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February 24, 2012

Scott Walker's Koch Connection Goes Bad

By John Nichols

It is no secret that Koch and his billionaire brother, Charles, have long been Walker supporters. Their Koch Industries PAC was the second-highest donor to Walker's 2010 campaign, donating $43,000. The PAC also gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which streamed spending into Wisconsin on behalf of Walker's election.

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This article cross-posted from The Nation

Billionaire campaign donor David Koch has rarely spoken in public about the central role he has played in the election of Scott Walker as governor of Wisconsin, the defense of Walker's embattled governorship and, now, Walker's desperate attempt to defeat the recall election that more than one million Wisconsinites have demanded.

Until now. And that has raised fundamental legal and political questions about the manipulation of Wisconsin politics by out-of-state billionaires.

It is no secret that Koch and his billionaire brother, Charles, have long been Walker supporters. Their Koch Industries PAC was the second-highest donor to Walker's 2010 campaign, donating $43,000. The PAC also gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which streamed spending into Wisconsin on behalf of Walker's election.

And the Americans for Prosperity groups the Kochs founded and financed certainly seemed to be active on Walker's behalf.

But AFP and its foundation could not campaign openly for Walker or other candidates, as they are tax exempt organizations operating under laws that protect civic and educational charities.

So it was incredible when David Koch admitted in an interview with the Palm Beach Post that he planned to support Walker with spending by AFP. "We're helping him, as we should," Koch said of Walker. "We've gotten pretty good at this over the years. We've spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We're going to spend more."

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Authors Bio:

John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.


Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers.


Nichols is a frequent guest on radio and television programs as a commentator on politics and media issues. He was featured in Robert Greenwald's documentary, "Outfoxed," and in the documentaries Joan Sekler's "Unprecedented," Matt Kohn's "Call It Democracy" and Robert Pappas' "Orwell Rolls in his Grave." The keynote speaker at the 2004 Congress of the International Federation of Journalists in Athens, Nichols has been a featured presenter at conventions, conferences and public forums on media issues sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Consumers International, the Future of Music Coalition, the AFL-CIO, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Newspaper Guild [CWA] and dozens of other organizations.


Nichols is the author of the upcoming book The Genius of Impeachment (The New Press), as well as a critically-acclaimed analysis of the Florida recount fight of 2000, Jews for Buchanan (The New Press) and a best-selling biography of Vice President Dick Cheney, Dick: The Man Who is President (The New Press), which has recently been published in French and Arabic. He edited Against the Beast: A Documentary History of American Opposition to Empire (Nation Books), of which historian Howard Zinn said: "At exactly the time when we need it most, John Nichols gives us a special gift--a collection of writings, speeches, poems, and songs from throughout American history--that reminds us that our revulsion to war and empire has a long and noble tradition in this country."


With Robert W. McChesney, Nichols has co-authored the books, It's the Media, Stupid! (Seven Stories), Our Media, Not Theirs (Seven Stories) and Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy (The New Press). McChesney and Nichols are the co-founders of Free Press, the nation's media-reform network, which organized the 2003 and 2005 National Conferences on Media Reform.


Of Nichols, author Gore Vidal says: "Of all the giant slayers now afoot in the great American desert, John Nichols's sword is the sharpest."


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