The Koch Brothers: The Price We Pay for their wealth and politics

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/20/1300630/-Exposing-the-Koch-Brothers-and-the-Price-We-all-Pay?detail=email

If there can be such a thing as a typical American billionaire, David H. and Charles G. Koch do not fit that bill. They are not just among the richest Americans—$100 billion and counting. They are deeply political libertarian industrialists. They have worked in the shadows for decades to bend government to do their bidding or to destroy it, becoming richer while attacking social safety nets in many areas—environment, education, voting rights, union organizing. No other billionaire has that political track record.

And under today’s Supreme Court’s ongoing deregulation of campaign finance, they’ve become more influential than ever—leading and commandeering hundreds of millions of dollars for elections, all to support an agenda that preys on average Americans. But that’s hardly surprising, given that their father made the family’s first fortune in the 1930s by building oil pipelines for Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. At home, he supported racial segregation and the white supremacist John Birch Society.