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You are here: Home / Economics / Austerity Bombing / The Big Money Behind the Teahadists’ Shutdown

The Big Money Behind the Teahadists’ Shutdown

by Anne Laurie|  October 7, 20135:13 pm| 133 Comments

This post is in: Austerity Bombing, C.R.E.A.M., Grifters Gonna Grift, Republican Venality, Assholes

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I saved this over the weekend, so that more of you would see it. The NYTimes had a long expose on the One Percenters doing the planning for Ted Cruz’s totally spontaneous grass-roots uprising against Obamacare and other public spending:

Shortly after President Obama started his second term, a loose-knit coalition of conservative activists led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III gathered in the capital to plot strategy. Their push to repeal Mr. Obama’s health care law was going nowhere, and they desperately needed a new plan.

Out of that session, held one morning in a location the members insist on keeping secret, came a little-noticed “blueprint to defunding Obamacare,” signed by Mr. Meese and leaders of more than three dozen conservative groups.

It articulated a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy that had long percolated in conservative circles: that Republicans could derail the health care overhaul if conservative lawmakers were willing to push fellow Republicans — including their cautious leaders — into cutting off financing for the entire federal government.…

The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort. A group linked to the Kochs, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, disbursed more than $200 million last year to nonprofit organizations involved in the fight. Included was $5 million to Generation Opportunity, which created a buzz last month with an Internet advertisement showing a menacing Uncle Sam figure popping up between a woman’s legs during a gynecological exam…

A review of tax records, campaign finance reports and corporate filings shows that hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised and spent since 2012 by organizations, many of them loosely connected, leading opposition to the measure.

One of the biggest sources of conservative money is Freedom Partners, a tax-exempt “business league” that claims more than 200 members, each of whom pays at least $100,000 in dues. The group’s board is headed by a longtime executive of Koch Industries, the conglomerate run by the Koch brothers, who were among the original financiers of the Tea Party movement. The Kochs declined to comment.

The largest recipient of Freedom Partners cash — about $115 million — was the Center to Protect Patient Rights, according to the groups’ latest tax filings. Run by a political consultant with ties to the Kochs and listing an Arizona post office box for its address, the center appears to be little more than a clearinghouse for donations to still more groups, including American Commitment and the 60 Plus Association, both ardent foes of the health care law. …

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Reader Interactions

133Comments

  1. 1.

    Richard M.

    October 7, 2013 at 5:16 pm

    The Koch brothers, we knew. But who’da thunk Ed Meese was still around stinkin up the place.

  2. 2.

    Another Botsplainer

    October 7, 2013 at 5:17 pm

    If a bunch of Occupy folks had a meeting where they essentially said we are going to overthrow the government, wouldn’t they be in jail now?

  3. 3.

    Linda Featheringill

    October 7, 2013 at 5:17 pm

    Well. And how often do these fat cats throw their money into losing candidates? Could they also be supporting a losing political strategy?

  4. 4.

    FDRLincoln

    October 7, 2013 at 5:18 pm

    These people better hope that there is no God, or that any diety who does exist is from the Lovecraft mythos rather than anyone resembling Jesus.

    Christ H. Buddha, how much good could be done with that much money? How many meals for the homeless is that? How many blankets would that buy? How much medicine?

  5. 5.

    elmo

    October 7, 2013 at 5:19 pm

    I’m going to say this again: the endgame here is “Enact our entire agenda, including massive tax cuts, regulatory rollback, dismantling of the NLRB, or we don’t fund the Government.”

    This is a test of that proposition. They’re doing this to see if they can get away with the whole enchilada. This time it’s Obamacare; but there is nothing in the shutdown logic that doesn’t also apply to the NLRA, the EPA, the DOL, and every other right-wing target.

    Why would the Republican House fund the NLRB? Or the EPA? Or the DOL? Hell, those are bigger business headaches than puny little Obamacare, by far.

  6. 6.

    kc

    October 7, 2013 at 5:19 pm

    I just can’t fathom the mentality of humans who would spend millions to prevent other people from getting health coverage.

  7. 7.

    ? Martin

    October 7, 2013 at 5:19 pm

    @Richard M.: Big money always needs some Congressional alumnus who already knows how to get into everyone’s pants.

