“How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On COVID.” That’s the headline to a new report looking at how a right-wing network linked to billionaire Charles Koch has played a key role in fighting public health measures put in place by governments during the pandemic, including mask and vaccine mandates, contact tracing and lockdowns. The institutions with ties to Koch include ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council; the American Institute for Economic Research; Donors Trust; the Hoover Institution; and Hillsdale College.
So, we found that this vast, opaque, right-wing network of nonprofits has been funding and promoting anti-lockdown, anti-public health activism, research and messaging. They employed the same model that was used during the — to create the tea party. That model was laid out by Jeff Nesbit, who’s a former communications official at the FDA and in George H.W. Bush’s White House. And that includes an academic network to support the movement intellectually, policy networks in every state, a grassroots alliance, a propaganda arm and a national coordinating group to make it all run smoothly. So, our focus was primarily on the academic network, but we also talked a little bit about the grassroots movement, as well.
So, as early as April 2020, you see groups like FreedomWorks, which was instrumental in the tea party protests in 2009, begin promoting protests against lockdowns. Americans for Prosperity, the American Legislative Exchange Council were calling on Trump to keep the country open. AFP started in March 2020, like really shortly after the virus arrived
— source democracynow.org | Dec 23, 2021
[i doubt, whether they created the virus and making ways to spread it?]
