he and his more socially visible daughter have learned a lot from the coax in 2011 rebecca donated more than $25000000.00 towards the koch's political activities but in some ways the mercers are even more radical. they supported donald trump in 2016 with their own network using dubious tactics and a lot of money to gain access to the white house. david mager a man was taken aback by his boss's actions by 2016 he had worked over 20 years for robert mercer and had helped develop the algorithms that earned billions for the family i felt that i had my my intellectual efforts and my work had gone into creating the possibility of people having outsized influence on politics. during the $26000.00 election campaign the mercers didn't just rely on the

dividends of a classic campaign they invested an additional $10000000.00 in the breitbart news network far right populist steve bannon head of breitbart and mercer's confidant headed trump's election campaign the mercers also invested in cambridge analytical the london based data consulting company that collected data from facebook users and used it to influence voters now with the power of the internet facebook social media and the. ability for funding to come in to support almost arbitrary scaled efforts to to deploy this kind of technology we really don't have any kind of control over the public process anymore. while donald trump celebrated his triumph david mager man was plagued with guilt i was an e e e e cause ition knowing the motivations of one of donald trump's most secretive and

influential contributors after the election i kind of you know. just felt guilty and then as i saw the team being built up around donald trump and the advisers that were coming from the foundation funded by this donor and it just i realized that the story wasn't over. after the election david magnum and decided to go public with his insights including his bosses racist views he believes that a system that gives billionaires like the mercers this degree of influence is anything but healthy. the koch brothers also understand the power of media the power of words and images except they're slightly more old fashioned than the mercers in 2018 they provided $650000000.00 to back the acquisition of the time publishing group. that was just them trying to expand their network to some extent and exert political influence through another channel they hadn't really had any

type of acquisition at that scale of time. prime example of this type of lobbying is rupert murdoch in 1000. and 2 the white house media deregulation was subsequently amended to murdoch's advantage in 87 the fairness doctrine requiring broadcasters to provide balanced reporting was overturned the coast was clear for the likes of fox news. i'm pleased it's a media system going to. by the private sector with news channels that serves special interests it's satisfying a certain clientele do it it's no longer a case of accountability and exercising that function as a full of the state is on and they get as kids you don't they earn money by intensifying party political polarization some time in office shift then z. if you're a republican politician you have to get along with fox news if you without the

support of fox news you have little chance of winning the next election any given fox news played a critical role in the election of trump to the presidency they were strong articulate and emotional advocates for trump for his policy for his notion of immigrants are a danger to us for his racism it's almost a joke now where we see he tunes into fox he hears something from a commentator on fox news and then he talks about it as if it's a policy that should be followed. donald trump's populist rhetoric however was not good news for koch industries and its reliance on cheap immigrant labor is protectionist trade dispute with china also went against their interests and their dislike was mutual in a tweet to a fund raising event in 2015 trump sniped by

a twitter i wish good luck to all the republican candidates that travel to california to beg for money etc from the koch brothers puppets the koch brothers some of them via come from a c. for koch brothers worked against trunk during the election campaign and they supported other candidates tried but have since made their peace but he has since delivered results for these interest groups if you look at the recent tax reforms the oil industry among others has profited massively the corporations also benefit from the message of the regulate. in the environmental sector. 2019 charles koch hit back a truck with a surprising move new organization started emerging within his otherwise strictly conservative network that now explicitly advocated democrats a joint think tank with left leaning multi billionaire george soros was just one notable example the subject disarmament. this is a very interesting and high profile development because it shows that old party

political distinctions no longer apply in certain areas at least twice in the. impact of these seemingly disparate sources of funding remains unclear and u.s. policy is not immune to foreign influence either the powerful national rifle association is a case in point. approximately $15000.00 people die in the u.s. each year from firearms school massacres has sadly become a regular occurrence. business venture really is a hero and i am very proud to say that he's my sister. and we have done really was an amazing prison but he died doing what he was protecting a kid that meant the world you hurt after each such attack. machine goes on the off chance the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is