  8. 8.

    Ash Can

    October 7, 2013 at 5:22 pm

    I have to run off and do something else and don’t have time to read the whole article, so I don’t know if the specific issue of default was raised in this article. The excerpt talks about shutting the government down, and it’s been made clear over the past days and weeks (and more) that this was in fact the GOP’s long-range plan. But did these big-money guys all think and/or know that they were financing a push to make the nation default on its payments, and not just to shut down the government?

  9. 9.

    ? Martin

    October 7, 2013 at 5:25 pm

    @Ash Can: What do the Koch’s care? They’re privately held, so no market consequences, and they generally make their money off of necessities – power. This shutdown is likely a competitive advantage for them. If the market really tanks, they can probably pick up some companies at a discount.

  10. 10.

    pseudonymous in nc

    October 7, 2013 at 5:26 pm

    @Richard M.:

    who’da thunk Ed Meese was still around stinkin up the place.

    Wingnut welfare is the gift that keeps giving to gits.

  11. 11.

    Anne Laurie

    October 7, 2013 at 5:27 pm

    @Another Botsplainer: Yeah, this is from Wikipedia’s entry on Ed Meese:

    As Attorney General, Meese chaired the National Drug Policy Board, which coordinated with Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No,” national anti-drug educational campaign. One of Meese’s innovations was to seek the cooperation of drug-producing countries.

    However, “One of our most effective weapons against drug traffickers,” Meese wrote in his autobiography, “was to confiscate the assets of their criminal activity, such as expensive autos, yachts, businesses, and homes… To make this technique even more effective, we shared the proceeds with cooperating local law enforcement agencies to enhance their drug-fighting activities”…

    Imagine all the law-enforcement good “we” could do if we arrested the Kochs and all their ilk under Dubya’s anti-terrorism laws…

  12. 12.

    Violet

    October 7, 2013 at 5:28 pm

    Noticed this in the Newsmax headlines in the right column:

    Rove: Obama Seeks to ‘Break Republicans’

  13. 13.

    piratedan

    October 7, 2013 at 5:30 pm

    @Violet: yes, by constantly tossing themselves helmetless against the wall, it’s entirely Obama’s fault for upholding the laws of the land, snarky unforgiving bastard that he is.

  14. 14.

    PIGL

    October 7, 2013 at 5:31 pm

    @Another Botsplainer: The organizers and their congressional flunkies should be sandbagged and disappeared to Gitmo. There’s plenty of legal authoritty, I am sure, and so what if there ain’t?

  15. 15.

    Botsplainer

    October 7, 2013 at 5:31 pm

    @FDRLincoln:

    Christ H. Buddha, how much good could be done with that much money? How many meals for the homeless is that? How many blankets would that buy? How much medicine?

    Clearly, they’re in need of another tax cut.

    All snark aside, THIS is why you need to tax the living shit out of the wealthy – so you don’t wind up with so much free cash washing around distorting the political and economic system. This is the birthplace of poor public policy decision-making – the ability of folks that are essentially Bond villains to inflict their “vision” upon the world, a vision that usually requires them to be in charge through their fortunes.

  16. 16.

    Schlemizel

    October 7, 2013 at 5:31 pm

    Its against my nature to be optimistic but in addition to the call for the Dr. this morning this day is trying to make me think positive

    24 polls (or is that poles) of GOP districts
    http://www.scribd.com/doc/173826158/GOP-could-lose-the-House-in-2014

  17. 17.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 7, 2013 at 5:34 pm

    @Schlemizel: Sean Duffy is in danger? Awesome.

  18. 18.

    fuckwit

    October 7, 2013 at 5:35 pm

    @kc: It’s perfectly rational, if sociopathic. A populace that is not living in constant mortal terror is not able to be cowed by major corporations and 1%ers who control their medical care. It’s simple: lose your job, and your kids die outside the hospital gates. Get it? Oh, want to change jobs and get away from the abuse? TOO FUCKING BAD PRE-EXISTING CONDITION HAHAHAHA you won’t be able to get insurance.

    The 1% likes having America as a Company Town where they control us. Medical care is the leverage. They have us by the short and curlies, and they know it. They are fighting with everything they’ve got to hold on to that.

