BREAKING: Koch Brothers $$’s Behind Caesar Rodney Institute Funding

Filed in Delaware, National by on November 13, 2013

People much cannier than I have been trying to unravel the money trail of the many dummy organizations used by the Koch Brothers to funnel money to propaganda machines.

Thanks to a state-by-state review of the Koch Brothers labyrinthine finances, we now know that the Koch Brothers have  been the largest rainmaker for the Caesar Rodney Institute. Here’s the info on Delaware, and the literal money quote:

CRI  is  not required  to  disclose  its  donors  to  the  public, and  does  not do  so  voluntarily. The  two  known  CRI  donors, though, are  both  secretive  right-wing  organizations  based  in  Virginia. In  just  the  two  years  of  2009  and  2010, CRI  received $352,500 from  the  Koch-funded  Donors  Capital  Fund – representing  61%  of  CRI’s  total  funding  in  those  two  years. Donors  Capital  Fund, known  as  the  “dark  money  ATM  of  the  conservative  movement,” keeps  its  own  funders anonymous, therefore  adding  another  layer  of  secrecy. The  only  other  known CRI  funder  is the  State  Policy  Network (also a Koch-funded  non-profit), which  funneled  $66,000 to  the  institute  between  2008  and  2010.

Alert the media!: As I pointed out from its inception, CRI is nothing but a propaganda tool funded by the right-wing big money guys. The media should either cite the fact that CRI is underwritten by the Koch cabal, or stop using its stuff and stop providing a platform for its ‘experts’. Either identify them properly for who and what they are, or cross them off your e-rolodexes. Anything else is journalistic malpractice.

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  1. Ezra Temko says:

    CRI is the Delaware affiliate of the State Policy Network. SPN Associate Members in Delaware include the Bastiat Society of Wilmington and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

    ALEC is also an Associate Member of SPN.

    From NEA:
    “In 1973, Paul Weyrich and Joseph Coors created The Heritage Foundation to develop public policy. Weyrich also established the Free Congress Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization created to disseminate public policy from the right. The Heritage Foundation, under Weyrich’s direction, then organized the American Legislative Exchange Council, a Washington-based association whose membership is made up primarily of conservative Republican state legislators. Together the three founded the State Policy Network to oversee an association of state-based think-tanks that function as Heritage-like organizations at the state level.”

  2. Jason330 says:

    I knew that development job they advertised a little while ago would have been the easiest fucking job in the world. I should have applied for that.

  3. kavips says:

    I’m more interested in finding why that money was so ineffective. CRI is a joke here. Even the News Journal thinks so… which means the CRI sucks a$$.. Was it because in Delaware, there was a counterforce? Do other states not have smart people?

  4. Jason330 says:

    Also- “Dr” John Stapleford is a pretty uniquely transparent and fraudulent fraud. Tarting up the wingnut talking points by putting them in the mouth of an alleged doctor doesn’t add the credibility they think it does.

    As this point it is kind of like having Dr. Nick Riviera as a spokesperson.

  5. The State Policy Network now also receives significant Koch funding.

    Check out this interactive ‘Muckety’ map:

    http://www.muckety.com/State-Policy-Network/5060648.muckety

  6. “Was it because in Delaware, there was a counterforce?”

    I’d like to think so….

    ” Do other states not have smart people?”

    Yes, but WTF is the reason they can’t get traction?