Koch Brothers // Current TV

New App Lets You Boycott Koch Brothers, Monsanto And More By Scanning Your Shopping Cart

In her keynote speech at last year’s annual Netroots Nation gathering, Darcy... more

AJILIVIZION
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Ed Beat: Koch-snorters; Adept Adaptation; In Plain SIght; Boooooo!; Drought

“Bill Gates is wrong. American education is not “broken.”Federal... more

joeeddy
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A Cinderella Story? How the Koch Brothers Use Florida Gulf Coast University to Promote Their Agenda

A Cinderella Story? How the Koch Brothers Use Florida Gulf Coast University to Promote Their Agenda
Zack Beauchamp
Think Progress / News Report
Published: Friday 29 March 2013
As of February 2013, 129 colleges and universities around the country were receiving Koch Family Foundations support.

It’s a great story: the virtually unknown, 15th seeded Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU), has made it to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament. But there’s something you might not know about FGCU: its economics department is, as a consequence of grants from Randian businessman John Allison and the Charles G. Koch Foundation, a haven for Ayn-Rand Style thinking:

At Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, every student who majors in economics and finance gets a copy of Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged…FGCU now has a core group of a half dozen economists whose research supports the ideas of free-market capitalism, still an unpopular subject in most faculty lounges. They teach this material to more than 250 economics and finance students (one class is titled “The Moral Foundations of Capitalism”), organize lectures by leading thinkers, publish their research in well-respected journals and hold influential positions in groups that promote free markets.

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The ideological transformation of FGCU economics began in 2009, when Allison, a famous devotee of Ayn Rand’s who was then the president of banking giant BB&T, donated $600,000 to FGCU to create the endowed “BB&T Distinguished Professor of Free Enterprise.” Allison now runs the libertarian Cato Institute, a position he gained with the support of Charles and David Koch after some controversy.

The Kochs also supported Allison’s efforts at FGCU, a largely local school with about 11,000 undergradutes. A ThinkProgress review of Charles G. Koch Foundation donations from 2008-2011 found $87,000 in donations to Florida Gulf Coast University. According to an internal BB&T professorship report, the Koch money “provide[s] operational seed funding for the yearly activities and the local BB&T Charitable Foundation sponsors our premier annual event — The BB&T Free Enterprise Lecture Series.” The internal report also included metrics on the program’s operations such as “Atlas Shrugged Distribution — Number of students reached: approximately 120.”

Strange as it may seem that private ideological organizations can support academic departments, it’s not uncommon. A massive Koch donation to Florida State University’s economics program generated significant controversy in 2011 when it came to light that the donation was accompanied by de facto Koch control over some hiring decisions and the ability to review the scholarship generated. As of February 2013, 129 colleges and universities around the country were receiving Koch Family Foundations support.

Whether or not you think these sorts of donations are threats to academic freedom, they do lay bare the somewhat surprising disadvantage progressives face when it comes to getting funding for work on their intellectual traditions. In addition to the Koch direct-donations, organizations like the conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute and libertarian Institute for Humane Studies help promote their ideas on campus and connect their students with likeminded colleagues and employers. Progressives conspicuously lack any equivalent organizations that connect students with a broader intellectual network, providing a potentially interesting explanation for why conservative ideas seem to have a direct pipeline to Washington while progressive alternatives stay at the margins of the debate.A Cinderella Story? How the Koch Brothers Use Florida Gulf Coast University to Promote... more

circlesquared
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America's Longest War: The Trailer

AMERICA'S LONGEST WAR is a Reason Foundation film about the extraordinary costs... more

Radical_Centrist
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Greedy Lying Bastards: New Documentary Exposes Koch Brothers’ Corruption (VIDEO)

The film, " Greedy Lying Bastards," emphasizes the Koch brothers’... more

StewSteve
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Moment of Clarity: America’s Billionaire Psychopaths (NSFW VIDEO)

Yes, America has a psychopath problem: the Koch Brothers, Mitt Romney, Jamie Dimon,... more

StewSteve
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Why the Koch Brothers Blow

The billionaire Koch brothers and their American Energy Alliance and Americans for... more

StewSteve
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Michigan Round-Up: Snyder Signs ‘Right-to-Work’ Bills into Law (VIDEO)

The legislation, approved by both houses of the state legislature last Friday, has now... more

StewSteve
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5 months ago
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Fearless Teacher Confronts Koch’s ALEC Education Taskforce (VIDEO)

WATCH - Truly Inspiring! -- A year and a half ago, we never would have thought that... more

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The Worst Place for Koch Suckers

The fascist five activist Republican Injustices on the Supreme Court are the willing... more

TomCat1948
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Why Citizens United Must Be Overturned!