    The current employer-based medical insurance system is basically indentured servitude. The exchanges end that once and for all, and that’s why they’re fighting it so hard.

    This fight is a lot like the Civil War, because IT IS ALSO ABOUT SLAVERY. These Koch/Meese 1%ers are fighting for the same thing the Confederacy was fighting for: the privilege to continue owning other humans.

    Imagine an America in which nobody is quite so afraid to lose their jobs anymore. What happens? Jobs get better, people quit and take better ones, or start their own businesses.

    This is absolutely the Civil War, but it’s not necessarily about race, it’s about class: the Owner class trying to hold on to the Owned class. I will expect them to fight with with everything they’ve got.

  19. 19.

    Botsplainer

    October 7, 2013 at 5:37 pm

    So if you had a time machine capable of one trip backwards to change all of history, which would be the best use:

    1. Killing Hitler on the battlefield during the Great War;
    2. Learning Aramaic, traveling to Israel in 0 BC (minus 7 months) and whispering “are you really fucking stupid enough to believe that ‘I’m pregnant by the Holy Spirit’ shit from her” into Joseph’s ear while handing him a really big rock; or
    3. Going to the USSR at the same time as Fred Koch and whispering into Stalin’s ear about how Koch was plotting against him.

  20. 20.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 7, 2013 at 5:39 pm

    @Another Botsplainer:

    Yes.

    SATSQ.

  21. 21.

    Richard Fox

    October 7, 2013 at 5:40 pm

    This blatant subversion of our country and the needs of its citizens, how can it be legal? I have no sense of that angle, honestly. Then again if these clandestine meetings are legal, then they should be trumpeted loudly each time a Democrat mentions this nonsense tea party ‘leadership’. Cruz and company, a huge sham, a whine fest front for these unbelievable rich filth. Just grotesque.

  22. 22.

    Schlemizel

    October 7, 2013 at 5:41 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Its asking a lot, particularly this early but these a bunch on these lists the House would be better off without, Duffy for one

  23. 23.

    Peter

    October 7, 2013 at 5:41 pm

    @Botsplainer: Your fixation on beating a pregnant woman to the point of miscarriage is fucking creepy, dude.

  24. 24.

    Violet

    October 7, 2013 at 5:41 pm

    Republicans keep working on that outreach stuff:

    In an angry Facebook post Monday, Arizona state Rep. Brenda Barton (R) likened President Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler for having National Parks Service officers close monuments during the government shutdown.

    “Someone is paying the National Park Service thugs overtime for their efforts to carry out the order of De Fuhrer… where are our Constitutional Sheriffs who can revoke the Park Service Rangers authority to arrest??? Do we have any Sheriffs with a pair?” Barton wrote.

  25. 25.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 7, 2013 at 5:41 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    Then toss the known criminal Meese into prison, as he was indicted once. Which means, by his own words, he was guilty of the crime for which he was indicted.

    Then, while in the Big House, he conveniently falls down a flight of stairs in a one floor building.

  26. 26.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 7, 2013 at 5:44 pm

    @Violet:

    Obama has been handed a gift by the Rethugs.

    He’s simply putting it to good use.

  27. 27.

    FDRLincoln

    October 7, 2013 at 5:44 pm

    @Botsplainer: How about, 4) Going to July 1914 and explaining in very exact terms how the German and Russian Empires will be destroyed if the Kaiser and the Tsar don’t back down.

    Or maybe go back to May and have Gavrilo Princip fall into a hole somewhere.

    Prevent the Great War, you prevent both Hitler and the USSR.

  28. 28.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 7, 2013 at 5:46 pm

    @FDRLincoln: If it wasn’t Princip, there would have been another trigger. That was was going to happen by 1916 no matter what.

  29. 29.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 7, 2013 at 5:46 pm

    @Violet:

    Barton here is putting into words the permanent problem for fascists like herself: the brand has been forever tainted by the German variant of it. Even they invoke the German variant to vilify their foes.

  30. 30.

    ruemara

    October 7, 2013 at 5:46 pm

    I posted it to educate the people I know, but they’re so incapable of reading a fucking article. I love them all, but the disinterest is mindboggling. I get more action posting baking pictures, because, food.

