Email, Omar Rivero, founder, Occupy Democrats, Aug. 6, 2014
1:03 p.m.
Aug. 6, 2014
Thank you so much for fact checking our graphic. This is Omar Rivero, founder of Occupy Democrats.
The Koch brothers' shadowy funding network has been bankrolling Ted Cruz’s political career for a long time.
The largest funding sources for Ted Cruz’s campaigns are the Club for Growth ($705,657) and the Senate Conservatives Fund ($315,991).
Source: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?type=C&cid=N00033085&newMem=N&cycle=2014
The Huffington Post reported, "The Club for Growth, which was the top donor ($700,000+) to Cruz, was founded in 1999 by Steve Moore. As Right Wing Watch has noted, 'Before founding the Club for Growth, Moore was the director of fiscal policy at the Cato Institute, and has stayed on as a Senior Fellow.'
Here is how iron the Koch's control over the Cato Institute was, and is: David Weigel at slate.com bannered on 25 June 2012, "Ed Crane Steps Down to End Koch Brothers' Attempted Coup at Cato," and Weigel reported that the Kochs were firing Crane (who by that time was America's longest-serving think-tank CEO), because he wasn't doing a good enough job to "provide intellectual ammunition that we can then use at Americans for Prosperity and our allied organizations" in order to oust Barack Obama and the Democrats, and replace them with Republicans. When the Kochs had provided the start-up money for Cato in 1976, they became its controlling owners, and now they were firing its creator, Crane, so as to assist Mitt Romney's 2012 Republican Presidential campaign.”
Source:
"How the Koch Brothers Orchestrated the Shutdown"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/how-the-koch-brothers-did_1_b_4143928.html
The fight to auction off federal land is a major legislative goal for Koch associated groups, including ALEC, the American Lands Council and Americans for Prosperity. The move would have obvious benefits for the Koch Industries mineral portfolio.
According to Think Progress.org, "ALEC is a conservative corporate front group funded by fossil-fuel interests such as the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil that develops model legislation for state legislators to introduce in their legislatures, and it has endorsed many of the bills turning public lands over to the states."
Source:
"ALEC and Americans for Prosperity have been fanning the fire under these efforts to 'reclaim' federal public lands.”
According to ThinkProgress.org, "Cruz filed an amendment to the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2014 (S. 2363) to force the federal government to sell off a significant portion of the country’s most prized lands in the West.”
Furthermore, “Under Cruz’s proposal, these states, which are home to some of the country’s most beloved national parks, forests, wildlife areas and iconic natural resources, would be forced to either pass the costs of managing these lands along to state taxpayers or, more likely, give them away or sell them off for mining, drilling, and logging.”
Source:
Ted Cruz Launches Senate Fight to Auction Off America’s Public Lands.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/07/10/3458798/ted-cruz-auction-off-public-lands/
We consider it bribery when a shadowy, wide-reaching corporate interest political machine like the Kochs’ bankrolls a U.S. Senator’s political operation and then that same Senator turns around and supports a major piece of legislation desired by those corporate interests. There is clearly a quid and there is clearly a quo. Whether there is a pro may be beyond anyone’s ability to prove. Regardless, this is clearly an example of how big money is corrupting our political process and leading elected officials to take actions contrary to the public interest, such as moving to sell off public land for private benefit. The fact that such apparent arrangements are legal underscores the need to rein in this kind of obfuscated political spending.
Thanks,
Omar Rivero