stripping thing, that s really just one side. there is another protest movement, too, a movement made up of buses paid for by the koch brothers and hired talent like mr. the plumber. this bus to your thing should seem familiar. there was the bloody red hand print hands off my healthcare bus tour from the health reform debate. remember that, that was the same koch brothers funded group that did the wisconsin buses. there was the big novice coming bus tour that the koch brothers group launched before the mid term elections. this whole bus tour instant fake movement thing is really becoming a robust cottage industry for some corporations. they like to make it look like there are humans on their side, so they pay inรง order to make that impression. you get like a rally for the oil industry. remember this one, in houston. actually made up of oil industry employees who were bussed to the rally by their company, making it part of people s jobs to go
active a long time, but they turned it up to 11. they are doing more than they used to be doing. does that explain the timing? that partly explains the timing. everyone has cottoned onto the koch brothers. they did a lot of stuff for awhile that we didn t really hear about. it s not that they just turned libertarian. one of them founded kato foundation, another founded americans for prosperity. they ve been out there working. it s just that we re paying attention, frankly, and yes, they are doing more. because people are cottoning to them, are we getting to the point that a koch brothers endorsement starts being a liability for either candidates or causes that they endorse? i don t think we are quite there. we could get there. i think some candidates, forecast, now, scott brown in the state like massachusetts, that s embarrassing to him. that s a problem i think, given he has to run in essentially a
that the standoff over the republican union stripping plan was coming to an end, it doesn t seem like it is, and the longer this goes on, longer it becomes clear the liberal side is winning. i am telling you, the more people will be called communists. it s a rule. and the more guys like the koch brothers will have to spend to make up for the devastating political costs the republicans have incurred by picking and losing this fight in the american midwest. state senator jon erpenbach joins us, he is one of the 14 state senators that remain outside of wisconsin to deny republicans the quorum needed for the union stripping bill. good to see you, senator. thank you for your time. thanks, rachel. there was this reporting late last night and early this morning that democrats were going to head back to wisconsin. the whole thing was about to come to an end. what was your reaction to that reporting? when you say the headline i
koch brothers. now that we know they re doing all this stuff, let s see if it s all on the up and up. even post citizens united, there are rules. congressman pompeo has a long history with the koch brothers. not only helped him get elected, helped him get rich by investing in a firm he founded. do we have a sense of who the koch brothers caucus is in congress? obviously mike pompeo is a chairman, scott brown is a ranking member. getting a sense of who they are? we certainly don t have a full sense. i think we ll be trying to put together that database, maybe even put it online someday along with the other database they want to keep off line. an amazing story. we can t have that. not if the koch brothers say you can t. great to see you, eugene. great to be here.
if a politician suggests them, they are no longer independent. wisconsin democrats say mr. walker was not only illegally coordinating campaign expenditures in that moment, he was soliciting david koch s financial help from the governor s office inside the state capitol. you are not supposed to solicit campaign contributions from your public office. talking about the koch brothers in 2011 is starting to feel like talking about karl rove in 2004. if you care about progressive politics or even fair play in 2011, you really can t get away from the koch brothers. they are becoming way too ubiquitous. they come up in every political scandal, from wisconsin union busting and phony astro turf bus tours to the questionable partiality of the american supreme court justices. every time a political scandal erupts big or small, there are the koch brothers with a chair pulled up to the table. i do not want it to be true.