We, the Corporations .. ?

The political network overseen by Charles and David  Koch plans to spend close to $900 million on the 2016 campaign, an unparalleled effort to shape a presidential election that is already on track to be the most expensive in history.

Hundreds of conservative donors recruited by the Kochs gathered over the weekend for three days of issue seminars, strategy sessions and mingling with rising elected officials. 

 

The Koch family of industrialists and businesspeople is most notable for its control of Koch Industries, the second largest privately owned company in the United States (with 2013 revenues of $115 billion). The family business was started by Fred C. Koch, who developed a new cracking method for the refinement of heavy oil into gasoline. Fred's four sons litigated against each other over their interests in the business during the 1980s and 1990s. Charles and David still with Koch Industries.  

The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; they've cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to "buy" Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the Tea Party and powers today's GOP. 

Under the nearly five-decade reign of CEO Charles Koch, the company has paid out record civil and criminal environmental penalties. And in 1999, a jury handed down to Koch's pipeline company what was then the largest wrongful-death judgment of its type in U.S. history, resulting from the explosion of a defective pipeline that incinerated a pair of Texas teenagers.

Money and more money, to watch for.  Just a thought.