a good guy with the. romans on showed video. and manages to nip any philip to kill initiative on gun regulation in the bud. even with 80 or 90 percent of the population after a school massacre are in favor of gun ownership reform the n.r.a. is still able to ensure that congress takes no action and this is your kind of guy . cording to animus only as research the n.r.a. also receives great support from foreign weapons manufacturers such as beretta in italy or austria based glock although the n.r.a. is not supposed to be using foreign funding to spend on u.s. politics it's really hard to distinguish watch which funds are used for what it's hard to say if the same dollar going in c r a was ultimately used for lobbying or used to influence an election and so it

raises a lot of potential risk of foreign money seeping into u.s. elections on shacked which violates variety of different campaign finance laws potentially. koch industries is a supporter of the n.r.a. but its backing extends to other fronts with college students also in their sights financial donations by the charles koch foundation increased steadily between 252017 totaling a quarter of a $1000000000.00 that covered $450.00 campuses including numerous elite universities such as harvard and princeton. there is resistance to the lobby groups. samantha parsons was studying at george mason university in virginia the university that receives the most money from koch industries when she realized that her lectures were not entirely independent and mentioned that as

professor stated that climate change is not real and that if students wanted to debate him on that fact that they could leave and never come back which again mind you this is a required course the students have to sit in it and there a little bit of online research we found out that he that professor himself is directly funded by the koch foundation. the kooks were eager to finance institutions that focus on the free market economy among them the rick atest. center at george mason university most of the $1000000.00 contracts were drawn up in secret and with certain requirements. those terms and conditions include influence over what is being researched and the research outcomes and influence over what curriculum is being taught in the classroom of the programs that they're funding and even influence over who's hiring who's being hired and fired.

samantha parsons believes there is even more behind the koch's commitment the intent to recruit young educated people and a libertarian elite to be the dominating force in future policy. they view the young people that they can reach through their university programs as the future staff of their think tanks of their grassroots nonprofits they even hope someday maybe that those young people become legislators themselves or judges themselves and during the coronavirus pandemic conservative think tanks have not relented in their fight against environmental protection in a letter to politicians in march 2019 the texas public policy foundation was adamant that renewable energies should not benefit from government aid climate change is not an immediate threat to humanity we had a lot of people sign on to that letter to remind them that. really shouldn't be

making these investments with tax dollars shouldn't be burdening taxpayers more especially during the pandemic and now is not the time to essentially waste taxpayer money on investments in green building the legislative package was eventually adopted without any support for renewable energy having inside information about policy is useful for jason i sat and personal contacts until 2018 he had himself been an active republican. titian. tremendously knowing that things a lot of times get done behind closed doors and not open to the public because people are having one on one conversations with members of the legislature and when you know those members it's easier to call them and to say how they feel about this particular piece of legislation. more men and i mean really are currently in a phase where the environmental protection agency has been transformed into an environmental destruction agency see how vietnam decrees ashore during the crisis

they have done away with air and pollution control regulations is this public land a national parks are currently being opened up for gas and oil drilling unthinkable even a few years ago doing it the way they can now and for that you've been it's destruction on a scale where you can only shake your head. while the polluters including koch industries feel anything but frustrated. also a trusted adviser to the mercer family helped to see the paris climate accord. so we're getting our. money in politics has been a problem continues to be and looks like it will be for the forseeable future the only solution to the problem is to regulate the money being spent on elections and to restore the power of the voter as opposed to the the power of the dollar. but the citizens united verdict remains valid getting companies and billionaires the

right to spend unlimited amounts of money to exert influence we have stories about these giants that are insatiable they're always hungry and. they're going to try to go eat some more and with. to own. or not to own. what about a shooting economy instead. of a change in thinking is changing the economy to create something new. economics magazine 3 in germany. in 30 minutes w.

. in the far north. beyond the inhabitable world. it's lonely. barren. and breathtakingly beautiful. arctic. powerful expanse of the cold. and the sound of global warming. take a journey around the north pole. profiteers and talk with people experiencing a changing environment. for the ice disappears earlier and it keeps retreating. our future depends a lot happens here in one of the most fragile ecosystems of. northern lights. arctic circle starts december 21st d

w. the book. this is d w news live from berlin critical days for germany's health care system with new infections at record high levels that number of hospitalized patients is also climbing rapidly we report from the front lines where he died and previously healthy patients are battling to stay alive. also coming up guilty verdicts in france as shyly updo try a paris court convicts 14 people for their role in the 2015 islamist attacks on the

secure a magazine and a jewish soup.