# Koch Brothers to Spend $900 Million on 2016 Elections **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 27, 2015, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967 "2015-01-27T00:52:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/401 "2015-03-01T17:27:34Z")
So, after eight pages of arguing, you don’t know what we are arguing _about_? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/402 "2015-03-01T19:11:04Z")
I’m not sure you do either. Just name the problem to be solved if it’s that simple. Maybe I’m missing the obvious. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/403 "2015-03-02T23:28:15Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > Wow, that’s obscene, but money is speech. Whoever has the most gets to talk. So you’re not allowed to talk? Enough with this nonsense. Everyone has the right to as much speech as they can get. Speech is not power. The voters are 100% free to ignore any speech. If the choose to listen, thats their fault. The voters are 100% free to go find out anything about any candidate they don’t hear about in expensive TV ads too. If they don’t, that’s their fault. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/404 "2015-03-03T16:57:17Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > So you’re not allowed to talk? > > Enough with this nonsense. Everyone has the right to as much speech as they can get. Speech is not power. The voters are 100% free to ignore any speech. If the choose to listen, thats their fault. The voters are 100% free to go find out anything about any candidate they don’t hear about in expensive TV ads too. If they don’t, that’s their fault. Nobody proposes that people aren’t allowed to talk. The problem is that TV ads work and you can indeed buy most elections if you have enough money. If you can buy someone an election you also buy their votes once they’re elected. Sure, in theory, people can do their own research. But they don’t and never will, so ads can and do buy elections. So do we as a republic, just shrug our shoulders and say “it sucks, but since James Madison didn’t foresee television, there isn’t anything we can do” or do we put a ceiling on the amount of influence that money has over government? ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/405 "2015-03-03T22:45:04Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > First, you tell us that we can’t propose anything because it will violate the sacred Constitution. Then you give us shit for not proposing anything. I’ll tell you one thing, if you propose something that involves rolling back the First Amendment, I won’t even consider it. That’s off the table. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/406 "2015-03-03T22:46:39Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Nobody proposes that people aren’t allowed to talk. The problem is that TV ads work and you can indeed buy most elections if you have enough money. No, you cannot. You have to get the most votes to get elected. Paying people to vote is illegal. Spending money on speech is not buying an election. The voters still decide. The bottom line is that you don’t like the decisions the voters usually make, and you want the government to try to mess with it. That’s not support for democracy. Not at all. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/407 "2015-03-04T01:46:15Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > No, you cannot. > > You have to get the most votes to get elected. Paying people to vote is illegal. > > Spending money on speech is not buying an election. The voters still decide. > > The bottom line is that you don’t like the decisions the voters usually make, and you want the government to try to mess with it. > > That’s not support for democracy. Not at all. It appears that the Kochs have convinced you that your freedom of speech somehow depends on them being able to buy elections. If the people could be trusted not to be swayed by millions of dollars of negative campaign ads, it wouldn’t be an issue. But they can’t, so it is. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/408 "2015-03-04T01:53:27Z")
Or it appears that Soros has convinced people that the Koch bros shouldn’t be able to influence elections in the same way that Soros has been doing? Or the MSNBC entertainers have convinced people that their biased political reporting is OK but other groups should not be allowed political free speech? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/409 "2015-03-04T01:59:04Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I’m not sure you do either. Just name the problem to be solved if it’s that simple. Maybe I’m missing the obvious. [This.](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/princeton-experts-say-us-no-longer-democracy) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/410 "2015-03-04T02:09:54Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Or it appears that Soros has convinced people that the Koch bros shouldn’t be able to influence elections in the same way that Soros has been doing? Since when did guys like Soros paid scientists to poison the well to get research that was used later by the politicians that they financed to stop new rules that would affect their bottom line? > **[How Often Do Climate Scientists Have To Debunk Willie Soon?](https://crooksandliars.com/2015/02/how-often-do-climate-scientists-have)** > > "The science that Willie Soon does is almost pointless." > \- NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, to the New York Times > [@](#): > > Recent revelations regarding Smithsonian scientist Willie Soon’s financing and coordination with fossil fuel companies for studies undermining the science of climate change has received quite a bit of attention. Our friends at the Climate Investigations Center have links to source documents, letters to the IRS and Congress, letters to journals that Soon appears to have mislead, and some of the press covering all of this. > > The drama has largely outshone the main point among most scientists: Willie Soon’s work is vastly discredited. For those who aren’t familiar with Willie Soon’s fossil fuel company contracting over the last fifteen years, there is probably a legitimate question of whether or not this guy deserves to be in his current pinch. > [@](#): > > Most of this denial is implemented through the vast web of Koch-funded front groups in the State Policy Network, with presence nationally and in all 50 states. > For a look at how SPN uses science denial in the policy arena, check out Willie Soon’s climate denial testimony to Kansas legislators from January, 2013. This dismissal of climate science to Kansas legislators marked the opening of a nationally-coordinated attack on Kansas’ clean energy incentives by SPN members. In that case, Dr. Soon failed to disclose his payments from the nonprofit Charles Koch Foundation for his work, which he cited in the Kansas statehouse. > [@](#): > > ``` > “Willie Soon (as amply documented in my book “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”) was instrumental in the early attacks on the Hockey Stick by James Inhofe and other fossil fuel industry-funded politicians. Now we know for certain that his efforts were a quid pro quo with special interests looking to discredit my work as a means of calling into question the reality and threat of climate change.” > > ``` > [@doorhinge](#): > > Or the MSNBC entertainers have convinced people that their biased political reporting is OK but other groups should not be allowed political free speech? Again, it would not be much of a problem if it was just about the political speech on TV, what is needed, for starters, is to have transparency on what the funding is going to and to prevent situations like when Dick Cheney leaked dubious information to the press that in turn was used then by the Bush administration to convince many that we should invade Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/411 "2015-03-04T02:22:47Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > If the people could be trusted not to be swayed by millions of dollars of negative campaign ads, it wouldn’t be an issue. But they can’t, so it is. And there it is. You don’t trust the people to make the “right” decision that you would make. You want to intervene, by controlling what they see and hear, in the hopes of changing their decision. You couldn’t have less respect for democracy or freedom of speech. Go away. Leave democracy alone. The people don’t need you to tell them what to think or how to vote or tell them they can’t be trusted to think like you. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/412 "2015-03-04T02:38:59Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > And there it is. > > You don’t trust the people to make the “right” decision that you would make. > > You want to intervene, by controlling what they see and hear, in the hopes of changing their decision. > > You couldn’t have less respect for democracy or freedom of speech. > > Go away. Leave democracy alone. The people don’t need you to tell them what to think or how to vote or tell them they can’t be trusted to think like you. When you do not want to deal with the fact that the Kochs and others are financing the scientists that are producing bad science that leads the people do terrible decisions it is you the one that needs to stop telling others to go away. > [@](#): > > If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves ; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe. - Thomas Jefferson. Letter To Colonel Charles Yancey. - Monticello, January 6, 1816. And while it is good to know that there are still outlets that do report what people like the Kocks are doing, the problem is with the ones that will continue to depend just on their right wing bubble of information. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/413 "2015-03-04T02:42:07Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > When you do not want to deal with the fact that the Kochs and others are financing the scientists that are producing bad science that leads the people do terrible decisions it is you the one that needs to stop telling others to go away. What you need to do is stop thinking you are smarter than everyone else and should make their decisions for them. I know it’s hard. You’re smart, I’m smart, and we are surrounded by idiots. But that’s democracy. You have to work within it, not against it. You can’t suppress speech. Your Jefferson quote supports ME. Completely! Did you even read it? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/414 "2015-03-04T02:48:02Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > What you need to do is stop thinking you are smarter than everyone else and should make their decisions for them. In a previous discussion it was clear that the ones that are smarter than I am (the scientists) agree with what I said. > [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > I know it’s hard. You’re smart, I’m smart, and we are surrounded by idiots. But that’s democracy. You have to work within it, not against it. You can’t suppress speech. “eventually politics has to yield to science” as a science reported told NPR recently about the politicians like Christie that showed no clue with the Ebola issue. It is also applicable on what it is clear to be one of the main issues of the Koch brothers. > [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > Your Jefferson quote supports ME. Completely! Did you even read it? Did you read mine? It added a conditional to what Jefferson told us, you are only defending the use of just one point of view, and as shown already it is not based on good information, it is indeed the opposite of civilization. Now go and stop just depending on the right wing bubble of information. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/415 "2015-03-04T02:52:36Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > …Again, it would not be much of a problem if it was just about the political speech on TV, what is needed, for starters, is to have transparency on what the funding is going to and to prevent situations like when Dick Cheney leaked dubious information to the press that in turn was used then by the Bush administration to convince many that we should invade Iraq. (post shortened) I’m in favor of transparency. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/416 "2015-03-04T23:35:55Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > In a previous discussion it was clear that the ones that are smarter than I am (the scientists) agree with what I said. That’s not the point. You don’t get to impose your views on others. > [@](#): > > Did you read mine? It added a conditional to what Jefferson told us So? Your conditional is yours, not Jefferson’s. You can’t just go quoting Jefferson and then altering his quotes to suit you. No surprise that you think that, but you can’t. Jefferson feared people like you. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/417 "2015-03-04T23:37:12Z")
As for transparency and disclosure, I always laugh when people using their freedom speech call for that on an anonymous message board. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2015, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/418 "2015-03-05T00:05:39Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > That’s not the point. You don’t get to impose your views on others. So why you keep ignoring the blatant move that the Kochs did by financing scientists that delivered what they wanted? **False** information that was called the work of modern “Galileos” by Inhofe and many Republicans and with those “scientific” papers in hand they shoot down bipartisan plans to control emissions years ago? (and it was shown after to be shoddy science too.) The point here is that the Kochs did indeed impose their views in a huge racket and the only thing you can do is ignore it. > [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > So? Your conditional is yours, not Jefferson’s. You can’t just go quoting Jefferson and then altering his quotes to suit you. No surprise that you think that, but you can’t. > > Jefferson feared people like you. Again, nothing that I have done or propose can hold a candle on what the Kochs did, your wilful ignorance (and the one from many Republicans nowadays) is the problem. Just like Jefferson told us. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2015, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/419 "2015-03-05T04:48:19Z")
GIGO, you know my position on what we should do about global warming and even I’m not fooled by the Kochs’ handpicked scientists. The system works. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2015, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967/420 "2015-03-05T05:05:06Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > GIGO, you know my position on what we should do about global warming and even I’m not fooled by the Kochs’ handpicked scientists. The system works. Nope, more people that are deceived does vote against their real interests, again it is not only propaganda that they expend to change opinions, but they really do fund scientists (poison the well ahead of the main push) and politicians that then do what they want. Check the fine documentary (for free) made by Frontline called Climate of Doubt. > **[Climate of Doubt | FRONTLINE](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/climate-of-doubt/?)** > > FRONTLINE explores the massive shift in public opinion on climate change. The efforts from the Kochs and others have pushed a climate of doubt that affects all politicians. And in reality, even if you claim that you are aware of what is going on, you are still carrying the water of the politicians that are in the pockets of the powerful. Never forget that the implication of realizing what is going on implies then the repudiation in the open of what the politicians and their funders are doing for the system to ultimately work. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/koch-brothers-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-elections/710967.md?page=22)