Investigating Power
A decade-long push by Koch’s political and policy network to get more states to flatten or abolish income taxes is finally beginning to pay off, thanks to billions in federal Covid relief funds flowing to the states.
In spearheading far-right efforts to rewrite the U.S. Constitution, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is increasingly counting on an unexpected ally: a campaign finance reform group founded during the Occupy Wall Street protests more than a decade ago.
ALEC’s annual economic survey ranks states “rich” based on how closely states track the corporate pay-to-play group’s preferred tax and labor policies as opposed to actual quality of life factors such as wages, poverty rates, and access to healthcare.
Several Republican candidates jockeying to take on Trump in next year’s presidential primary have seized on the Right’s culture wars and defense of big oil. And they’re not alone.
After years of criticizing progressives for shareholder activism focused on social justice and environmental concerns, right-wing groups and ideologues are embracing the same strategy themselves.
In 2021, a fleet of 27 organizations controlled by Charles Koch and other Koch Industries executives spent a combined net total of $656.8 million on political and charitable causes.
An omnibus regulatory preemption bill in Texas—where versions are currently being considered in both the Senate and the House—would strip local governments of the ability to protect workers, consumers, and the environment.
When the next big disaster unfolds due to deregulation, don’t be fooled. Republicans are deflecting blame by attacking the Biden administration as insufficiently populist, but the seeds of the East Palestine train derailment and Silicon Valley Bank bailout were sown under the Trump deregulatory regime and more broadly by the anti-government ethos of the GOP and its Big Money donors.
A recent legal decision in a case involving Johnson & Johnson (J&J) may ultimately impact the massive profits Koch Industries and its Georgia-Pacific subsidiary have been raking in while sidestepping asbestos liability claims.
Michigan’s Senate and House have both passed legislation to repeal the state’s “right-to-work” law despite attempts by three ALEC-aligned Republican senators to salvage the anti-union legislation the group helped pass more than a decade ago.