Thread: The Koch's 'secret bank' takes another step out of the shadows

The Koch's 'secret bank' takes another step out of the shadows

For the first time, Freedom Partners puts its name on political ads

By Chris Moody, Yahoo News12 hours ago Yahoo News

View photoKoch Industries executive VP David Koch, left and Charles Koch, head of Koch Industries, right. (AP/Getty)

Eight months ago, Politico tagged a little-known trade association called Freedom Partners as “the Koch brothers’ secret bank.” The Arlington-Va.-based organization, founded in 2011, had been bankrolling a sprawling network of conservative advocacy groups with the assistance of billionaire businessmen Charles and David Koch.

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This week, as the Koch brothers remain a high-profile Democratic obsession, Freedom Partners took its biggest step forward out of the shadows, announcing the first ad buy in its three-year history to bear its own name. The $3 million Freedom Partners television ad buy will target Democrats running for reelection in five states over their support of the Affordable Care Act.

The decision to put its name on the ads represents a massive shift in Freedom Partners’ strategy, which previously saw it quietly playing Daddy Warbucks for member groups competing for grants and financing ad campaigns through more public organizations.The conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity in recent years was the Koch's go-to vessel for attack ads, dropping $122 million on spots in 2012 and shelling out another $30 million during the current midterm election cycle. But AFP has faced a media backlash to recent ads against Obamacare in which fact checkers say include dubious claims.

The Freedom Partners ads, which will run for three weeks against Sen. Mary Landeiu in Louisiana, Sen. Mark Udall in Colorado, Rep. Gary Peters in Michigan, Sen. Mark Begich in Alaska and Rep. Bruce Braley in Iowa, aim to tie Democrats who supported Obamacare to insurance companies that donate to their campaigns.

"Begich took thousands from the health insurance industry and he supported Obamacare, which gave health insurance companies billions," a female narrator says in the ad running against the Alaska Democrat. The other spots follow a similar script.

The donors who fund Freedom Partners remain secret, but the group has played a more direct role in political advocacy since last November.

During this time, Freedom Partners has undergone a period of consolidation, bringing services in-house that it had previously contracted out. In January, the polling firm Public Notice, once a Freedom Partners grant recipient, officially became part of the association’s operations. Freedom Partners has also escalated its working relationship with the data-gathering firm Themis, (publicly known as i360). And Freedom Partners launched a website that provides limited information about the group and makes public its 43-page IRS 990 tax form, which nonprofits must reveal.

All of this ads up to a major shift for the publicly taciturn trade group used to tasking other groups with actions -- with the result that it's now emerging as a standalone brand willing to put its name behind millions of dollars in ad spending.

“We’ve expanded quite a bit,” Freedom Partners spokesman James Davis told Yahoo News. “I think it’s just an evolution and growth of Freedom Partners, and we’ll continue to grow.”

Freedom Partners’ release of its first branded ads comes at a time when Democrats are leading a massive public relations effort against the Kochs, who are instrumental in facilitating the donor network that bankrolls Freedom Partners’ network of conservative groups.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has led the charge against the Kochs since February, calling them “un-American…shadowy billionaires” who “pour unlimited money into our democracy to rig the system to benefit themselves and the wealthiest one percent.” Other Democratic Party groups have followed suit with their own attacks on the billionaire brothers who run Koch Industries, the largest privately owned company in the country. The Senate Majority PAC for instance, a Democratic group with ties to Reid, is currently running its own $3 million ad campaign that targets the Kochs.

Davis told Yahoo News that Freedom Partners is planning to play more of a role in the 2014 elections after the current ad buy finishes later this month.

Pressed for specifics, he said, "TBD.”

http://news.yahoo.com/the-koch-s--se...031543616.html

They are getting right up there with these guys and of course Tom Steyer.

BILLIONAIRE POLITICAL DONORS
April 10, 2014


Below is a list of U.S. Billionaires who make political donations.

These persons are among the "largest donors" in their respectivie political party. Everyone of these persons who made donations totalling over $200,000 during the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election. Many of these persons made donations to a number of Congressional Candidates and Senatorial Candidates, as well as make numerous donations to partiy election committees. Many of these persons will make political donations totalling $300,000...$400,000....and some will even make more than $500,000 in political donations during the U.S. Presidential Election. (ForDemocrat Billionaire Donors see below).


Some political Opinion Leaders claim that this is the election that Swiss Political Parties will participate in the U.S. political arena. Several Swiss political parties have affiliate offices in the United States. The days of Global Political Parties is upon us.