When the fascist five trashed the Constitution in an attempt to hand our electoral... more

TomCat1948
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Voter Intimidation: The Right, Big Business and their Domineering Entitlement Pathos

The Latest and Most Obscene Examples of Corporate Voter Intimidation: it’s the... more

StewSteve
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(some of) The Rich really are different. Evidently, some think employees are property and they can kidnap them

" (CN) - Billionaire William Koch imprisoned and interrogated one of his... more

attilatheblond
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Anita Hill: Still Standing Up and Speaking Out – Clarence Thomas still a Pig…

Twenty-one years after I first wrote about her in a column for the Chicago Tribune, I... more

joeeddy
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Koch Groups Kick Off Massive Voter Mobilization Effort; Summons Tea Party To Country Club, Outsourcing Center

ts "National Prosperity Action Day." Tea Partiers, Republican volunteers, and conservative activists are being summoned by Americans for Prosperity -- the group founded and financed by several large corporations, and led by the billionaire Koch brothers -- to begin mobilizing to defeat President Obama and congressional Democrats.

They're gathering in newly set up offices in critical swing states. Some of the locations have a tinge of irony for a supposedly grassroots, ordinary citizens-led organization: In Saddlebrook, Arizona, they'll be meeting in a country club; in Clearwater, Florida, the local AFP field director rented space from an outsourcing company called TAC Worldwide. But the work the AFP machine is doing is no laughing matter for liberals. The Koch network has a sophisticated targeting system; as well as an army of experienced Republican campaign hands to guide the effort. The volunteers even receive Samsung Galaxy tablets to quickly log information and move on to the next potential Romney voter.

Its the beginning of an extremely well-planned get-out-the-vote effort that duplicates what an entire national party would attempt. And its been four years in the making.

In 2009, the Koch network created a model called the Wisconsin Prosperity Project to move the state to the far right. After witnessing the Democrats' stunning 2008 ground game, the operatives in Wisconsin were determined to out-organize liberals. They hired Tea Party organizers, invested heavily in front groups (like the MacIver Center), ran constant advertising, and coordinated with employers to hold propaganda meetings with workers. Tea Party bus tours in the state, fully financed by AFP, were "designed" to help elect Republicans.

And in 2010, Wisconsin turned harder to the right than almost any other state in the nation during the midterm elections. At least from the Koch perspective, the investments worked. (The Koch theory of change was also reinforced by the savvy Scott Walker recall campaign, in which Koch operatives bused 75 canvassers to the state to out-perform the unions.)

Koch's unique, outside-the-GOP voter mobilizing system is called Themis, named after the Greek god of divine order. It carries a similar name to the Themis project by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's partners exposed for planning to hack and sabatoge liberals and some union groups, but it is not related.

Rather, Themis is a master database built with information purchased by the Koch brothers, as well as survey information gathered through its network of paid organizers. During the Republican primaries, as Mother Jones reported, AFP paid Florida residents to survey Republican activists as they voted for the various candidates. Tim Phillips, the Koch political deputy, explained Themis this way to USA Today's Fredreka Schouten: "Our geo-targeting looks at everything from voting data to Census data to consumer-purchasing information." Phillips also said, "We know their magazine subscriptions. In some cases, we know the websites they prefer to surf."

Koch is now financing over 200 organizers and paid political staff in 31 states. Its likely much of the money Koch now donates to the NRA and groups like the Faith and Freedom Coalition (run by Tim Phillip's longtime business partner, Ralph Reed), will also be spent on organizers on the ground. Using the Wisconsin model, Koch hopes to partner with local conservative groups to build a rapid mobilization system that can compete on Election Day, in every critical state.

Too much attention is given to the television ads. The Koch network, which is actively training Tea Partiers, via a partnership with True the Vote, to harass and intimidate voters, may tip the scales in this election. And you won't see their work on television, or through FEC disclosures (they refuse to register their grassroots electioneering as independent expenditures). Like Wisconsin, liberals might see the ground shifting beneath them, and wonder what happened.

http://www.civicmediacenter.org/sites/default/files/Koch%20Brothers%20Exposed.png?1341956276ts "National Prosperity Action Day." Tea Partiers, Republican volunteers,... more

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Obama's love for America Questioned; Soledad O'briens defends against Tea Party

CNN Soledad O'brien goes in on Tea Party Spokesperson for coded racism.

Hassan
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9 months ago
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Rove, Koch Brothers Call it Quits in Pennsylvania

Karl Rove’s Super PAC, Crossroads GPS, and the Koch Brother’s Americans... more

StewSteve
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9 months ago
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Exposed: Koch Brothers, Karl Rove, Tea Party ‘Coming Together’ With Anti-Gay and Sharia Law Groups

WAKE UP AMRICAN WOMEN! Here is where the attack on Women's Rights is coming from... more

LOrion
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9 months ago
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Bad Company: The Music of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan

Who woulda’ thunk it? Paul Ryan loves Rage Against the Machine. I would have... more

omnipotentpoobah
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Deadly Pollution Inflicting A Small Town.

www.indiegogo.com/crossettdocumentary Everyone that breathes in Crossett, AK is in... more

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