  31. 31.

    ruviana

    October 7, 2013 at 5:46 pm

    Haven’t read through all the threads yet, so if this was mentioned elsewhere I apologize, but digby linked to a fascinating report by the Democracy Corpsconducting focus groups with different groups of republicans. Read in conjunction with the NYT stories on funding, you can see how these different subgroups of republicans are shaped and shape the thinking of the larger party. You can also see potential fractures between them. It’s worth a read.

  32. 32.

    Botsplainer

    October 7, 2013 at 5:47 pm

    Because this can’t be repeated enough:

    https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/shuts-down-the-holocaust/43201b3a2936ec68c823ff596b0a27c529ea9350/

    The real story behind “the Libertarian periodical Rampart Journal” which published this notable work of Holocaust denial garbage is that the journal was funded and published with the active involvement of a younger Charles Koch. As my print article “Charles Koch’s Brain” reveals, in 1964, Charles Koch joined the board of trustees and became a director of the nonprofit which funded Rampart Journal, along with Rampart College and Freedom School, the corporate-backed libertarian indoctrination programs run by Charles Koch’s first mentor, Robert LeFevre.

    Koch was “converted” to libertarianism in LeFevre’s indoctrination camp, originally named “Freedom School,” in 1964. It was under LeFevre’s influence that Charles cut short his planned career in the nuclear energy sector, and returned to MIT to get a chemical engineering degree (supplanting his original degree in nuclear engineering) so that he could enter the oil business instead. As a 1965 New York Times profile on LeFevre’s whites-only Freedom School reported:

    Charles de Ganahl Koch of Wichita returned to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a degree in chemical engineering after “realizing that staying in the nuclear field would require working for the government over an extended period”…

    The 1966 Rampart College promotional booklet features a photo of young Charles Koch holding a shovel ceremonially breaking ground on a planned new Rampart extension building, as his white-haired guru Robert LeFevre stands beside him, smiling. Under Koch’s influence and funding, LeFevre started publishing reams of what libertarians call “historical revisionism”—a euphemism for Holocaust denial propaganda—which the Holocaust Museum notes on its timeline.

  33. 33.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 7, 2013 at 5:48 pm

    @Violet: Constitutional Sheriffs?

  34. 34.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 7, 2013 at 5:49 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Agreed. The tensions in the Balkans, and the naval arms race between the Brits and the Germans were both coming to a head. Princip was just one of a myriad of possible sparks to set off the powder keg.

    I might add that the mobilization plans, which were locked in concrete, made the decision to mobilize basically an irrevocable decision to go to war. There was no contingency for calling them off once they were set in motion.

  35. 35.

    srv

    October 7, 2013 at 5:49 pm

    Where is George Soros and that other millionaire fat guy?

  36. 36.

    dmsilev

    October 7, 2013 at 5:49 pm

    @Violet: Is it too much to ask those making Nazi references to use proper German grammar? Apparently.

    And it seems that Barack Obama’s superpower of making his enemies go stark raving mad is still functional.

  37. 37.

    piratedan

    October 7, 2013 at 5:50 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: that’s Arizonan for Goon Squads originally the Minuteman Movement down here.

  38. 38.

    dmsilev

    October 7, 2013 at 5:51 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: There”s a subculture in Wingnuttia which holds that county sheriffs are the ultimate arbiters of what is and is not constitutional. I’m not sure what the ostensible logic is for that, but since it all boils down to gibbering and babbling anyway, I don’t really care.

  39. 39.

    scav

    October 7, 2013 at 5:51 pm

    @FDRLincoln:

    Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

  40. 40.

    Trollhattan

    October 7, 2013 at 5:51 pm

    Find out here on the same day that Ed Meese and Billy Graham are stil with us. What, Cheney’s docsmechanics have a sale on spare donor hearts?

    Aaand, I’ll take Republican Politicians Going Godwin for a thousand, please:

    In an angry Facebook post Monday, Arizona state Rep. Brenda Barton (R) likened President Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler for having National Parks Service officers close monuments during the government shutdown.

    “Someone is paying the National Park Service thugs overtime for their efforts to carry out the order of De Fuhrer… where are our Constitutional Sheriffs who can revoke the Park Service Rangers authority to arrest??? Do we have any Sheriffs with a pair?” Barton wrote.