DEMOCRAT BILLIONAIRE DONORS
George Soros
Charles W. Ergen
Warren Buffett $112,800
John Doerr
Ted Turner $378,725
Robert FX Sillerman
Neil G. Bluhm
Roland E. Arnall
Robert R. Dyson
Steven Spielberg $976,423
George Soros $3,524,437
Stephen L. Bing
David Koch $2,205,927
Carl H. Lindner
S. Daniel Abraham
Bernard L. Schwartz
Haim Saban
Vance K. Opperman
Dwight Opperman
David E. Shaw
Charles W. Ergen $952,150
Marc B. Nathanson
Jeffrey Katzenberg
Jonathan M. Tisch
John Davis
Leonard A. Lauder $777,284
Gary Winnick
Irwin M. Jacobs
Ron Burkle $1,656,700
John P. Manning
David Geffen $1,288,773
William I. Koch
B. Wayne Hughes Sr.
Thomas H. Lee
William Hambrecht
A. Jerrold Perenchio
Edgar M. Bronfman
Ted Waitt
John L. Tishman
Vinod Gupta
John A. Moran
Charles Kushner $1,445,700
Robert L. Johnson $825,208

This is the opposing Team in the game " Who Wants to Buy a Politician"

REPUBLICAN BILLIONAIRE DONORS

Carl H. Lindner
Hans Adam
John T. Chambers
Dennis Washington
Robert C. McNair
Stephen A. Schwarzmann
Sheldon Adelson $1,403,032
Charles W. Ergen $952,150
Max M. Fisher
Donald Bren $514,600
Henry Kravis $1,296,266
Ray Lee Hunt
Charles F. Dolan
Bernard Marcus
Carl H. Lindner
Charles R. Schwab $1,844,112
David Koch $2,205, 900
Boone Pickens $5,487,961
Alfred Lerner
Dennis Washington
E. Stanley Kroenke
Henry Kravis $1,296, 266
Buy the addresses and telephone numbers of anyone or everyone listed on this page.

Alex G. Spanos
Richard M. DeVos $4,071,384
Christy Walton
Richard T. Farmer
A. Jerrold Perenchio
Thomas M. Siebel
Tom L. Ward
James Leprino
Richard DeVos $2,925,487
Charles R. Schwab $1,844,112
Gary Winnick
Loderick Cook
Bruce Kovner
John Galbraith
Richard J. Egan
Michael S. Dell $879,900
Sam Wyly
Charles Wyly jr.
Richard Kinder
Craig Duchossois
Donald G. Fisher
Theodore J. Forstmann $1,100,557
Thomas F. Marsico
Stanley S. Hubbard
Jim C. Walton
Christy Walton
Leslie Wexner
Ted Waitt
Glen A. Taylor
Otis Booth Jr.
Lionel I. Pincus
Lawrence Kadish
John T. Chambers $1,374,991
John M. Hennessy
Louis Perlmutter
David C. Mulfard
http://www.swissfund.4t.com/custom.html

GOP donors question million dollar loss

NBCNews.com - ‎29 minutes ago‎
NewsNation | Aired on November 08, 2012.

GOP donors question million dollar loss. Politico reports that Republican strategist Karl Rove is calling top donors to explain their nearly $400 million lost Tuesday night.

VIDEO @
GOP donors question million dollar loss - Video on NBCNews.com

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Five wealthy people, led by Dallas industrialist Harold Simmons and Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, have donated nearly $1 of every $4 flowing to the super PACs raising unlimited money in this year's presidential race, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

Those donations have helped new Republican-leaning outside groups swamp Democratic-friendly super PACs in fundraising ...Other mega-donors to super PACs include:

•Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and co-founder of PayPal,who donated $2.6 million to Endorse Liberty, a super PAC helping GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul. Thiel, an avowed libertarian, was the first outside investor in Facebook. He did not respond to an interview request.

•Houston home builder Bob Perry, who has contributed more than $11 million to federal campaigns since 1997. He has donated $3.6 million to super PACs since Jan. 1, 2011...

http://www.alipac.us/f9/billionaire-...ocrats-297785/

http://www.alipac.us/f9/big-labor-%9...ctions-298216/

Sheldon Adelson Pledges to Double Support for GOP Politicians

12/13/2012
. . . Adelson, who contributed $20 million to Mitt Romney’s super PAC"Restore Our Future," $15 million to Newt Gingrich’s super PAC – which for all intents and purposes kept the disgraced former House Speaker in the presidential primary race and handed the nomination to Romney -- and about$50 million to nonprofit Republican fronts such as Rove’s Crossroads GPS. . .

Adelson also claimed that he was "basically a social liberal," and that his views differed sharply from the Republican Party on a number of issues:

"Number one, I’m supporting stem-cell research." As exemplified by the new Adelson medical research foundation that is funding some stem-cell based science.

"I’m pro choice," he pointed out. . .

On immigration: "I’m pro-Dream Act . . .

1. Republican Party Gets Major Backing from Walmart and the Walton Family...
   
   247wallst.com/.../republican-party-gets-major-backing-from-wa...‎
   Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the report finds that the Waltons and Walmart ... of the political contributions (more than $11.6 million) made by the family and ... Some 83% of the Walton family's contributions were directed to support Republican candidates and causes...
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Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine

Charles and David Koch have quietly funneled over $61 million to climate-denial front groups that are working to delay policies and regulations aimed at ...