I'm not disputing anything here, but if Koch Industries is supporting those that "support market-based policies and solutions." It'd be fair to say that if they believed that the candidates that were Republicans did that more than the candidates that were Democrat they'd donate more to them and the statement is still truthful. The party technically wasn't a factor, but just more of one party held the view they were donating for.
It's a creative way to not claim support for one party over the other, but if one of the Democrat candidates professed really strong views that were in line with the "market-based policies and solutions" and were not given even an equal amount compared to their opponent then the whole argument is shot.
Nimnim, that is exactly the scope and purpose of KochPac. The bold above almost by word comes from it's statement of purpose. I've never suggested the democrats are getting an equal cut, fact is currently less than 2% of Koch monies go in democrat directions whereas in the late 90's and up until 2000' to 2002' about 25% Koch money went democrat. Republicans have and continue to get the lion's share of their money, that is no question at all. I will add since the Kochs are also used as strawmen to beat up on all libertarians and the Libertarian Party, not that some of that isn't deserved (the fault of "SOME" libertarians) from what I can tell from both OpenSecrets and
Followthe Money.org the Kochs don't donate a dime to purely libertarian political efforts either. Should that be considered as instructive? More on that point shortly.
At the same time, David Koch who has suffered from cancer gave $40 million to Cancer research to MIT and another $20 million to another cancer research center I can't recall by name. David also gave $100 million to the NY ballet and theater and several millions to the Museum of Natural History. As much as I'm no fan of the Kochs for other reasons, we have to look at the whole picture too.
The democrats, mostly Harry Reid, are doing to and with the Koch Bros. what the repubs did with George Soros but such political "conspiracy theories" for political gain hide far deeper issues from public discourse IMO. Using the Kochs or Soros as dummies in the dunking tank for public consumption IMO ignore vastly deeper issues but if one drills down, one finds hypocrisy on both sides. I'm betting if one drilled down into Soros money, you'd find some in republican hands too. If such be the case, voters need and should seriously question the narratives told by both sides of the political construct IMO. Thus the point of these exercises.
Going back to the original post and the links, if one would drill down to the source material, one would discover why OpenSecrets listed these "employee contributions" as Koch Industry contributions because they were done under KochPac. See more about it
here.
I had seen other claims like this before of Koch and when I saw the above (see OP link) before even posting, like RR, I felt the claim of employees donations as Koch money a bit odd. I even wondered if I happen to donate money to a political candidate would that be counted as UPS money. If so, in my mind that would heavily skew OpenSercrets data and make RR's objection (after the fact) very valid in this case.
I contacted OpenSecrets and poised my question "if I made a personal donation, being a UPS employee, would that donation count as a UPS donation? The answer was no unless I donated through a UPS PAC and only then would it count as UPS and to it's benefit. From there I asked for an explanation in how these Koch employees were thus counted. I ended up talking with Susan Alger and Masha Shapiro of OpenSecrets who explained their methods of measure and how the Koch circumstance arose.
As to the Koch employee donations, these were all done through KochPac and thus why they are counted as Koch Industry money because they are. Had they donated outside KochPac, it would have been seen as an individual donation and thus not count. This is all another reason when RR challenged the point, I stated I stood behind it because these employee donations were disbursed through KochPac. When RR and even bbsam insisted I responded to "dig deeper." Thus from my POV Kochtopus money. And in their defense (RR and bbsam), had I not spoken with Susan and Masha, I might have seen their objections as valid too.
I do think it kind of funny the anti-Koch meme from the democrats that has suddenly arisen when the radical libertarians for 3 decades were well ahead of the game. From a website devoted to exposing and debunking climate deniers,
this piece does a pretty good job of exploring the early history of the Koch Bros, libertarianism, purpose of the Cato Institute and the late Samuel E. Konkin's "Kochtopus" word origins. And to the point of Koch money and the democrats, there is
this and also
this.
When republicans ran on attacking George Soros, which didn't work, their tank was on empty not to mention loaded with hypocrisy too. And not that republicans have corrected that deficiency either. Now come the democrats with the same narrative using the Kochs and like their earlier republican counterparts, I believe they too are running on empty. Fortunately for them, the democrats have republicans as foes so it's not like we aren't shooting fish is a barrel here. Besides, IMO republicans are little more than a conspiracy to keep democrats in office so there you go!
