RGF guest speaker funded by far-right organizations

The Rio Grande Foundation is no stranger to receiving funding from far-right organizations, which is why Randal O'Toole and the Rio Grande Foundation go hand-in-hand.

The anti-public transportation and pro-sprawl speaker from the Thoreau Institute has some interesting funding.

Included? The Charles G. Koch foundation a group that exists because the Koch family was heavily involved in Stalin-era U.S.S.R.. Ironic, considering the RGF rails against what they call socialism and communism.

The secretive oil billionaires of the Koch family, the main supporters of the right-wing groups that orchestrated the Tea Party movement, would not have the means to bankroll their favorite causes had it not been for the pile of money the family made working for the Bolsheviks in the late 1920s and early 1930s, building refineries, training Communist engineers and laying down the foundation of Soviet oil infrastructure.

Koch Industries is in the oil game, so they directly benefit from a lack of public transportation; the more people drive, the more money they spend on gasoline and the more money goes to line the pockets of the Koch family.

So no wonder Randal O'Toole rails against public transportation, opposing anything that doesn't involve you hopping into your car and spending money on gasoline.

In the press release announcing that O'Toole is speaking at a fundraiser for the Rio Grande Foundation, they never mention his connections to the oil industry.

Can you say conflict of interest?

Then again, anything that benefits corporations -- and the right-wing circuit of non-profits that includes the Rio Grande Foundation -- is in the wheelhouse of Paul Gessing and the Rio Grande Foundation.