I used to tune out when people railed against the Koch brothers. What did their antics have to do with life in New Hampshire? Sure, the Sununu family behaved in a rampantly pro-fossil-fuel manner, weird in a state with no fossil fuels, but maybe that was because they still had family and holdings in the Middle East. Or maybe it was due to ties and investments John Sununu made back when he worked for President George H.W. Bush.
Then Commissioner of Education Frank Edelblut approved a right-wing charter school into our town of Peterborough. Lionheart Academy was the offspring of a radical evangelical college in Michigan, of all places. I started investigating the college and the people associated with it, including Charles Koch, Ginni Thomas and Edelblut. I expect you will be as startled and disturbed as I was at what I discovered.
It’s a long, winding story. Let’s start with David Koch. For years, David and his brother Charles owned 42 percent each of Koch Industries. It’s the largest privately held firm in the United States with $115 in revenues, much of it from petrochemicals. David earned his master’s degree in five years at the engineering department of MIT, simultaneously with young John H. Sununu.
Now it’s 1980. David is running for vice president on the Libertarian ticket, funded largely by Koch-associated money. If you follow the news, the Libertarian platform of 1980 is going to sound very familiar 42 years later. It demands the abolition of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the public schools, aid to children, the Post Office, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and a host of other government programs and departments.
The Libertarians lose in 1980, of course, but the infrastructure for achieving their goals is founded two years later. The Federalist Society is a group of influential law professors, lawyers, and judges. Its goal? To train members of their professions to believe in “originalism.” Originalists strictly view the Constitution as they believed the framers designed it back in 1787. This matched David Koch’s 1980 platform. It would leave corporations free to seek profit without regard for its impacts on people or the environment. There would be no regulatory agencies watching over them.
Older Federalist Society members use their influence to advance their followers to higher judgeships over the years. But, let’s jump back to New Hampshire for a moment, then wend our way to that college in Michigan.
Sununu family roles
John Sununu becomes governor of New Hampshire, then chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush. In that role, in 1989, he thwarts the United States from joining the international conference to address climate change. Actions like this, that benefit Koch and the rest of the fossil-fuel industry, become a hallmark of the Sununu family.
In 1993, Stephen P. Farrar, an executive of Koch Industries’ Michigan subsidiary, Guardian Industries, becomes a founding trustee of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy [JBC] in New Hampshire. Its mission is to advance many of the policies listed on David Koch’s platform of 1980. John Sununu, and later his son James, chair the JBC through today.
Another Sununu son, Michael, becomes a vocal climate denier and industry consultant. Still another, Sen. John E. Sununu, opposes the Climate Stewardship Act of 2003. But the Sununus are not leading the charge to capture the government. They’re just complicit opportunists.
Building infrastructure for the coup
Now let’s check in on the Federalist Society. Its mission is succeeding. They are stacking the lower courts. Clarence Thomas is appointed to the Supreme Court. From 1996 to 1997, Thomas employs a Federalist Society clerk named John Eastman.
Twenty-three years later, Eastman would meet secretly with President Donald Trump. He would convince him that Vice President Mike Pence could refuse to accept Electoral College ballots on Jan. 6. But back in 1999, Eastman becomes a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute. Its mission is “to restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life.” The Claremont founder who hires Eastman is Larry Arnn.
Now we’re almost at the secret clubhouse of the coup. In late 1999, Arnn is in the process of replacing the president of Hillsdale College because of a scandal that made national news. Hillsdale promotes conservative family values. Yet its leader was accused of having an affair with his daughter-in-law. She killed herself. Hillsdale is the central hub for Libertarian radicals, so they need a strong leader to pull them out of the mud. Larry Arnn is their man.
Lionheart Academy in Peterborough was conceived to follow the Hillsdale College curriculum. Hillsdale is a tiny, evangelical, liberal-arts college in rural Michigan. Its endowment is $900 million. The Koch Foundation and its network of nonprofits are among the donors. It is a megaphone for radical, right-wing politicians. Its newsletter, Imprimis, claims 6.2 million readers. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a frequent contributor, and Charles Koch has also authored an Imprimis piece.
Now we’re circling in on more New Hampshire connections. Hillsdale’s charter-school subsidiary seeks to replace public schools with charters like Lionheart Academy nationwide. They teach Larry Arnn’s “1776 Curriculum.” It is a blueprint for “patriotic education,” devised for former President Donald Trump’s 1776 Commission.
As Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn proclaims, “Teaching is our trade… It is also our weapon.”
“Teaching is our trade. It is also our weapon.”
In 2021, Arnn would use this weapon to help Koch fight plummeting oil prices due to COVID. Hillsdale would open The Academy for Science and Freedom. Its mission? To fight the “fiasco” of government pandemic mask and vaccine mandates, contact tracing and lockdowns.
But even a decade earlier, the Kochs are well on their way to achieving David Koch’s 1980 goals, when he ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket. The Federalist Society is infiltrating the judiciary. Hillsdale is preparing to transform schools. In 2009, Hillsdale hires Ginni Thomas, Clarence Thomas’ wife, to help them launch a Washington, D.C., campus on Capitol Hill. Ginni Thomas sets up the new Hillsdale campus across from the Koch-funded Heritage Foundation. She helps start Hillsdale’s program to use Heritage and Federalist Society staff to train young Congressional staffers. Arnn also uses the venue to gain frequent interviews by Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing media.
