The Koch brothers hate Donald Trump, but they love Mike Pence. The Koch brothers had supported Scott Walker in the Republican primaries. When he sank like a stone, they made clear their distaste for Trump. But now Trump has chosen a politician they admire: a religious and economic conservative.
The billionaire brothers, who run a network of donors to their vast infrastructure of Republican-allied political operations, so loathe Trump that Charles Koch described the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as voting for either “cancer or a heart attack.” David H. Koch, meanwhile, is reported by Politico to have withdrawn his $1 million donation to the Republican National Convention because of the party’s new standard-bearer.
Having built no ground operation of his own, Trump desperately needs the ready-made, plug-and-play infrastructure built by the Kochs, the mightiest entity of which is Americans for Prosperity, whose president just loves, loves him some Mike Pence. And why wouldn’t he? Phillips’ boss, David Koch, has given some $300,000 to Pence’s campaigns, according to the website Follow the Money.
Pence is the hard-line Evangelical conservative who signed legislation legalizing discrimination against gay people in Indiana, making it okay to refuse service if your religion opposes homosexuality.
Pence built his reputation opposing LGBT rights and abortion rights.
Pence fought to defend the state’s right-to-work laws (initiated by his predecessor Mitch Daniels) and opposes raising the minimum wage.
Pence, of course, is a vocal supporter of charter schools and vouchers, anything but public schools. Trump too loves charter schools, so at least we know they agree on that issue. They both want to privatize American education and abolish teachers unions.
Trump is indeed a card. Maybe the joker. He has been married three times and has had countless girl friends. He owned casinos. He has gay friends and enjoys the friendship of Elton John and Caitlyn Jenner. His daughter is married to an Orthodox Jew.
And his running mate is a hard-right social conservative who opposes all the things that Trump practices in his own life.
Go figure.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane all of your defense of Hillary didn’t persuade me to vote for her . All of Trumps idiot remarks including yesterdays interview with Lesley Stahl,didn’t do it.
But listening to the right wing talking heads and politicians rallying around the flag pole, has done the trick . The sad part is that this is “the vast right wing conspiracy”. They get me to vote for false progressives every four years . Only to rail against the Republican neo-liberal policy they pursue for the next four.
Right on! The false progressives should be called the regressives.
Has Diane been defending Hillary all that much? Maybe I missed it. It’s not so much that Diane is defending Hillary as that she is appalled at the alternative, Trump/Pence, who is/are many magnitudes of insanity worse than Hillary. Trump’s economy plans are basically standard GOP issue: lower taxes on the rich, trickle down and then cause huge deficits and use that as an excuse to cut the social programs.
Carlene
Understand I loath Hillary . I would rather spend four years fighting her tooth and nail . Than have my children spend the next forty years living with the legacy of what Trump with a right wing majority of both houses and the supreme will accomplish .
I have spent 35 years living with the legacy of Ronald Reagan and I am here to say that he destroyed the middle class. My problem with the Clinton’s and to some degree Obama is that they were opportunists who furthered the Reagan agenda to have a legacy.
But given the choice between a Real Republican administration and one pretending to be Republicans I will vote for the fakes every time .
I know Truman stated it a little different
I will assure you that on education on immigration and on trade everything we loath about the policy of the neo liberal Democrats will be tripled down on by the Republicans .
Of the 218 votes for the fast-tracking of trade agreements for a five year period only 26 were Democrats .
On School vouchers for DC 240 Republicans voted for, only 2 Democrats voted for.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/house-gop-passes-dc-private-school-vouchers-white-house-objects/2015/10/21/cb72de80-776d-11e5-bc80-9091021aeb69_story.html
On immigration the Republicans led by Orin hatch have fought for unlimited H1B visa which put our STEM workers at a disadvantage.
Our teachers as well ,as Gulen uses 35% of H1Bs for teaching.
The Donald loves H1bs
Donald Trump working with extreme right wing Republicans will not only be a disaster for America’s schools and teachers he will a disaster for all American workers and the middle class.
I will vote for her . I will leave the polling place and go for a drink.
