In a further sign of the coming apocalypse, a Koch Institute Forum bashed neocons, empire building, and Israel hijacking US foreign policy. Instead, they said, we need to focus on rebuilding infrastructure at home, insuring meaningful education for all, and stop massive spending on pointless and adventurist wars abroad.
Yes, this is from the those Koch Brothers. Rumors that things got quite messy in the aftermath of the convention due to neocon and warmonger heads exploding might well be true.
In the latest example of how foreign policy no longer neatly aligns with party politics, the Charles Koch Institute — the think tank founded and funded by energy billionaire Charles Koch — hosted an all-day event Wednesday featuring a set of speakers you would be more likely to associate with a left-wing anti-war rally than a gathering hosted by a longtime right-wing institution.
“If you want to know why our bridges are rickety ”¦ our children are educationally malnourished, think of where we put the money,” concluded Freeman, pointing to the outsized military budget.
Most of the speakers assailed the Iraq War, nation building, and regime change.
Further, the Koch Brothers are pulling out of funding national politics.
Charles and David Koch once pledged to spend $889 million on the 2016 campaign cycle. Now the billionaire brothers plan to stay on the sidelines of this year’s presidential race — and have cut their paid media budget for all of this cycle’s campaigns to $40 million, down from $150 million one year ago. While many have interpreted the Kochs’ sudden stinginess as a rebuke to the less-than-libertarian Republican nominee, a new report from the National Review suggests the tycoons are fundamentally rethinking their approach to rigging the system.