• For over 40 years, fossil fuel billionaires David and Charles Koch led the war of the superrich against the middle class and poor.
• They built a coalition of about 20 billionaires, 430 millionaires, and large corporations to control public opinion and buy our politicians.
• It costs $100,000 to join their network. Then only if you are invited, you can attend their two secretive strategy meetings each year, with no media allowed.
• Their wealth depends on rigging our government for the superrich and making sure that it stays that way.
• So they support mostly Republicans, built hundreds of conservative think tanks and organizations, trained judges and media personalities, and wrote laws for Congress.
• The Koch network spent far more on the 2016 election than either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

Let’s look at a some of the most corrupt people in this coalition.

David & Charles Koch

• Worth $125 billion, these two brothers are now dead.  They each made about $1.8 million per hour.
• Their massive infrastructure for rigging our economy still exists and still keeps the superrich in power and regular Americans struggling.
• The Koch brothers owned a huge variety of businesses including oil, gas, pipelines, fracking, coal, fertilizers, chemicals, minerals, lumber, drywall, insulation, glass, windows, Stainmaster carpets, clothing, Brawny paper towels, napkins, Dixie cups, Quilted Northern and Angel Soft toilet paper, electronics, robotics, auto parts, cattle ranching, commodities, derivatives, the nylon, spandex, and Lycra in diapers and exercise clothing, etc.
• They broke our laws on a massive scale and hated government regulations, especially those that protect our food, water, air, workers, and consumers.
• Koch Industries is one of the largest producers of toxic waste.
• The Koch brothers have had to pay $400 million in fines for massive chemical waste releases and disasters and violations of workplace safety laws.
• In the 1990s alone, our government sued them for over 300 oil spills into lakes and rivers.
• They often cut costs, hid contamination, sold off businesses or declared bankruptcy to escape the costs, and expected us taxpayers to pay for the resulting illnesses, emergencies, and damage to the environment.
• Koch companies have higher rates of deaths and injuries than comparable companies, including 2 teenagers burned to death from gas leaks when Koch Industries only fixed 80 of 538 corrosion defects in butane pipes.

Sheldon Adelson

• Billionaire Sheldon Adelson is also dead now.
• He paid a $47 million settlement to end an investigation into money laundering for the vicious Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel.
• Adelson is also linked to Asian mafias in his casinos in China and has been investigated for bribing foreign governments.
• He and his wife were the two largest individual Republican donors in 2016.

Robert Mercer

• Hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer uses computer algorithms and high frequency trading to cheat regular Americans on the stock market.
• He funded Donald Trump’s rise, Steve Bannon, and the white-nationalist Breitbart News.

Paul Singer

• Billionaire hedge fund vulture capitalist Paul Singer buys up the debt of countries and cities facing devastating economic depressions for pennies on the dollar.
• Next, he uses his government connections to force them to cut money for their own people’s health, education, and pensions to pay him back in full dollars.
• In this way, he has destroyed the economies of countries like Argentina & Congo.
• He treated Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to a luxury private jet fishing vacation to one of the best salmon runs in the world, then went to the Supreme Court at least 10 times with business disputes.
• Just one of Justice Alito’s votes helped force Argentina to pay Singer $2.4 billion!

The Waltons (owners of Walmart)

• The Koch-allied Walton family, heirs to the Walmart fortune, is worth $191 billion.
• They make $4 million per hour, $100 million per day, and avoid taxes on foreign earnings by using hidden subsidiaries in tax havens.
• Meanwhile, us taxpayers pay $6.2 billion each year for health care and other government assistance to Walmart workers.
• In many states, Walmart employees are the top recipients of Medicaid.
• In some Walmart stores, 80% of the employees must use food stamps.
• Some Walmart warehouse workers loading shelves from trucks have to show up every morning but only get paid if there’s enough work for them that day.