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/arizona-lawmaker-rages-against-de-fuhrer-obama-in-angry-facebook-post

    Relentless heat: still making people stupid.

  41. 41.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 7, 2013 at 5:51 pm

    @piratedan: Jesus wept.

  42. 42.

    Trollhattan

    October 7, 2013 at 5:52 pm

    @Violet:

    Dammit, beaten to it by a kilometer.

  43. 43.

    Ramalama

    October 7, 2013 at 5:53 pm

    For me, having read this post I’d have to score it like this: Canada +2, USA -3.

    Normally there’s only a point’s difference, and it goes back and forth depending on how many bankers or official govt people I have to deal with in Canadia. Or if I go to the most bloody awesome event in the big bad city of Montreal, then the whole week’s a blowout in Canada’s favor.

    I mean there are probably Koch like types in Alberta. They don’t yet seem revved up the way the cash flow Americans are.

  44. 44.

    Hungry Joe

    October 7, 2013 at 5:53 pm

    @kc: That’s my problem too — I literally can’t fathom. My empathy meter is nailed to Zero.

    I can, in a way, understand someone who’s worth $20 million and works/strives/lies & cheats in order to be worth $200 million because he wants a $35 million yacht and a $25 private jet and a 35,000 square-foot home to go with his four vacation homes. That is, I can understand what it’s like to want stuff; for example, for the last two weeks, next to my keyboard, there’s been a New Yorker opened to David Morgan hat ad. What I cannot understand is 1) having more money than I could possibly spend even on yachts, planes, and houses, and still wanting more; and 2) having all that money and devoting my life to making other people’s lives miserable.

  45. 45.

    Arclite

    October 7, 2013 at 5:54 pm

    The problem is that the “shutdown” isn’t a shutdown, when you’re forcing people to work without pay and only shutting down national parks. It should be catastrophic. NOBODY should be getting money. Then shutdowns would never happen, since no one would ever want it to come to that.

  46. 46.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 7, 2013 at 5:54 pm

    @Violet:

    “Do we have any Sheriffs with a pair?” Barton wrote.

    What is wrong with the blackshirted thug Arapaio? Is he too busy harassing Hawaiian records clerks to deal with those stormtrooper park rangers?

  47. 47.

    Ms. D. Ranged in AZ

    October 7, 2013 at 5:55 pm

    @Ash Can:

    I don’t think it matters whether they thought a default would happen or not. They had to know that it would take quite a few months for the plan to come to fruition and that it might mature when the country is vulnerable. What I mean is they should have known better. And let’s not forget that just shutting down the Federal Government will do quite a lot to slow down economic growth, regardless of whether we do default. Finally, these are the kind of people who are so wealthy that they are incredibly diversified and most likely won’t be hurt all that much by the default. Think about it….the Koch brothers are worth tens of billions…let’s just ballpark and say 90 billion–even if they lose half of that…they’re still worth 45 billion….Why would anyone who has millions give a shit? Seriously…..

  48. 48.

    aimai

    October 7, 2013 at 5:55 pm

    @Another Botsplainer: Depends on how much money they had. Meeting in tents? Bad. Meeting at a Resort hotel? Good.

  49. 49.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    October 7, 2013 at 5:55 pm

    Any chance Putin can negotiate a deal here?

  50. 50.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 7, 2013 at 5:56 pm

    @Hungry Joe:

    Joe, they want the fucking titles. Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount, Baron. They want the serfs to tug their forelocks when they are seen on the streets. They want the right of the first night. They want to live like feudal lords, and they can’t enjoy their grand meals properly unless the vast majority of the population is starving.

  51. 51.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 7, 2013 at 5:57 pm

    @Ms. D. Ranged in AZ:

    Why would anyone who has millions give a shit? Seriously…..

    After a certain point, they are just using the money to keep score.

  52. 52.

    agrippa

    October 7, 2013 at 5:58 pm

    The rank and file Tea party people are obeying their betters.
    And, their betters are putting serious money into it.
    It is no surprise that the low ranking Tea Party people are following and all this money is being spent.

    This is pretty much a permanent situation.

