By Harold Pease, Ph. D.
If you are a liberal publication or news outlet, which is all the major networks excepting Fox News, you want your followers to know that the Koch brothers, Charles and David, unduly fund Republican Party candidates and causes on the right side of the political spectrum. Liberal newspapers include almost all big city newspapers and most major national news magazines. If you are a conservative outlet you fail to mention the Koch brothers and speak only of George Soros as the big funder for most liberal outlets, which includes most everything except Fox News and most of talk radio. Neither mentions the other leaving the impression that only the other is buying elections. Moreover, neither mentions the “invisible primary,” happening now, where candidates cross and crisscross America with alms bowls in hand begging the mega-rich to buy them.
First let us consider George Soros. His money, $32 billion, is targeted for influence and political power over this nation and the world—all directed to the far left side of the political spectrum and the globalization (code for world government) of the world. Prominent among his myriad of well-funded socialist organizations are: ACORN, the Tides Foundation, Sojourners, The Quantum Fund, and Media Matters. Some of these organizations operate in other countries, as for example Open Society Institute (spends 425 million a year on socialist causes) and Friends of the Earth, designed to build support for an international network of organizations dedicated to the environment. The Center for American Progress schedules their “experts” for talk show events even developing talking points for them. The Apollo Alliance played a major role in the development of the Stimulus Bill now incorporated into law. The American Constitution Society defends far-left interpretations of the Constitution. And, MoveOn.org organizes action alerts to followers via the Internet.
Likely no other one person outside David Rockefeller, also promoting the left and world government, has as many organizations as combat ready and as highly financed, as does George Soros. He hosted fundraisers for Obama and made numerous visits to the White House. There is reason to believe that Soros has influenced the president on: The Stimulus Bill, Cap and Trade, opposition to the extension of the Bush tax cuts, and banking reform. Still, the left side of the political spectrum fails to see this as a problem, equal to, or surpassing, that of the Koch brothers who they criticize for doing the same thing.
Now for the Koch brothers, Charles and David, who built Koch Industries making it the second largest privately held corporation in American. At a recent fundraising event for the Republican Party they announced their vote for Governor Scott Walker for president, essentially taking off the table perhaps the most coveted financial support source of right of center Republican candidates. Their semi-annual summits attract the candidates, who discuss policy, and like-minded donors.
“Freedom Partners is the central hub for the Koch-backed network that includes groups like the activist-recruiting Americans for Prosperity, the millennial-targeting Generation Opportunity and the Hispanic-wooing Libre Initiative. Taken together, the Koch-endorsed groups make up a political machine that raises and spends more than almost any network in politics — including the official Republican campaign committees” (“Political machine backed by Koch brothers close to $1 billion for 2016, expected to dwarf RNC,” Associated Press, Jan. 26, 2015).
Democrats accuse Koch-backed groups of airing tens of millions of dollars in negative ads against incumbent Democratic lawmakers in 2014 and of helping the Republicans win a majority in the Senate. They also accuse them of funding the Tea Party movement—a charge without solid specific documentation.
Sometimes even enemy nations vote with money for the president of the United States. In both Bill Clinton presidential elections, Communist China made substantial contributions in the case known as Chinagate. At that time contributor Johnny Chung, for example, gave $50,000 to Hillary Clinton’s top aide while seeking VIP White House treatment saying: “I see the White House as like a subway—you have to put in coins to open the gates.” (Sam Smith, The Progressive Review, February 24, 1999). Today, the Clinton Foundation solicits contributions from foreign governments, some of whom, like Communist China (from which it took $2 million in 2013), have despicable human rights records, and like Saudi Arabia, which has atrocious women’s rights abuses.
Obviously funding elections and founding organizations pushing ideology is the game of billionaires. The candidate with the most money usually wins and the rich select the winners long before the people vote. The most important part of the presidential election, selecting the actual two candidates, is happening now. Some may argue since both sides are doing the same thing that it is, in this respect, fair. But it is not fair when either side fails to mention that they are doing the same thing, projecting instead that they are not. So the question is what billionaire buys your vote for president? One problem, however, is that since the media personnel haven’t, themselves as a group, voted less than 80% for a Democrat in the White House for the last 50 years, most Americans only hear about the Koch brothers buying elections.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution.