Always interested in the differences in how lefty billionaire Tom Steyer is treated by our friends in the media as opposed to righty billionaires Charles and David Koch.

Always interested in the differences in how lefty billionaire Tom Steyer is treated by our friends in the media as opposed to righty billionaires Charles and David Koch.

Some tough questions? Same built in skepticism? Same worrying about “money in politics?” https://t.co/Yr5KbF6MXI

— Ron Nehring (@RonNehring) March 12, 2018

Lol => CNN Ditches 'Trump Jobs Tracker' After Economy Booms https://t.co/y1hkocNze9 pic.twitter.com/UqW7CElX6s

— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) March 12, 2018

Billionaire Charles Koch rejected in the most forceful terms possible the rumors that he's considering lending his support to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Charles Koch: It's a "blood libel" that I'll support Hillary https://t.co/anUBffUcFN pic.twitter.com/5NQt1cE28W

— The Hill (@thehill) July 31, 2016

Remember the White House sharing Koch tax documents?

Remember the White House sharing Koch tax documents? http://t.co/MwuavG8okK

— David Freddoso (@freddoso) October 1, 2014

◼ Court says TIGTA must process FOIA on White House access to tax records - Mark Tapscott/Washington Examiner

A federal judge ruled Monday that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration cannot withhold information on whether the White House received confidential taxpayer information by citing certain exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act.

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Amy Berman Jackson granted Cause of Action's motion for a summary judgement, thus requiring TIGTA to provide documents the group requested in 2012 concerning correspondence between the IRS and the White House....

Federal law makes it illegal for government employees to disclose confidential tax return information, but the president is allowed an exception. Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code "provides that upon written request by the president, signed by him personally, the secretary [of the Treasury] shall furnish returns and return information to the president, or to such employee or employees of the White House Office as the president may designate by name in such request," Cause of Action said in its court filings.

The nonprofit sued under the FOIA after TIGTA refused to provide any such documents, citing several exemptions under the FOIA. The Oct.9, 2012, Cause of Action FOIA was prompted by media reports in 2010 that former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Austan Goolsbee, claimed tax code violations by the Koch brothers, the Kansas-based libertarian industrialists.

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Sen. Harry Reid's antics are catching up with him

◼ Koch-Addled Democrats Slapped With Ethics Complaints

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) is obsessed with the Charles and David Koch, the libertarian philanthropy barons who are just trying to make a difference in the world. His obsession may have gotten him into trouble.

Reid, who has publicly attacked the Koch brothers hundreds of times on the Senate floor, is currently facing an ethics complaint from a pro-First Amendment group for “unlawfully and unethically targeting private citizens.”

In the complaint, Tea Party Patriots accuses Reid of misusing Senate resources “to engage in partisan campaign activity in violation of federal laws and Senate rules.”

“This is nothing more than a continuation of the thuggish intimidation campaign mounted by the Obama administration to target and silence people and organizations Democrats disagree with. It has to stop,” TPP co-founder Jenny Beth Martin said in a statement. “The Senate is obliged to investigate allegations of ethical misconduct and we trust the Senate Select Committee on Ethics will accept this obligation in an open and honest manner.”

MSNBC Co-Host Rails on Harry Reid’s ‘Koch Addiction’, Calls Reid a Liar More Than 12 Times

◼ Friday’s edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” opened with an unusual segment. It was 12 minutes of an unfiltered discussion of Harry Reid’s almost-daily attacks on the Koch Brothers. - The Blaze

...Co-host Mika Brzezinski, and in-studio panelists Jim Vandehei of Politico, and “Morning Joe” regulars Willie Geist, and Katty Kay were silent for much of the segment, speaking only when called upon to join the uncomfortable conversation.

At the 7:00 point of the clip, Joe actually referred to the leader of the U.S. Senate by saying, “He’s like one of those cheap, dirty, political consultants you stay away from because they would embarrass you.”

Not a voice was raised to object to Scarborough’s argument.

The usually unapologetic Democratic supporter, Mika Brzezinski said nothing for most of the segment. In fact, it was 10 minutes into the clip before Mika finally shared her feelings on Reid’s relentless attack on the Koch brothers by saying, “I cringed watching it,” and then criticizing his comments’ “destructive tone.”...

Koch: I'm Fighting to Restore a Free Society

◼ Instead of welcoming free debate, collectivists engage in character assassination. - Charles G. Koch/Wall St. Journal

I have devoted most of my life to understanding the principles that enable people to improve their lives. It is those principles—the principles of a free society—that have shaped my life, my family, our company and America itself.

Unfortunately, the fundamental concepts of dignity, respect, equality before the law and personal freedom are under attack by the nation's own government. That's why, if we want to restore a free society and create greater well-being and opportunity for all Americans, we have no choice but to fight for those principles. I have been doing so for more than 50 years, primarily through educational efforts. It was only in the past decade that I realized the need to also engage in the political process.

A truly free society is based on a vision of respect for people and what they value. In a truly free society, any business that disrespects its customers will fail, and deserves to do so. The same should be true of any government that disrespects its citizens. The central belief and fatal conceit of the current administration is that you are incapable of running your own life, but those in power are capable of running it for you. This is the essence of big government and collectivism....

Instead of encouraging free and open debate, collectivists strive to discredit and intimidate opponents. They engage in character assassination. (I should know, as the almost daily target of their attacks.)...

Instead of fostering a system that enables people to help themselves, America is now saddled with a system that destroys value, raises costs, hinders innovation and relegates millions of citizens to a life of poverty, dependency and hopelessness. This is what happens when elected officials believe that people's lives are better run by politicians and regulators than by the people themselves. Those in power fail to see that more government means less liberty, and liberty is the essence of what it means to be American. Love of liberty is the American ideal.

If more businesses (and elected officials) were to embrace a vision of creating real value for people in a principled way, our nation would be far better off—not just today, but for generations to come. I'm dedicated to fighting for that vision. I'm convinced most Americans believe it's worth fighting for, too.

In Harry Reid’s America a man must win political office so that his sons may have the liberty to practice law and register as lobbyists, engage in rent-seeking and government relations and crisis management and communications, in order to give their children a right to live in Brooklyn, to enroll in the New School, to visit the Vermont Studio Center, to have cronies finance their off-off-off-Broadway shows, to enjoy their allowance from grandpa.

◼ The Grandfather - Matthew Continetti/Washington Free Beacon

...In recent years Reid has declared an American war “lost” while our troops still fought overseas; praised President Obama for his “light” skin and “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one”; asserted falsely and without evidence that Mitt Romney had not paid any taxes for a decade; and said “Why would we want to do that?” when asked if he would fund cancer research during the government shutdown.

Now, with his majority in danger, his president unpopular, his floor agenda obstructed by members of his own caucus, Reid thrashes about uncontrollably. He calls Obamacare horror stories “untrue.” He says Obamacare numbers are not as high as projected because Americans “are not educated on how to use the Internet.” His Senate Majority PAC launches a $3 million ad campaign tying Republican candidates to two men most Americans have never heard of, two men who, funnily enough, are more popular than Reid....The Koch brothers, Reid says, “rig the system to benefit themselves.” He should know.

The fact that Harry Reid’s political and influence operation includes his five children has been established for some time. A few weeks ago, when I first heard Reid accuse private citizens of being un-American, I dredged up a Los Angeles Times article from 2003 with the headline, “In Nevada, the Name to Know Is Reid.” Chuck Neubauer and Richard T. Cooper’s meticulously researched and reported article begins with the story of the “Clark County Conservation of Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002,” a land bill of the sort that puts people to sleep. “What Reid did not explain” when he introduced the bill in the Senate, Neubauer and Cooper wrote, “was that the bill promised a cavalcade of benefits to real estate developers, corporations, and local institutions that were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbying fees to his sons’ and son-in-law’s firms.” I wonder why he left that part out.

...This is the arrangement put before the voters this coming Election Day; this is the “system” rigged to benefit the family Reid; this is the configuration of power that Charles and David Koch want to disrupt. How awful of them. How “un-American.”

Washington Post Caught LYING About Koch Bros

◼ The Post authors relied on a report by a far-left group called International Forum on Globalization... - John Hinderaker/Powerline

◼ On Thursday, the Washington Post published an article by Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin titled “The biggest lease holder in Canada’s oil sands isn’t Exxon Mobil or Chevron. It’s the Koch brothers.”

...The theme of the article was that the Keystone Pipeline is all about the Koch brothers; or, at least, that this is a plausible claim. The Post authors relied on a report by a far-left group called International Forum on Globalization that I (Hinderaker) debunked last October.

So Thursday evening, I wrote about the Post article ◼ here. I pointed out that Koch is not, in fact, the largest leaser of tar sands land; that Koch will not be a user of the pipeline if it is built; and that construction of the Keystone Pipeline would actually be harmful to Koch’s economic interests, which is why Koch has never taken a position on the pipeline’s construction. The Keystone Pipeline, in short, has nothing whatsoever to do with the Koch brothers.

...The Post’s response attempted to explain “Why we wrote about the Koch Industries [sic] and its leases in Canada’s oil sands.” Good question! What’s the answer?

The Powerline article itself, and its tone, is strong evidence that issues surrounding the Koch brothers’ political and business interests will stir and inflame public debate in this election year. That’s why we wrote the piece.

So in the Post’s view, it is acceptable to publish articles that are both literally false (Koch is the largest tar sands leaseholder) and massively misleading (the Keystone Pipeline is all about Koch Industries), if by doing so the paper can “stir and inflame public debate in this election year.” I can’t top Jonah Goldberg’s comment on that howler:

By this logic any unfair attack posing as reporting is worthwhile when people try to correct the record. Why not just have at it and accuse the Kochs of killing JFK or hiding the Malaysian airplane? The resulting criticism would once again provide “strong evidence that issues surrounding the Koch brothers’ political and business interests will stir and inflame public debate in this election year.”

Let me offer an alternative explanation of why the Washington Post published their Keystone/Koch smear: 1) The Washington Post in general, and Mufson and Eilperin in particular, are agents of the Left, the environmental movement and the Democratic Party. 2) The Keystone Pipeline is a problem for the Democratic Party because 60% of voters want the pipeline built, while the party’s left-wing base insists that it not be approved. 3) The Keystone Pipeline is popular because it would broadly benefit the American people by creating large numbers of jobs, making gasoline more plentiful and bringing down the cost of energy. 4) Therefore, the Democratic Party tries to distract from the real issues surrounding the pipeline by claiming, falsely, that its proponents are merely tools of the billionaire Koch brothers–who, in fact, have nothing to do with Keystone one way or the other. 5) The Post published its article to assist the Democratic Party with its anti-Keystone talking points....

This kind of incest is common in Washington. You can’t separate the reporters from the activists from the Obama administration officials from the billionaire cronies. Often, as in this instance, the same people wear two or more of those hats simultaneously. However bad you think the corruption and cronyism in Washington are, they are worse than you imagine. And if you think the Washington Post is part of a free and independent press, think again.

◼ WASHINGTON POST FALLS FOR LEFT-WING FRAUD, EMBARRASSES ITSELF [UPDATED WITH POST'S RESPONSE]

...Why would the Washington Post embarrass itself by republishing a thoroughly discredited attempt to link the Koch brothers to the Keystone Pipeline? Because that is a Democratic Party talking point, and the Post is a Democratic Party newspaper. But the truth is a little worse than that.

Who is Post reporter Juliet Eilperin? Among other things, she is married to Andrew Light, who writes on climate policy for the Center for American Progress. The Center for American Progress is an Obama administration front group headed by John Podesta, who is a “special advisor” to the Obama administration. CAP’s web site, Think Progress, has carried out a years-long vendetta against the Koch brothers that has focused largely on the environment. Ms. Eilperin’s conflict in writing about environmental issues has already been a subject of controversy at the Post. The paper’s ombudsman should examine this latest example of Ms. Eilperin throwing facts to the winds in her eagerness to promote her (and her husband’s) far-left agenda....

Monday meme: Democracy? What democracy?

After shrieking that rich conservatives are hijacking the 2014 elections, it turns out that 13 of the 20 richest donors are giving their millions to Democrats -- donating how much?

◼ EDITORIAL: Kochs vs. Steyer: When ‘evil’ campaign cash is OK - By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Conservative contributors bad, Democratic donors good

Democrats love to throw mud balls at the Koch brothers — David and Charles — because they’re successful entrepreneurs, and they’re generous with groups that promote the free-market values that enabled them to succeed.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee even sponsors a website, StoptheKochBrothers.com. The Brothers Koch are accused of “planning a GOP takeover in 2014” by spending $27 million on political campaigns around the country.

The Democratic message is that wealthy Republicans should stay out of politics. When Tom Steyer, the billionaire onetime hedge-fund manager, promised the other day to spend up to $50 million of his own money and to raise another $50 million for Democrats, the critics of “too much money in politics” fell silent. Silence is said to be golden, but this time the silence is only brass.

...Hypocrisy doesn’t even stop there. Mr. Steyer made his enormous fortune as a hedge-fund manager, the demonized trade that Democrats blame for the 2008 market collapse. That was then, and this is now. Political survival sometimes requires “situational ethics.”

◼ REMINDER: Universities in planned FCC Newsroom Probe Got $1.8 million from Mega-Left-Wing Manipulator, George Soros... - CNS News

It turns out the 'Evil' Koch Bros are only the 59th biggest donors in American politics. Can you guess who is number one?

◼ OpenSecrets.org tallied the top donors in federal elections between 1989 and 2014. Koch Industries -- privately owned by the Evil Koch Bros -- is on the list, to be sure, but doesn't appear until the 59th slot, with $18 million in donations, 90 percent of which went to Republicans.

So who occupies the 58 spots ahead of the Evil Koch Bros? Six of the top 10 are ... wait for it ... unions. They gave more than $278 million, with most of it going to Democrats.

...So, if money is the measure of evil in American politics and the Evil Koch Bros only come in 59th, who is really the most evil donor ever?

Turns out it's Act Blue, which has given just short of $100 million in its lifetime, which only started contributing in 2004, 15 years less than the Evil Koch Bros.

Goolsbee's Mysterious Tweet About the Koch Brothers' Taxes

◼ What Did Austan Goolsbee Know, and How Did He Know It? - Robert Stacy McCain/Viral Read

President Obama‘s burgeoning IRS scandal has developed many strange twists — there were new revelations today about the tax agency’s harassment of targets on the White House’s enemies list — but perhaps no twist is stranger than the shadow of suspicion cast on former presidential economic advisor Austan Goolsbee.

In August 2010, when the Tea Party movement was on the verge of wiping out Nancy Pelosi‘s Democrat congressional majority, Goolsbee told reporters that Koch Industries paid no corporate income tax. Libertarian philanthropists Charles Koch and David Koch were being attacked by the White House at that time for their funding of non-profit groups that supported the Tea Party, such as Americans for Prosperity.

Once it became know that Internal Revenue Service officials had engaged in “inappropriate” targeting of applications by Tea Party groups for federal non-profit status, Goolsbee’s claim of knowledge about the Kochs’ private business got renewed scrutiny. Two weeks ago, Goolsbee sent out a Twitter explanation, asserting that his information came from a newspaper article. But after Goolsbee’s Tweet was quoted in a Slate.com article by David Weigel — poof! –the Tweet got deleted.

What is Goolsbee trying to hide? Was the Obama administration illegally using the IRS to secretly pry into its enemies’ private finances? John McCormack of the Weekly Standard intends to get some answers...

◼ Why did a former White House official delete a statement about Koch Industries taxes? - John McCormack/Weekly Standard

In August 2010, Austan Goolsbee, serving at the time as economic adviser to President Obama, told reporters during an anonymous background briefing that Koch Industries doesn't pay corporate income taxes. That statement was made at the same time that top Democrats, including President Obama himself, were demonizing Charles and David Koch, the owners of Koch Industries, for giving money to Tea Party groups. Goolsbee's remark led to a federal investigation, the results of which have never been released.