Charles Koch Is Funding Rightwing, Pro-Trump Media, New Disclosure Reveals

[douglas9]

Koch Industries has a reputation for attacking journalists who write things that make it look bad, but that isn’t stopping its billionaire CEO, Charles Koch, from funding media—at least, media that share his conservative, free-market ideals.

The foundations of the 83-year-old Koch are increasingly funding conservative media outlets, newly disclosed tax forms show. Sludge has found that the Charles Koch Foundation (CKF), a nonprofit known for funding conservative think tanks and free-market higher education programs, and a connected nonprofit, the Charles Koch Institute (CKI), donated over $2 million to mostly conservative media operations in 2017.

The 2017 grants include a number of first-time recipients of CKF and CKI funding, as well as increased grant amounts to media groups the foundations had previously funded, amounting to a roughly $600,000 increase in funding for media- and media-adjacent organizations identified by Sludge, according to tax documents.

Koch has claimed he dislikes some of President Donald Trump’s trade and immigration policies. But New York Times columnist Thomas Edsall suggested in September that Trump and the Koch political network work in concert, having achieved major policy goals of Koch and other wealthy conservatives, including a massive tax cut for the rich, weakened EPA regulations, and the confirmation of numerous pro-business judges.

Through his foundations, Koch is bankrolling some very pro-Trump outlets. In 2017, the Charles Koch Foundation gave the Daily Caller News Foundation $960,000, while the Charles Koch Institute added $20,000. The previous year, the two nonprofits combined to give a slightly smaller amount, $958,000, but this total made up 83 percent of the Daily Caller News Foundation’s annual budget. The foundation, which produces much of the content for The Daily Caller website, has not yet released its 2017 tax form, so its revenues for last year are unknown.

https://readsludge.com/2018/11/21/charles-koch-is-funding-rightwing-pro-trump-media-new-disclosure-reveals/

[watoos]

1. George Soros gives a couple bucks to MoveOn,

and Repugs get their panties tied up in knots. Koch funded media outlets make it look like Soros is buying America. The fact of the matter is Charles Koch is buying America. He even gets to pick what professors get in certain universities he is funding. In many ways Libertarians are worse than fascists.

[LiberalLoner]

2. Why does Koch do this?

He’s 83, doesn’t he have enough money to last the rest of his life? There is a level of greed there that I can’t comprehend.

[machoneman]

4. Old, Alzheimer's effects, RW lunatic even when younger, wants to die as rich....

...as possible. I could go on and on........

[modrepub]

6. It's His "Philosophy"

He just can't seem to understand that by "supporting" his "free market" idealism he's actually showing it doesn't work. If his "ideas" were truly correct, they'd be able to support themselves without his monetary contributions (intervention). That's how capitalism works, it shouldn't need support to sustain itself.

Most of the "free market" types attempt to follow the Austrian economist Hayek in that the markets are best left to themselves with little to no government intervention. In my opinion they've bastardized Hayek's point saying they want no intervention in markets but really pushing for only a few individuals to permanently control the markets (like Koch is with the fossil fuel markets). IMO the real Austrian in this debate is Schumpeter who is best know for the creative destruction concept of capitalism. His vision was that markets are constantly churning, rewarding the entrepreneur class for finding efficiencies in production. Shumpeter believed capitalism was the best (though flawed) system to deliver needed goods to the market because in the long term it discovers and rewards the most efficient use of materials to produce needed products. People like Koch are attempting to subvert the process by retaining their dominance, which in turn stagnates innovation. Koch is push to keep our dependence on fossil fuels when other innovation in the renewable energy fields is actually becoming more cost effective.

[The Genealogist]

7. I think he wants it because that means someone else doesn't have it

I think here is an elitism here that he deserves to have that money and people inferior to him shouldn't have it.

[Fuzzpope]

8. This.

It’s not about having, it’s about a conscious effort to deprive those deemed unworthy of having.

[NoMoreRepugs]

3. Question is, why do the Kochs hate America so much?

Is it because their father was more or less driven out of the country and had to make his fortune in Stalin's Russia?

[certainot]

5. if koch would pay $1000 for a 1 hr radio infomercial talk radio's worth $5BIL/yr

rw radio is just about all pro trump pro koch

1200 stations x 15 hrs/day x $1000 = almost $5BIL

putin and the kochs have been getting years of global warming denial freeeeee!!!!

all the republican bullshit ------- FREEFREEFREEFREEFREE

democrats are wasting their time talking about money and influence of people like the kochs while ignoring talk radio. that's what makes talk radio so effective to the right

michael moore was overreacting by calling trump an "evil genius" for figuring out how to use fear etc and manipulate his base - his team studied talk radio and he and the russians piggyback years of free propaganda that liberals/dems ignore.

[Blue Owl]

9. Trump: Coked up and Koched up

n/t

[ck4829]

10. Kick

[Blue_Tires]

11. Um... He's like been doing that for decades already??