(Formerly) Anonymous Koch Brothers Political Donors Outed

Last week the Koch Brothers held their twice-a-year meeting with their fellow rightwing movers and shakers.  Corporations and wealthy individuals who contribute to the Koch Brothers' various front groups are guaranteed to be kept anonymous.  They can make huge donations to Americans For Prosperity, Freedom Partners and other Kochtopus tentacles, and still keep hiding and cowering under their rocks so nobody knows who they are.

But at last week's meeting, one of the attendees left behind a sensitive document that listed some of the largest donors to the Kochtopus.  The document promptly found its way to Mother Jones, which is why these anonymous donors' identities have gone viral.

Without further ado, here are some of the corporations and individual billionaires who have been secretly trying to derail our democracy:

Papa John's Pizza;

TRT Holdings, owner of Omni Hotels and Gold's Gym;

Carl Berg, Silicon Valley real estate billionaire;

Ken Griffin, founder of Citadel hedge fund, ranks #103 on the Forbes 400;

Klipsch Group, headphone and speaker company;

John W. Childs, private equity investor;

Mountaire Corporation, huge agribusiness firm;

Charles Chandler, CEO of Intrust Bank;

Lone Star Steakhouse and Saloon restaurant chain;

And on and on...

The complete list is shown at the linked article.

George Soros vs. The Koch Brothers

According to the Right, every liberal organization is funded and directed by George Soros. And liberals think conservatives are nothing more than the Koch Brothers’ useful idiots.

In case it’s actually true that every political battle in America is just a proxy war between the Koch Brothers and George Soros: This chart gives a brief comparison between George Soros and the Koch Brothers.

Just a few highlights:

When George Soros was fourteen, his family was forced to flee their native Hungary when the Nazis invaded. The family had already changed their name from Schwartz to Soros, but it still wasn’t safe to be there.

Charles and David Koch were born into one of the wealthiest families in the Universe. When they were eighteen and twenty-three, respectively, their father — Fred Koch — co-founded the John Birch Society in order to purify America and protect her from such Communist filth as Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman.

When George Soros was seventeen, he moved to London. He worked as a waiter and a porter to pay for his college education. At twenty-six, he moved to New York and became a financial analyst on Wall Street. He started his own investment fund when he was thirty.

In 1967 the Koch Brothers inherited $300 million from their father. Some of their inheritance went toward creating a fake “environmental” organization — Citizens for the Environment — whose sole purpose was to convince everyone that acid rain was a myth. They’ve also donated $48 million to various “climate change is a myth” organizations. In 2004 they founded Americans For Prosperity and FreedomWorks which, as you know, begat the teabaggers.

In 1979, George Soros set up scholarships for black students in South Africa. During the 1980s he donated hundreds of millions of dollars to help peaceful democracy movements in Eastern Europe. In 1992 he donated $50 million to help protect civilians who were caught up in the Bosnian war. In 1996 he donated another $50 million to fight poverty in Africa.

Well, there you have it, just a few contrasts between George Soros and the Koch Brothers. Hope you’ll keep that chart as a reference.

So, in the event that we really are just a bunch of drones being manipulated by either the Koch Brothers or George Soros — whose “useful idiot” would YOU rather be?

“Take the Unions Out at the Knees”

Here it is, straight from the Koch Whore’s mouth.

To anyone who still thinks Operation: Destroy Unions has anything whatsoever to do with budget deficits — the Tooth Fairy called.

Check out this speech by Scott Hagerstrom, Michigan’s Useful Idiot for Americans For Prosperity. He was preaching to the choir at the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual circle jerk.

(Hat Tip to TomCat at Politics Plus, where I first saw this story.)

Scott Hagerstrom probably didn’t think this speech would get out beyond his small plutocrats-and-their-inbred-worshipers audience:

“It’s easy to go out there and fight taxes and increased regulation, you know we send out an action alert on taxes to AFP and we get thousands of people to respond. You send out one on a more complicated issue and it just doesn’t quite resonate…We fight these battles on taxes and regulation but really what we would like to see is to take the unions out at the knees so they don’t have the resources to fight these battles.”

