[Now UPDATED at bottom of article.]
Hilarious. For some odd reason, the latest super-secret Koch Brothers Winter Seminar for millionaires, billionaires and elected Republicans and judges, once again near Palm Springs this year, decided to up its already tight security big time. They were forced to buy out an entire resort (using an alias) for several days in Indian Wells, closing down its restaurants and golf courses to the public and sending home many of its workers for the duration. Not that any of that kept ace reporter Lee Fang from finding out about it and heading out there, as detailed in his new exclusive today:
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The Renaissance Esmerelda, the conference venue this year, was guarded carefully with every entrance blocked and the entire 560-room resort rented out. I arrived at the hotel the night before the event, but was followed closely by security and asked to leave the next morning before the Koch meeting guests arrived.
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Though the donors will funnel tens of millions of dollars into the election this year, they will not have to disclose a single cent. Using an elaborate array of foundations, nonprofits, and other legal entities, the Koch network sponsored bus tours, attack ads, think tanks, and hired Tea Party organizers to shape the midterm elections two years ago. Now it appears they appear to be expanding their effort.
The most that the public knows about these meetings has been culled from leaked audio tapes, reporting from journalists like Ken Vogel, and from an invitation I exclusively reported back in October of 2010.
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At the Palm Springs Airport last weekend, I eventually ran into Phil Kerpen, the vice president of Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party group founded by David Koch. Kerpen, who was in a rush to make it to the event, didn’t say much about the agenda. Kerpen’s group recently purchased $6 million in undisclosed attack ads against President Obama, the largest such buy of the entire campaign cycle so far.
Kerpen asked how I knew about the conference. “I thought they had stopped all leaks,” he muttered, as I walked with him through the baggage claim.
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“Ask your leaker to post my speech, because it’s very good,” he added, before getting in a car with two associates.
The added secrecy was apparent even to local reporters, who were confused about why the multi-golf course Esmerelda Renaissance was locked down and why the hotel staff couldn’t talk to anyone about what was going on.
Heheh…Sounds like that must have cost a lot of additional money! Sorry if we caused you any problems, Mr. and Mr. Koch! 🙂
By the way, the exclusive by Fang — formerly of ThinkProgress — kicks off the new Republic Report blog (“Investigating how money corrupts democracy”) with a bang today. The new muckraking project of the similarly new United Republic (“Democracy is not for sale”) organization, includes the work of Fang, a number of other great and (mostly) progressive muckrakers and trouble makers, but also includes…wait for it…Jack Abramoff!
Yes, that Jack Abramoff — the former, now-disgraced, previously-imprisoned, but now-finally-free and supposedly-reformed GOP uber-lobbyist! Steve Clemons at The Atlantic explains in his profile of the noteworthy new project today.
Fang’s contributions (follow him on Twitter at @LHFang) alone would be reason enough to keep an eye on Republic Report. Everything else is more than enough icing on a tantalizing new cake to demand the site be bookmarked immediately…in our always humble opinion, of course.
UPDATE 3:50pm PT: Amanda Terkel and Ryan Grim at Huffington Post report a source inside the Koch’s democracy-hating meeting near Palm Springs this year says the group “pledged approximately $100 million to defeat President Obama in the 2012 elections” during the course of the retreat, and offered another interesting thought as well…
The “free market capitalists” who inherited their daddy’s oil refinery fortune, accounted for a good deal of that themselves, according to the source. Charles Koch is said to have personally pledged $40 million, while David Koch pledged $20 million.
Also, there was this: “The source told The Huffington Post that they lamented the direction the conference has taken over the years. They said it used to be about ‘conservative strategy’ and building a movement, but now it was mostly an ‘alpha male’ spectacle focused on fundraising to beat Obama.”
You’ll recall when we broke the story last September at Mother Jones, based on recordings we’d obtained of the proceedings inside the brothers’ Summer Seminar last year near Vail, that Charles had compared Obama to Saddam Hussein in his opening remarks, and vowed to wage “the mother of all wars” against him this year. He then proceeded to rattle off the names of 30 or so folks who had given at least one million or more to the effort by that time last year. In a sidebar piece which ran with our two-part exclusive, MoJo’s Gavin Arsonsen detailed many of the folks named by Charles who had otherwise expected that their contributions to the “war” to unseat the President would be kept a secret. The HuffPo report also mentions a few of the folks in attendance last week in Palm Springs.
Their name isn’t “Koch” for nothing, you know…
Sure sounds like a vast right-wing conspiracy to me.
Not that I am a fan of Obama’s tenure and all the things he has traded away or decided not to push, but when are we going to stop the fake voting machines?
Paper Ballots for every state, hand counted, oversight from all parties involved, and NO media winner calls beforehand. NOW!
Haha. The Koch brothers whined in the Weekly Standard about protestors in zombie costumes, like me, outside their Rancho Mirage last year. Pictures at Wit’s End.
They are malicious psychopaths who don’t care what they kill to make themselves richer and more powerful
Gail @4,
You said:
Bingo. It is about time we realize this is a deadly disease at work, which needs treatment desperately, not a 3 Stooges Episode.
George Soros vs Koch Brothers Slightly Biased Graphic
http://www.billionairechronicle...-koch-brothers
Grrr – I lost my 12 page diatribe due to incorrect email address!!
Also at the conference was Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of the Citadel Investment Group. He supported Obama in 2008.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor showed up again – someone has to bus tables.
Sheldon Adelson – as loaded as D. Koch appeared along with 250 others.
250 sociopathic money addicts. The stock market is roaring back, loads of real estate to snap up cheap, leeching workers crushed, and that isn’t enough; ‘The Greed NEVER stops’.
The lockdown – must have been the buzz of the retirement area surrounding the place.
OT: Indiana Sec. of State Convicted On Voter Fraud Charges
http://livewire.talkingpointsme...on-voter-fraud
Is it just me or is this beginning to sound scary? With all this money being thrown around by these plutocrats, I’m concerned that they will NOT tolerate a loss in the 2012 election, one way or another.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...usiness_Plot
Maureen @9–
Way past beginning.
Why are they so afraid of the public? If they have to hide so elaborately, surely they are ashamed of their evil plans?
Hard to recognize Abramoff without his Fedora.
They should save the money. Obama is doing a fantastic job himself of turning off potential voters by having mayors send in TANKS to break up peaceful protests.
Hmmm. I’m sure Brad will be all over this soon….
http://www.examiner.com/indepen...caucus-results
Hi All,
I recently was pointed to the link below somewhere during my blog travels. I encourage anyone who wants to understand what we are up against to read the book. It’s called The Authoritarians and it’s free.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
These people are attempting to overthrow the duly elected government of the United States. Why else would they be so secretive? They should be tried for treason and hung.
Ralph Crown: “These people are attempting to overthrow the duly elected government of the United States.”
—
They did so in 2000 and 2004, There’s literally nothing new here. The suspicion that the Republican caucus vote totals are being made up, fudged, manipulated, subject to fraud are kind of humorous in retrospect; those of us outraged as long ago as 2000 were called crazy and sore losers.
Suck it up Republicans/Libertarians, Dr. Frankenstein was no doubt similarly horrified when his monster turned on him.
“They did so in 2000 and 2004, There’s literally nothing new here”
…Actually this occurred after the Coup of Dallas, November 22, 1963…..
Maureen Meyer #9
The Koch family has been pushing its extremist agenda for generations…and succeeding. Even when Democratic leaders such as Obama are voted in on a different mandate, they carry out the Koch agenda for the most part.
Adam8 (autocratically banned from Rawstory.com by Roxanne Cooper, RawStory’s dictator)