  53. 53.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    October 7, 2013 at 6:00 pm

    @kc:

    I just can’t fathom the mentality of humans who would spend millions to prevent other people from getting health coverage.

    At some point their fortune is no longer going to increase by leaps and bounds. At that point some of them choose to raise themselves higher by cutting off other people’s legs.

  54. 54.

    Citizen_X

    October 7, 2013 at 6:01 pm

    @Violet: Oh, for fuck’s sake: you shut down the government, you shut down the government. What the hell do these people expect?

  55. 55.

    MomSense

    October 7, 2013 at 6:03 pm

    @Richard M.:

    Wasn’t he discredited after it turned out that he was involved in the Wedtech scandal while AG?

  56. 56.

    Violet

    October 7, 2013 at 6:04 pm

    @Citizen_X: They expect that only “those people” will be affected and that People Like Them will feel no effects.

  57. 57.

    Cermet

    October 7, 2013 at 6:04 pm

    At the bottom of every sewer hole, you’ll find the koch sucker brothers; these are the evil twins of cheney except they need fewer dead childrens bodies to slate their thrist for blood. A group of evil undead that if targeted by our drones would save millions of amerikan lives and many more humans in the world.

  58. 58.

    scav

    October 7, 2013 at 6:04 pm

    “Do we have any Sheriffs with a pair?” Barton wrote.

    Of neurons?

    No, you don’t.

  59. 59.

    Hungry Joe

    October 7, 2013 at 6:05 pm

    Well, I meant “$25 million private jets,” not $25 private jets.” I wouldn’t mind having a $25 private jet myself, though the maintenance would probably eat me alive.

  60. 60.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 7, 2013 at 6:05 pm

    @MomSense:

    IOKIYAR

  61. 61.

    The Dangerman

    October 7, 2013 at 6:06 pm

    After watching some Republican loser on CNN, I’m rather convinced that the Republicans will block the debt ceiling raise; according to this Congressman, to avoid default, we would just have re-prioritize our payments. So, bondholders will get paid…

    …while programs such as Social Security and Medicare get gashed. We’re going over that cliff and it will be one staggering crisis, just in time for the Holidays. Social Security recipients could beg Republicans to act, but they are all in on this extra-constitutional putsch; they can’t fold).

    ETA: I saw JM at TPM say the same thing this morning and I thought he was being alarmist; I no longer think so.

  62. 62.

    Howard Beale IV

    October 7, 2013 at 6:07 pm

    @Trollhattan: Oh the ironies: it’s the Koch’s who are this generations Fritz Thyssen.

    And for those Teaheadists out there: Jesus ain’t gonna come back looking like Ted Nugent to save your sorry asses OR the USA, having declared it defiled by the Prince Of Lies-The GOP incarnate.

  63. 63.

    Felonius Monk

    October 7, 2013 at 6:09 pm

    I guess this will show everybody who’s boss:

    Truckers for the Constitution’ Plan to Slow D.C. Beltway, Arrest Congressmen

  64. 64.

    ? Martin

    October 7, 2013 at 6:09 pm

    No wonder Bachmann is so happy with the shutdown, she thinks we’re in the end times. Defaulting on the debt is merely her version of putting a plastic bag over her head waiting for the UFO to take her away.

    “Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha Come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand,” Bachmann added later. “And so when we see up is down and right is called wrong, when this is happening, we were told this; that these days would be as the days of Noah. We are seeing that in our time. Yes it gives us fear in some respects because we want the retirement that our parents enjoyed. Well they will, if they know Jesus Christ.”

  65. 65.

    MomSense

    October 7, 2013 at 6:10 pm

    Are all y’all on twitter? I’m going to head on over and do some venting. Jay Carney actually called Jonathan Karl out on his BS and I think Coburn and others could use a what for.

  66. 66.

    Botsplainer

    October 7, 2013 at 6:11 pm

    @dmsilev:

    There”s a subculture in Wingnuttia which holds that county sheriffs are the ultimate arbiters of what is and is not constitutional. I’m not sure what the ostensible logic is for that, but since it all boils down to gibbering and babbling anyway, I don’t really care.