THANK GOODNESS!
AAnd take a look at this…because not liking hilary is one thing, but the hate out there
. “Both Sides Now?” http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/18/opinion/both-sides-now.html?ref=international&_r=0
I’ve known for some time that only fools trust what they read in the corporate media and on Independent blogs without fact checking. But this one is new to me, and makes trusting the corporate media even worse.
And when you disagree with the media in an internet forum (Blog or otherwise) and point out the data from a fact check site, there will always be someone that says you can’t trust the fact check site because it is known to be biased but they never provide reliable data to prove their allegations.
Casting doubt on any source that disagrees with what you might think seems to be the norm for many people who often trust the most untrustworthy sites.
I think that when individual believe one thing and the facts prove them wrong, it is easy to hold on to your views by claiming any site that has facts that prove you wrong is biased.
Oh Lloyd. I have to tell you how I was suddenly attacked at Oped, because I put up a ‘balanced’ piece about Hillary. So fascinating…
Hillary has a hard core hate club out there that spans the political spectrum. A lot of that hate is unjustified and comes from the far right media hate machine that has spend decades demonizing Hillary.
Yes, I know. But how could this simple positive piece about her, get such a reaction.
Paul Krugman (not always my go-to- but a very astute observer of mankind) gave me the answer with his wonderful observatIon of journalism today.’BOTHSIDEDNESS” THE ART of creating FALSE EQUIVALENCIES.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/18/opinion/both-sides-now.html?ref=international&_r=0
I realize that the reactions I was seeing out there, everywhere, was the result of a decade of ‘balanced news’. The need to report what seems like both sides of a story, but in fact, just misrepresented the truth. For example:
“To be fair, some reporters and news organizations try to point out Trump statements that are false, frightening, or both. All too often, however, they still try to maintain their treasured balance by devoting equal time — and, as far as readers and viewers can tell, equal or greater passion — to denouncing far less important misstatements from Hillary Clinton. In fact, surveys show that Mrs. Clinton has, overall, received much more negative coverage than her opponent.” says Krugman.”
We are at the point now where the polarization is so complete, that one must choose sides. Obama is all bad, so If I liked this, I am immediately, suspect.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/15/opinion/with-obama-the-personal-is-presidential.html
Once we had different expectations for journalism but that was before these conservatives without conscience took over the media and the legislatures.
http://www.peoplesworld.org/conservatives-without-conscience-an-insider-views-the-gop-s-ominous-politics/
The Hillary-bashing exhausted me, and I put up something that didn’t paint her as an evil vampire. I thought my insight was trusted and I do not play mind games. I post what interests me, and I remembered her.
I was there, you see. I am no big fan of Hillary; I saw her at the Bilderbergs, so I have no illusions. Obama was there, too. But the level of animosity out there is reaching the height it did when Kenneth Starr went after her husband.
I remember the master of demonizing people. Mccarthy. I didn’t just read about him,( or Musselini or Hitler) I lived back then!
This is the article that got these Hillary-haters upset: https://thepolicy.us/thinking-about-hillary-a-plea-for-reason-308fce6d187c#.qa12kblah
Rob, I am watching this comedy of errors, unfold as it has so many times in history. But then, who needs history. The Kochs are rewriting it in North Carolina. https://dianeravitch.net/2014/12/05/north-carolina-plans-to-adopt-koch-funded-social-studies-curriculum/
I don’t know Diane- maybe you can list where the Koch brothers diverge from standard DC ed reform. They support privatization and bash public schools. Differs from standard issue “centrist” ed reform how, specifically?
Seems to me Pence has a lot in common with the “ed reform movement”. They agree on 90% of the agenda of the last 20 years.
what is “standard issue ‘centrist’ ed reform,” specifically?
Pence attempted to shut the U.S. gov’t down in an attempt to destroy Planned Parenthood. That is an extremist view.
loved it.
