A secretive network of Republican donors is heading to the Palm Springs area for a long weekend in January, but it will not be to relax after a hard-fought election — it will be to plan for the next one.
Koch Industries, the longtime underwriter of libertarian causes from the Cato Institute in Washington to the ballot initiative that would suspend California’s landmark law capping greenhouse gases, is planning a confidential meeting at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa to, as an invitation says, “develop strategies to counter the most severe threats facing our free society and outline a vision of how we can foster a renewal of American free enterprise and prosperity.”
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With a personalized letter signed by Charles Koch, the invitation to the four-day Rancho Mirage meeting opens with a grand call to action: “If not us, who? If not now, when?”
The Koch network meets twice a year to plan and expand its efforts — as the letter says, “to review strategies for combating the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it.”
For an idea of who would attend such a meeting, see the list of donors to the RGA. That's a start. Of course, Mr. Koch is shameless about taking credit for that. Forget about digging into undisclosed contributions. Just allocate them proportionately to those who attend these little liberty get-togethers for the rich, privileged owners of our government.
It's one thing to know in your gut how much they plot this kind of activity and another thing entirely to see it in black and white. They believe they've already won the November midterms, and are already planning for the 2012 elections. Nothing would make me happier than seeing them take a $200 million loss on their investment.
Yes, there is a class war going on, one that they're winning right now. So get out and vote, please. Because the only thing that their money can't buy is YOUR vote.
Bonus: Think Progress gives us a nice list of the 2010 attendees who cozied up in Aspen this January to bring us the midterms.