There it is in black and white. Plain as the nose on your face.

Any questions?

Tim Phillips: Portrait of a Parasite

If a bucket of excrement could somehow be imbued with consciousness and an evil intelligence, you’d have Tim Phillips.

Karl Rove and the late unlamented Lee Willie Horton Atwater have been household names for years. But Tim Phillips has managed to stay beneath the radar, as well as beneath contempt. FreedomWorks is the best known of the “grass roots” front organizations for the Health Insurance lobby. But Americans For Prosperity (AFP), led by Tim Phillips, is just as busy behind the scenes. And they’re every bit as slippery and underhanded.

HMO employees and lobbyists disguised as protesters, inbred dunces who are gullible enough to believe all the bullshit spewed out by the HMO lobby — Americans For Prosperity has it all. In addition to fighting health care reform, Americans For Prosperity has other Astroturf front groups “protesting” against labor unions and clean energy legislation.

In the late 1990s, Tim Phillips and Ralph Reed were working together to unify devout Christians and corporate powerbrokers against their common enemy: those wicked Satanic bureaucrats who were regulating the energy industry. Their organization was called Century Strategies. Their “grass roots” campaign was what led to the deregulation frenzy that brought us the Enron meltdown — which caused thousands of people to lose their jobs, retirement pensions and life savings. Hallelujah!

Remember now, they were just following the Bible. Who could forget that stirring passage where Jesus said: “Get those fuckin’ socialist bureaucrats out of the oil industry! NOW, Asshole!”

After wreaking havoc on millions of people, Phillips sunk even lower. In the history of political attack ads, one particular commercial set the all-time record for its long reach into the depths of putrid. Yes, you know the one — that 2002 TV ad that equated Senator Max Cleland (Vietnam veteran and triple amputee) with Osama bin Laden. And that ad was produced by none other than…drum roll…Tim Phillips.

Rachel Maddow interviewed Phillips on her show and called him a parasite. That’s putting it mildly.

“Spontaneous” Demonstrations: The Attack of the Rent-A-Drones

During the next few weeks, hundreds of spontaneous rallies and demonstrations will be breaking out all over America. Millions of hardworking everyday Americans are perfectly happy with their health insurance carrier. And they’re just boiling mad that Obama wants to come barging in and ruin this beautiful relationship.

They’re in such an uncontrollable rage, they’ll be demonstrating and calling names and shouting out threats and insults when Democratic congressmen are home for the August recess. Again now, these protests will all be spontaneous — the heartfelt outpourings of these people’s love for private insurance companies and their hatred of government bureaucrats.

Ready now, on the count of three — Be Spontaneous.

A few shadowy propaganda organizations have been orchestrating anti-reform demonstrations all over the country. They’re targeting Democratic congressmen when they appear at local town hall meetings. These puppets are instructed to be as loud and aggressive as possible. The sole purpose of these protests is to “rattle” and “shake up” the speaker and drown out the proceedings. Constructive dialogue and debate are NOT part of the plan.

Most of the town hall protests that I wrote about in my previous post were organized by these same slippery Astroturf groups. I still think — as I was saying in that post — that our representatives need to get out there and attend these meetings, whatever happens. If they can’t stand to get yelled at and have signs waved at them, they’re in the wrong line of work.

These phony “grassroots” organizations include FreedomWorks and Americans For Prosperity. Another corporate front group — Patients United — is busing people all over the country for the sole purpose of protesting and rallying against Democratic congressmen.

Here’s part of a leaked memo from FreedomWorks, giving instructions to their mules:


“— Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.

— Be Disruptive Early And Often: You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.

— Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”


There you have it. Be on the lookout for gangs of simple-minded mouthbreathing drones carrying out their marching orders. Coming soon to a town near you.