pushing a political agenda 24/7, the left-wing media want a...

Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the funding arm of the political network backed by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, wants a lot more hard information from the crowded field of presidential contenders before deciding what to do with its considerable resources. The group is pressing every 2016 candidate to detail on the record their plans for economic growth, deficit reduction, entitlement reform, criminal justice and even foreign policy. The tax-exempt entity, a key node in a constellation of conservative entities that aims to spend $889 million before the next White House election, distributed a detailed survey Thursday to...

How can Judd Apatow, once ranked the smartest guy in Hollywood be so . . . ? On today's With All Due Respect, big comedy macher [credits include Lena Dunham's Girls] Apatow said it was "ridiculous that anyone thinks that rich people care about other people. When the Koch brothers give a billion dollars, it is not out of a great concern for the masses." To his credit, Mark Halperin twice pressed Apatow as to whether his notion that rich donors don't care about other people also applies to rich Hollywood liberals. Apatow eventually asserted that there's a difference: "Hollywood...

In late April, some 700 conservative luminaries, including presidential contenders, donors, fundraisers and former President George W. Bush, gathered at the Venetian casino and resort in Las Vegas for the Republican Jewish Coalition’s spring meeting, where Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul and GOP megadonor, was holding court. Among the assembled allies, well-wishers and supplicants who put in appearances was Tim Phillips, the head of Americans for Prosperity, the political centerpiece of the sprawling fundraising and advocacy network spearheaded by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. It was the second consecutive year, according to an RJC donor, that Phillips...

Democrats are hypocrites when it comes to decrying big money in politics. They demonize the Koch brothers but remain silent when it comes to the massive spending by labor unions. And the biggest hypocrite of them all is President Obama, who railed against the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision while raising a billion dollars for his re-election in 2012. The majority of that money came from Democratic whales who apparently didn't hear the president when he was lecturing America about the evil influence of billionaires on politics.

Popular Sen. Elizabeth Warren, still being urged to run for president, is calling Republican White House hopefuls Sen. Ted Cruz and front-runner Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker "scary," two potential presidents that could undo a decade of Democratic policies. "Just the thought of a possible President Ted Cruz or President Scott Walker is scary," she warned in an email to supporters. "But here's something even scarier: A President Ted Cruz or President Scott Walker with a Republican-controlled Senate – confirming extremist judges, repealing health care and financial reform, and rigging the system even further for the rich and the powerful," she...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. economy went into reverse in the first three months of this year as a severe winter and a widening trade deficit took a harsher toll than initially estimated. The Commerce Department says the overall economy as measured by the gross domestic product contracted at an annual rate of 0.7 percent in the January-March period. The revised figure, even weaker than the government's initial estimate of a 0.2 percent growth rate, reflects a bigger trade gap and slower consumer spending. It marked the first decline since a 2.1 percent contraction in the first three months of...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-24/koch-brothers-plan-to-fund-several-gop-2016-presidential-hopefuls?cmpid=yhoo

At a craft brewery in Hampton, New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton called out her Republican presidential opponents for sacrificing American jobs to appease the billionaire Koch Brothers and talk radio Tea Party extremists. In particular, Clinton criticized Republicans who want to dismantle the Export-Import Bank, which supplies loans and provides insurance to facilitate the sale of U.S. exports to international buyers. A number of Republican presidential contenders have gone on record in favor of killing the Export-Import Bank, a move that could potentially eliminate a significant number of American jobs in the process. Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Texas Senator Ted...

The billionaire Koch brothers' plans for 2016 have dominated political headlines this week. On Monday afternoon, it looked like the brothers were endorsing Scott Walker. By Monday evening, David Koch had declared his neutrality. Twenty-four hours later, Charles Koch explained there were five GOP contenders in the mix for the brothers' backing. And on Wednesday, Politico's Ken Vogel obtained a memo outlining the brothers' spending plans for 2016. What's the upshot of all this? Overall, it's clear that the Kochs are being bolder than ever in their attempts to mold the political process to their will. They're trying to raise...

First he had the Koch endorsement. Then he didn't. Why? A Glenn Beck interview where Walker moved wackier than Cruz. According to a number of well-respected journalists, the Koch brothers are putting their heft and muscle behind Scott Walker for president. Or maybe not. It depends on whom you ask. First, let’s acknowledge once again that the Great Whitebread Hope from Wisconsin seems to have everyone in the political establishment mesmerized by his alleged strategic and tactical brilliance. Sure, he makes epic gaffes over and over again, but that cannot take anything away from the fact that he barely won...

On Monday, The New York Times — and, in turn, Mediaite — reported that billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch had settled on Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) as their preferred Republican candidate to back in the 2016 presidential election. “We will support whoever the candidate is,” David Koch reportedly said at a fundraising event. “But it should be Scott Walker.” Now, however, in an interview with USA Today, Charles Koch has said that their field of potential endorsees is larger than just one. He confirmed that they are actually looking at five candidates who they believe have “a good chance...

Two of the most prominent and influential megadonors in the Republican Party reportedly have picked their man in the 2016 presidential race: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R). According to The New York Times, David Koch told a Monday gathering of GOP donors that he and his fellow billionaire brother, Charles Koch, want Walker in the White House. "We will support whoever the candidate is," Koch said at the Manhattan event, according to Times reporter Nick Confessore's sources. "But it should be Scott Walker." The Koch brothers are two of the most free-spending donors in American politics, and they have a...

Charles G. and David H. Koch, the influential and big-spending conservative donors, have a favorite in the race for the Republican nomination: Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. On Monday, at a fund-raising event in Manhattan for the New York State Republican Party, David Koch told donors that he and his brother, who oversee one of the biggest private political organizations in the country, believed that Mr. Walker was the Republican Party’s best hope for recapturing the White House. “We will support whoever the candidate is,” said Mr. Koch, according to two people who attended the event. “But it should be...

DALLAS (AP) — The deaths of three people who developed a foodborne illness linked to some Blue Bell ice cream products has prompted the Texas icon’s first product recall in its 108-year history. Five people, in all, developed listeriosis in Kansas after eating products from one production line at the Blue Bell creamery in Brenham, Texas, according to a statement Friday from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.