"The third Koch ‘brother’ hits North Carolina"

[applegrove]

The third Koch ‘brother’ hits North Carolina

by Katrina vandel Heuvel at the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-the-third-koch-brother-hits-north-carolina/2013/06/11/0a7b1c54-d1e5-11e2-8cbe-1bcbee06f8f8_story.html?tid=rssfeed

"SNIP..........................


As the head of Variety Wholesalers (a family-run discount store holding company) and the $150 million Pope Family Foundation, he has invested in an array of think tanks and advocacy groups dedicated to aggressively aligning the state’s political terrain with his business interests. Gov. Pat McCrory, whose campaign he bankrolled, recently named Pope to the powerful post of state budget director.

Pope is, for all intents and purposes, North Carolina’s third, lesser known, Koch brother. In fact, he’s attended the Koch Brothers’ planning summits and considers himself their close ally.

In 2010, Pope’s organizations spent $2.2 million on 22 state legislature races, and won 18 of them. In fact, outside groups backed by Pope accounted for 75 percent of independent spending in those races. In 2012, Pope and his affiliated groups again spent more than $2 million on the election, leading to a Republican supermajority in the General Assembly, and putting McCrory in the governor’s mansion.

In the dystopian world of Citizens United, Art Pope’s $2.2 million feels like chump change — and on a national scale, it is. Sheldon Adelson alone spent $150 million in 2012. But in one state, that $2.2 million can buy a whole ticket’s worth of legislators. That’s the only way to push back against the undeniable demographic shifts that have made North Carolina a battleground state in the last two presidential elections.

.........................SNIP"

[House of Roberts]

1. There are already three Koch brothers.

Charles, David, and Bill.

[immoderate]

2. Don't forget Fred!

Yes, another.

--imm