Forum Post: I hope everyone already knows the walker - koch connection

Bil­lion­aire cam­paign donor David Koch, heir to a for­tune and a po­lit­i­cal legacy cre­ated by one of the dri­ving forces be­hind the John Birch So­ci­ety, makes no se­cret of his en­thu­si­asm for Wis­con­sin Gov­er­nor Scott Walker.

“What Scott Walker is doing with the pub­lic unions in Wis­con­sin is crit­i­cally im­por­tant. He’s an im­pres­sive guy and he’s very coura­geous,” Koch ex­plained in a re­cent con­ver­sa­tion re­ported by the Palm Beach Post. “If the unions win the re­call, there will be no stop­ping union power.”

That’s no sur­prise. What is sur­pris­ing is that Koch is now ap­pears to be brag­ging about how he and his brother Charles are using their vast for­tune to fund an in­de­pen­dent cam­paign aimed at “help­ing” Walker. Even in an era when bil­lion­aires such as the Kochs are emerg­ing as key fi­nanciers of Super PACS and other cam­paign­ing ve­hi­cles Koch’s ad­mis­sion will raise eye­brows—and ques­tions about whether in­ap­pro­pri­ate co­or­di­na­tion of by a can­di­date, his cam­paign and a sup­pos­edly in­de­pen­dent group might be the stuff of “scan­dal.”

Like their fa­ther be­fore them, David Koch and his brother Charles are long­time cham­pi­ons of ex­treme right-wing causes. And Walker’s mil­i­tant anti-la­bor poli­cies cou­pled with a will­ing­ness to cut fund­ing for pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion and pub­lic ser­vices have made him a hero of con­ser­v­a­tive hard­lin­ers like the Kochs. At the same time, Walker’s ex­trem­ism has in­spired a move­ment to re­call him from of­fice, which re­cently filed pe­ti­tions with more than 1 mil­lion sig­na­tures call­ing for an elec­tion to re­move the gov­er­nor.

The gov­er­nor has al­ready spent a for­tune try­ing to block the re­call drive, with mil­lions of dol­lars in tele­vi­sion ad­ver­tis­ing, as well as ex­pen­sive legal ef­forts to block a new vote. Both have been strik­ingly un­suc­cess­ful so far; at least in part be­cause Wis­con­sin has steadily lost jobs since Walker’s bud­get was en­acted—a dis­mal record that has caused a loss of con­fi­dence in the gov­er­nor and his agenda.

Even as Walker strug­gles to ex­plain why Wis­con­sin is shed­ding jobs while the rest of the coun­try is gain­ing them, con­ser­v­a­tive groups funded by Charles and David Koch, such as Amer­i­cans for Pros­per­ity, are fill­ing the state’s tele­vi­sion air­waves with ads that claim Walker’s poli­cies are “work­ing.” Ac­cord­ing to Reuters, “a $700,000 ad­ver­tis­ing cam­paign spon­sored by Amer­i­cans for Pros­per­ity (AFP), a foun­da­tion funded by con­ser­v­a­tive bil­lion­aire broth­ers Charles and David Koch of oil and gas con­glom­er­ate Koch In­dus­tries, hit the Wis­con­sin air­waves, the lat­est phase of its ‘Stand with Walker’ cam­paign.”

These ads are sup­pos­edly in­de­pen­dent ex­pen­di­tures by a not-for-profit or­ga­ni­za­tion that op­er­ates under tax rules es­tab­lished to ben­e­fit the work of “Re­li­gious, Ed­u­ca­tional, Char­i­ta­ble, Sci­en­tific, Lit­er­ary, Test­ing for Pub­lic Safety, to Fos­ter Na­tional or In­ter­na­tional Am­a­teur Sports Com­pe­ti­tion, or Pre­ven­tion of Cru­elty to Chil­dren or An­i­mals Or­ga­ni­za­tions.”

• from Nation of Change