[ExI] Astroturf - Is anything 'real' out there? (Richard Loosemore)

[Tom Nowell]

Kelly asked if we could list any libertarian astroturfing. Well, to match Mr Soros' left-wing activity I would like to propose the Koch brothers.

I google "koch brothers" - first article I get is the wiki article, with a prominent link to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Koch_family

This states one brother funded and co-founded the Cato Institute, while the other was Libertarian VP candidate in 1980. OK, so the Libertarian party is variable on how "libertarian" its platform is, but they clearly self-identified as libertarians in the past.

Next google result - a New Yorker article entitled "COVERT OPERATIONS: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama"

next result - a Guardian article "The Koch brothers: all the influence money can buy". This linked to
http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/04/06/3936/kochs-web-influence?utm_source=publicintegrity&utm_medium=social_media&utm_campaign=twitter
Which shows how much corporate lobbying the Kochs do as opposed to how much is actually supporting libertarian causes.

OK, so they may be rich hypocritical libertarians, but they're as fair targets as Mr Soros and his billionaire liberalism.

Tom