Scott Walker set to attend Koch brothers event in California this weekend

The industrialist and his younger brother, David Koch, sit at the helm of a political empire that advances their free-market views in elections and policy battles at the state and local level.

“We’re headed toward a two-tiered society – a society that’s destroying opportunities for the disadvantaged and creating welfare for the rich”, Koch said.

The move toward more openness comes after the Kochs have been vilified on the left by critics including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who spent much of the 2014 elections castigating them as “shadowy billionaires”.

The lender is basically a federal government group which helps You can include.S. firms sell off… Small-government activists have said it wastes taxpayer dollars to enrich the country’s biggest companies.

The Koch brothers’ network alone is expected to drop nearly $1 billion on the 2016 election.

Gov. Chris Christie isn’t among a select group of Republican presidential candidates getting the chance to make fundraising pitches in the coming days to the billionaire Koch brothers and other wealthy conservatives in California.

“I wish the whole word could see what goes on”, he said.

The donors in attendance, Walker said, “are here because you love America”. The party has routinely portrayed the brothers — their Koch Industries is one of the largest private companies in the country — as greedy corporate tycoons whose work in politics is an end to padding their bank accounts.

According to a recent study published by the New York Times, Wealthy individuals and corporations have begun to replace powerless people as direct beneficiaries of the US political system and the Constitution. Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Ted Cruz have been given an invitation to audition for the Koch brothers.

Politico’s Mike Allen is moderating the candidate sessions, which are on the record. Other Republicans mingling with donors over cocktails on a lawn ringed with palm trees and decorative columns that overlooks the Pacific Ocean included Colorado Sen.

Asked about some of his Cabinet choices, should he be chosen as GOP nominee and elected next November, Walker named fellow hopefuls Fiorina and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, as well as former Missouri Sen.

“Those are the ones we have talked to the most and who seem to be the possible leaders”, Charles Koch said.

Democrats, in the meantime, are preparing to spend millions of their own to paint the Kochs’ political efforts as cynical and self-interested. It is exactly what a fascist dictator would do and a means for the Koch brothers to repay Republican Mitch McConnell with the greatest day of his 35-year political life. The candidates invited to Dana Point, he said, have been “leading voices” on some or all of the issues that the Koch network cares most about: criminal justice reform, fiscal responsibility, their campaign against the export import bank and policy areas that they frame as “overregulation” and “corporate welfare”. The announcement prompted the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, another donor, to sever its relationship with the fund – a publicity coup, some argued, for the Kochs. In April, Charles Koch, who for many years granted only the occasional interview to his hometown newspaper, the Wichita Eagle, answered questions from USA Today. The groups may even promote specific candidates in limited ways.