Citizens United frees dark money
In 2010, attorney Cleta Mitchell sets up a nonprofit for Ginni Thomas, called Liberty Central, to build a conservative voter database. But first, Mitchell files an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of Citizens United, which lets corporate donors, such as Koch Industries, donate unlimited sums for political purposes. Eight days after Clarence Thomas helps decide the 5-4 decision in favor of Citizens United, Mitchell sets up Liberty Central with a $1.5 million donation in dark money for the justice’s wife.
A decade later, Mitchell would be the attorney on the phone with Trump when he asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” more than 11,000 votes.” Ginni Thomas’ texts to key figures in Trump’s circle around Jan. 6 are still under investigation.
Meanwhile, back in 2012, the dark money campaign spending is swelling, with $86 million estimated to be from the Koch network. Charles and David Koch oversee half of the $170 million federal dark-money political spending in the United States. They use it to achieve the Libertarian agenda laid out in 1980, and after Citizens United, that dark money can go to work.
According to one speaker at the annual Koch Industries conference, “The [Koch] network is fully integrated, so it’s not just work at the universities with the students, but it’s also building state-based capabilities and election capabilities and integrating this talent pipeline. So you can see how this is useful to each other over time. No one else has this infrastructure. We’re very excited about doing it.”
The money is not all from Koch entities. Arnn supports Trump. So does Hillsdale graduate Erik Prince. Prince founded the infamous Blackwater USA mercenary organization that received billions from U.S. taxpayers during the Iraq War. Trump names Prince’s sister, Betsy DeVos, as secretary of education. She sets about to achieve Koch’s 1980’s educational platform. “Government ownership, operation, regulation and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.”
The Jan. 6 coup attempt fails. Meanwhile, libertarians continue their covert takeover. New Hampshire is targeted from inside and out.
For the Kochs have allies in both places. In 2016, Chris Sununu follows in his father’s footsteps to become governor. As such, he vetoes bill after bill that would cut fossil-fuel demand. Remember Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, the New Hampshire think tank with a trustee from the Michigan Koch subsidiary? Over the next five years, Chris Sununu appoints executives of JBC to key positions in his administration. JBC President Drew Cline becomes chair of the New Hampshire Board of Education.
Sununu appoints Frank Edelblut commissioner of education. Edelblut has a master’s in divinity but no educational credentials or experience in school administration. Edelblut’s sons Jonathon and Stephen go to Hillsdale College. Stephen serves as Secretary to Hillsdale’s Federalist Society.
Edelblut raises controversy for the Sununu administration. Like Hillsdale’s Larry Arnn, Edelblut disparages educators and public schools. He steers COVID funding toward religious and private schools. He hands a DOE contract to a Sununu donor who is highest bidder with the lowest rating.
Matters come to a head in 2021. Edelblut supports the most-expansive education voucher bill in the nation. The bill is promoted by 150 Republican House members who belong to the “Freedom Caucus.” Over 3,000 members of the public turn out in opposition, only 600 in support, at the bill’s hearing. Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity promotes the bill with postcards. Its members even canvass door-to-door in Bedford in support of public voucher funding for religious schools.
Sununu negotiates for this and other controversial Freedom Caucus bills to be tabled. But these bills will rise again, with the help of Rep. Jason Osborne, a Hillsdale College graduate who moved to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project. The Free State Project was a plan by another Jason, Jason Sorens, for thousands of libertarians to move to New Hampshire and run for office. The Free State Project’s explicit goal was to turn the state into a libertarian utopia.
Before the 2020 election, Osborne donates $50,000 to help other state representative candidates on the Republican ticket. They then elect him House Majority Leader. Osborne and others negotiate with Sununu to fold the tabled extremist bills into a budget compromise. Sununu claims he must support the radical measures in order to pass the budget. Edelblut proudly rolls out their voucher program. Betsy DeVos attends.
Next, Edelblut approves opening Lionheart Academy in Peterborough. The state Department of Education directs $1.5 million in federal funds to the charter. It will teach Arnn’s “1776” rewrite of history.
Free Staters in Croydon convince voters to halve the public-school budget. Massive protests overturn the cuts, but Free Stater intent to end public education is clear.
Then Sununu travels to the Koch-founded Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. There he celebrates New Hampshire being named “freest state” by Will Ruger and Jason Sorens. Ruger is vice president of the Charles Koch Institute and the Charles Koch Foundation.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the Supreme Court’;s Federalist Society majority swells to six justices. In swift 6-3 decisions, they legalize open carry of firearms, overturn Roe v. Wade, expand prayer to public school activities and remove authority from the Environmental Protection Agency and most other federal regulatory agencies. The Kochs’ 40-year-old agenda is advancing at an accelerating pace. Almost as rapidly as the fires, floods, wars and famines it fuels.
The status of the coup
David Koch has passed away, but the conservative front organizations he and his brother funded live on. They will be working to elect candidates to Congress and to state and county offices. They will support candidates dedicated to fighting climate action, repealing Social Security and Medicare, finishing off the Post Office, public schools and achieving David Koch’s other goals from 1980.
Their candidates may obfuscate if you ask them, just as their last four Supreme Court justices did at their confirmation hearings. But it is easy to identify them. They have taken over the Republican Party. That’s just a sad fact. They are all Republicans. And even the handful of traditional Republicans remaining are holding their noses and almost always voting with the radical reactionaries. It’s true in Washington, D.C., as well as New Hampshire.
The capture is approaching completion. Nov 8, 2022 may well be our last chance to halt it.
Jan 21, 2024 note: New Hampshire managed to slow the takeover by extremist libertarians in 2022, but they are now targeting county offices, easy wins, to defund nursing homes and privatize other public entities. The governorship in 2024 will be key to stopping or reversing the progression. It will also be key to protecting the state if a MAGA dictatorship takes over in DC.
Saving Humankind-ness 