Cross-posted at http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Who-Is-Mike-Pence-The-Koc-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Americans-For-Prosperity_Corruption_Corruption_Diane-Ravitch-160718-40.html#comment607595
with this comment:
Don’t ya love the Orwellian names… Americans for Prosperity, a group that has pushed the middle class into poverty while enriching the multi-billionaires….lie the ones at the very end of this wonderful series of charts — Wealth inequality in America: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
After reading about Donald Trump’s history of bilking others and bankrupting many of his own corporations but always coming out on top flush with cash as he loots the coffers of his failing business interests, it makes since why he picked MIke Pence.
He picked Mike Pence to loosen up the strings to the Koch purse. Trump has often bragged about financing his own campaign without saying he is loaning his campaign his own money and expects to pay himself back with camping donations from others. I’ve also read that he rents space in his own buildings, stays and eats in hotels he owns so when he pays campaign expenses he is pay himself the money he loaned his campaign that he plans to pay back with the cash donated from others.
If Trump is going to make a profit — he has been quoted saying he would make a profit running for president — from his run for the White House, he needs the Koch cash.
I wonder how many of Trump’s blind, deaf and dumb followers are donating money to his campaign? It is obvious that Trump plans to make fools of the Koch brothers too. But who knows, maybe the Koch brothers will have the last laugh and Trump assassinated if he wins the election so their boy Pence ends up being president.
Good points. Sadly, this country has a history of assassinations and attempted assassinations. There are enough crazy loons with guns in this country that the Koch’s would not have to engineer a plot to take out Trump or Hillary. Thank God, Obama has been well protected. President Pence is just as scary as President Trump.
If Hillary had Bernie as her VP ruining mate, that would be like insurance to help keep someone from the hate-filled far right from wanting to assassinate her.
More about Mike Pence.
Yesterday (7-17-16) 60 Minutes Interviewed Trump and Pence together, and Trump said (I heard him say it while I was watching his mouth moving) that it was okay with him that Pence voted for the Iraq war but Trump could not forgive Hillary’s vote for that bill.
What no one mentioned in that interview is that Pence not only voted for the Bill but he co-sponsored the Bill to start the war in Iraq.
“Pence was a congressman then, and not only voted to authorize the Iraq War but was a co-sponsor of the war resolution.”
https://theintercept.com/2016/07/14/donald-trump-ridiculed-iraq-war-position-held-by-his-vp-pick-mike-pence/
What about Clinton:
On October 11, 2002, Clinton joined a strong majority of Democrats, including liberal and left-center Democrats like Tom Harkin, John Kerry, and Joe Biden, in voting in favor of the Resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq. Later on, Clinton came to deeply regret giving President Bush the benefit of the doubt on the Resolution, and she has plainly admitted her mistake.
Mike Pence has never expressed regret for the Bill he co-sponsored and voted for that started a war in Iraq that was based on lies of WMDs and led to ISIL, and Trump says Pence’s vote for the Iraq War is okay but Hillary’s vote isn’t okay.
Click the link and listen for yourself.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-trump-pence-republican-ticket/
The Emerson Collective, is the branding for Laurene Powell Job’s rethinking of high schools. Arne Duncan, a privatizing, former Secretary of Education, sits, as a managing partner at Emerson.
An analogy is Melania Trump rethinking America’s parks, through self anointment, and tapping Koch’s ALEC, to implement what she thunks.
Reblogged this on Global Climate Convergence Detroit.
Still trying to be but not convinced to vote for president, but I have to say you nailed it in the last couple paragraphs describing Trump, Diane. Jokers are wild at this table.
Until a few weeks ago, David Koch’s photo was in the Aspen Institute board array. IMO, the policies enacted by the US Dept. of Education would likely correlate with the policy opinions of Aspen’s education programs.
NYT explores Pence’s education record as governor:
“Mr. Pence’s tenure has been one long tangle with the new superintendent, Glenda Ritz, a Democrat. Mr. Pence took state money to create a kind of shadow department of education — a move he later reversed … Mr. Pence pushed the Indiana legislature to give charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run, an extra $1,500 per pupil … Pence also pushed to expand the number of students receiving public vouchers to attend private schools … He also expanded eligibility to include students who had not previously attended a public school…”