Koch Industries buys GOP Senate candidate’s company

A division of industrial giant Koch Industries has bought Senate hopeful Jim Lamon’s company, likely providing a cash infusion for the Arizona Republican as he pours huge sums of his own money into the race. Why it matters: Lamon is vying for the GOP nomination to take on Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in what is expected

DonorsTrust Gives $600k Donation to White Nationalist Hate Group

For the second year in a row, the right wing’s favorite dark money donation vehicle has given an unprecedented sum to a notorious white nationalist hate group. New tax records obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) reveal that nonprofit charity DonorsTrust bankrolled the New Century Foundation—an alias for American Renaissance, a white nationalist organization

Zuckerberg’s cash fuels GOP suspicion and new election rules

When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated $400 million to help fund election offices as they scrambled to deal with the coronavirus pandemic late last summer, he said he hoped he would never have to do it again. Republican legislatures are granting him that wish. At least eight GOP-controlled states have passed bans on donations to election offices

The Supreme Court just made Citizens United even worse

It’s a great day for dark money. In its infamous decision in Citizens United v. FEC (2010), the Supreme Court tossed a bone to lawmakers seeking to regulate money in politics. With a few exceptions, Citizens United stripped the government of its power to limit the amount of spending on elections, especially by corporations. But the decision also gave

Partisan war over teaching history and racism stokes tensions in U.S. schools

The school board of Virginia’s wealthy Loudoun County had planned to hold a routine meeting to close out the school year. Instead, it was pandemonium. Many of the hundreds of parents who flooded the auditorium in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., on Tuesday night were there to accuse the schools of teaching their kids that

Republicans Say Voting Protections Trample ‘States’ Rights.’ Uh-Oh.

The chilling future implications of a very old argument. The brief Senate debate over voting rights was treated as an anticlimax, chiefly because its bottom-line result — fewer than ten Republican senators, and as it turned out zero, voting to break a filibuster — was never in doubt. But the preordained outcome may have hidden a surprising

Joe Manchin’s “highly suspicious” reversal on voting bill follows donation from corporate lobby

U.S. Chamber of Commerce sure loves Joe Manchin. Is that why his op-ed on voting bill echoed their talking points? Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat famous for his vow to maintain the Senate filibuster and thereby scuttle much of President Biden’s agenda, recently published an op-ed opposing the For the People Act, Democrats’

‘We Are Coming’: Poor People’s Campaign to March Against Manchin Obstructionism in West Virginia

“Manchin’s positions are wrong, constitutionally inconsistent, historically inaccurate, morally indefensible, economically insane, and politically unacceptable,” said the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II. Outraged by Joe Manchin’s obstruction of Democratic efforts to protect and expand voting rights and end the Senate filibuster, the faith-led Poor People’s Campaign has announced it will lead a Moral Monday demonstration

Charles Koch funded eviction push while investing in real estate companies

Between 2017 and 2019, Koch’s foundation contributed almost $7.7m to three conservative US groups leading court battle Billionaire Charles Koch’s foundation has bankrolled three conservative legal groups leading the court battle to eliminate prohibitions against tenant evictions during the Covid-19 pandemic in America. At the same time, Koch’s corporate empire has suddenly stepped up its