Many Hedge Fund & Private Equity Companies

• Hedge funds and private equity managers like Mitt Romney buy other companies using mostly borrowed money, then suck the profits out of them in ways illegal in most other countries.
• They often cut staff, pay, equipment, supplies, job benefits, and pensions, aggressively bill and sue customers, or send jobs overseas for quick profits.
• They often sell the physical properties owned by the companies to extract money, forcing these companies to pay rent on their former buildings.
• In these ways, hedge funds and private equity companies destroy tens of thousands of jobs and steal retirement pensions.
• Most of the largest retail chain bankruptcies have been at chains owned by hedge funds or private equity companies, like Sears, K-Mart, Toys R Us, Radio Shack, Payless Shoe Source, and Linens n Things.
• At Sears/Kmart alone, over 260,000 people lost their jobs.
• In essential services like nursing homes, hospitals, ambulance companies, fire departments, water companies, and apartment buildings, staffing, supply, and equipment cuts by hedge fund and private equity owners have caused deaths, broken bones, and skyrocketing health violations.
• Without foolish tax laws like the carried interest loophole, hedge funds and private equity companies couldn’t make money. 
• Our foolish laws also let them steal hundreds of millions in pensions yet walk out of bankruptcy courts and still own the companies.

Koch Coalition Members Or Allies Include:

• The Chamber of Commerce (lobbies for businesses)
• Many energy companies, like Atmos, Chesapeake, Duke, Enron, Entergy, General Electric, Peabody
• Many coal, oil, and natural gas producers, like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, Shell, BP (British Petroleum)
• Many pharmaceutical companies, like Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Express Scripts, Purdue
• Many chemical manufacturers, like Dow
• Many tobacco companies, like Reynolds (Camel, Winston)
• Many health insurance companies, like Aetna, Wellpoint, Blue Cross Blue Shield
• Many insurance companies, like Allstate, State Farm, Prudential, Farmers
• Many banks, like Bank of America, UnitedHealth, Wells Fargo
• Railroads like Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, Burlington Northern Santa Fe
• Koch Industries
• Walmart
• AT& T
• IBM
• Xerox
• Coca-Cola
• Pepsi-Cola
• Bayer
• Kraft Foods
• Frito-Lay
• Johnson & Johnson
• Google
• Verizon
• Comcast
• Yahoo
• Cox Communications
• DirecTV
• Time Warner
• Facebook
• Microsoft
• American Express
• Ford
• General Motors
• Chrysler
• McDonald’s
• Wendy’s
• Kentucky Fried Chicken
• Pizza Hut
• Taco Bell
• Long John Silver’s
• A&W Restaurants
• Intel (technology, semiconductor chips)
• Amazon
• Ebay
• UPS (United Parcel Service)
• FedEx
• Best Buy
• JC Penney
• American Airlines
• John Deere (agricultural, construction, forestry equipment)
• Caterpillar (construction, mining equipment)
• Amway (DeVos family)
• Beer companies like Coors, Anheuser Busch, Miller
• Boeing
• Home Depot
• Lowe’s
• CVS
• CenturyLink
• Cracker Barrel Old Country Store
• Publix Super Markets
• Texas Roadhouse
• Motorola
• Sony
•  T-Mobile
• TicketMaster
• Oracle (computer technology)
• Hewlett Packard (HP)
• Mars (food, pet food, candy like M&Ms, Snickers, Skittles)
• Nestle
• Quaker Oats
• Sara Lee
• Mary Kay Cosmetics
• Archer Daniels Midland (food processor, pet food)
• Diageo (Crown Royal, liquors)
• Georgia Pacific (paper, tissue, packaging, building products, chemicals)
• Intuit (accounting, tax software)
• Alcoa (aluminum)
• Honeywell (aerospace, building technologies)
• Waste Management
• American Beverage Association
• Uline (shipping, packaging supplies)

Some of these companies have left the Koch coalition and its lobbying arm that actually writes laws for Congress: the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).  Just a couple of them have publicly stated that they left ALEC because it hurts regular Americans.