Democratic Underground - Koch Industries gave funding to the DLC and served on its Executive Council

http://www.americablog.com/2010/08/koch-industries-gave-funding-to-dlc-and.html

This week, Koch Industries is in the news again following an http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer">expose by Jane Meyer at the New Yorker titled, "Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama".

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But, here's a key piece of information: the Kochs haven't just given to right-wingers. Back in April of 2001, The American Prospect's http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=how_the_dlc_does_it">Bob Dreyfuss reported that the Kochs also funded the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC):

And for $25,000, 28 giant companies found their way onto the DLC's executive council, including Aetna, AT&T, American Airlines, AIG, BellSouth, Chevron, DuPont, Enron, IBM, Merck and Company, Microsoft, Philip Morris, Texaco, and Verizon Communications. Few, if any, of these corporations would be seen as leaning Democratic, of course, but here and there are some real surprises. One member of the DLC's executive council is none other than Koch Industries, the privately held, Kansas-based oil company whose namesake family members are avatars of the far right, having helped to found archconservative institutions like the Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Not only that, but two Koch executives, Richard Fink and Robert P. Hall III, are listed as members of the board of trustees and the event committee, respectively--meaning that they gave significantly more than $25,000.

The DLC board of trustees is an elite body whose membership is reserved for major donors, and many of the trustees are financial wheeler-dealers who run investment companies and capital management firms--though senior executives from a handful of corporations, such as Koch, Aetna, and Coca-Cola, are included.

Fitting, isn't it? The entity that tries to undermine the progressive agenda from within the Democratic Party was getting funding from the guys who are trying to destroy the Democratic Party from the outside.

Just a side note: The DLC's long-time CEO, Bruce Reed, is now the http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/35024.html">Executive Director of the Obama administration's Debt Commission, a.k.a. the Cat Food Commission.

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