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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWashing Koch As White As Snow
http://www.thenation.com/blog/178779/washing-koch-white-snowCharles Koch, half of the Koch brother duo (AP Photo/Topeka Capital-Journal, Mike Burley)
Joe Scarborough recently got into quite a huffand got the Morning Joe crew to huff with himover Harry Reids attacks on David and Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialists who fund dozens of conservative causes and Republican campaigns. Reid had said, rather catchily for him, that Senate Republicans are addicted to Koch. The Senate majority leader also said the brothers have no conscience and are willing to lie in political ads, and that theyre un-American for trying to buy America.
Reid said he doesnt begrudge the Kochs their wealth, but what is un-American is when shadow billionaires pour unlimited money into our democracy to rig the system and benefit themselves and the wealthiest 1 percent.
That might sound hyperbolic unless you have followed the long list of ways the Kochs are indeed buying America. For starters, while their Koch Industries is the one of the nations largest air polluters, their money is a huge factor in blocking climate change progress and spreading know-nothing denialism; they fund ALEC and its stand-your-ground political agenda; and theyre waging a multimillion-dollar war against the Affordable Care Act, trying to convince young people, through ads like the one with the creepy Uncle Sam gynecologist, that they should be afraid, very afraid of Obamacare. Through innumerable think tanks, PACs, nonprofits and dark-money trap doors, Koch money has formed a veritable Kochopus that reaches deep into academia, industry, state legislatures and Congress. (For more, see here and here.)
But whats really gotten Harry Reid to put up his dukes is that the Koch-funded PAC Americans for Prosperity (AFM) has spent more than $30 million, and counting, on ads attacking Democratic senate candidates in the upcoming midterm elections. To defeat Senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina, for instance, AFM has already dropped $8.2 million on TV, radio and digital ads. As Politico puts it, thats more than all Democratic outside groups in every Senate race in the countrycombined. Koch money could easily flip the Senate to a Republican majority, leaving little but presidential vetoes to blunt the GOP Houses politics of cruelty.
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Washing Koch As White As Snow (Original Post)
xchrom
Mar 2014
OP
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,840 posts)1. K&R. Good article to forward to people.
I saw the joescar segment last week and it was amazingly disingenuous even for scar. Somebody clearly got a last minute phone call (and likely a 'check')-- in time for scar to go off on a rant but too late for scar to work it in in a more organic style.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)2. Money Talks.
What's wrong with that?
Gothmog
(145,293 posts)3. I am proud of Harry Reid for taking on the Kochs
Reid is doing a good job of pointing out how the Kochs are trying to buy the Senate
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)4. This is why it's so important to GOTV 2014
Don't get distracted!
I had to look up how to pronounce their last name, because the way I'd been pronouncing it up until now made that an entirely different sort of headline.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)6. it's all koch to me. nt