    I first ran into some of those loons on FR back in 2000. Even then, as a conservative, I thought they were weird. They had this marvelous ring of raving batshit websites and would cite to each other all the time, and if challenged, would argue from the authority of “so-and-so is a marvelous researcher and has all of these links to back it up”. Of course, it was always to other nuts, and there was a significant crossover demographic of gold-fringed flag conspiracy theorists among the group.

    As I understand it (and it was some authentic frontier gibberish) the local sheriff was the only holdover office from the old English system and therefore the only universally recognized constimatooshinal authority. Or something, argle bargle.

  67. 67.

    Cermet

    October 7, 2013 at 6:11 pm

    @Botsplainer: Figures – evil undead that is now brain dead. And to think that koch sucker got a degree from MIT!

  68. 68.

    ? Martin

    October 7, 2013 at 6:12 pm

    @Felonius Monk: The comments are epic.

    We’re doomed.

  69. 69.

    Ramalama

    October 7, 2013 at 6:12 pm

    @Cermet: I used to work very very close to the new (ish) Kock Cancer research center at MIT. It took allll of my abilities to channel my inner Gandhi and not throw a brick through the floor to ceiling glass windows. 100 million to MIT to research cancer; another 100 million to fuck with poor people who have cancer. Maybe there’s some twisted sense of balance going on there. Maybe he has an inner ear problem.

  70. 70.

    Suffern ACE

    October 7, 2013 at 6:13 pm

    I’m actually wondering if we couldn’t just politely ask them to leave a la Bunge & Born in Argentina. “Thank you for offering your treasury management services. Have you thought of trying something a little smaller first. Like maybe Belarus?”

  71. 71.

    Howard Beale IV

    October 7, 2013 at 6:15 pm

    And now it’s time for the obligatory Star Trek references to this current clusterfuck:

    Let That Be Your Last Battle Field
    Chosen Realm

  72. 72.

    Chris

    October 7, 2013 at 6:15 pm

    @FDRLincoln:

    These people better hope that there is no God, or that any diety who does exist is from the Lovecraft mythos rather than anyone resembling Jesus.

    There’s a line from the Bible that always occurs to me when I listen to these pricks quoting a God who just by happy coincidence happens to believe all the same things the U.S. Republican Party of 2013 does –

    “But the prophet who shall presume to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak, even that prophet shall surely die.” (Deuteronomy 18:20)

  73. 73.

    Botsplainer

    October 7, 2013 at 6:15 pm

    @Felonius Monk:

    Truckers for the Constitution’ Plan to Slow D.C. Beltway, Arrest Congressmen

    Actually, there might be a plus here if some of the targets for arrest choose to “stand their ground” right then and there. Nothing makes me happier than dead redneck wingnuts.

    Frankly, much as we disdain him around here, I bet McCain will put up a pretty good fight all by himself.

  74. 74.

    becca

    October 7, 2013 at 6:16 pm

    @Anne Laurie: surely the Patriot Act has something somewhere in it that applies to Koch subversion.

    Sure would like to see that DHS report on the rise of domestic right wing terrorism that Yertle had squelched as too inflammatory.

    But, of course, BENGHAZI!!

    We should be screaming DHS REPORT!!

  75. 75.

    Chris

    October 7, 2013 at 6:17 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    Imagine all the law-enforcement good “we” could do if we arrested the Kochs and all their ilk under Dubya’s anti-terrorism laws…

    Spy fiction has been fantasizing about that since James Bond took on Auric Goldfinger, at least.

  76. 76.

    patrick II

    October 7, 2013 at 6:17 pm

    @Hungry Joe: For people like the Koch brothers, it is about power, control, and projection. People like the Koch brothers treat other people like slaves. If they were to lose absolute control over their environment they are afraid that they would be treated like they treat other people. They are driven by fear of their own of power in someone else’s hands. They fear their own dark souls.

  77. 77.

    Bokonon

    October 7, 2013 at 6:19 pm

    @The Dangerman: Shorter Republican nutcases – “It isn’t really a default unless WE SAY IT IS!”

    And when the markets all tank, and fail to respond to the GOP’s brilliant talking points? Betcha that they will find a way to pivot and blame it on Obama.

  78. 78.

    RaflW

    October 7, 2013 at 6:19 pm

    I may be in unicorns out of my ass territory here, but isn’t it possible that this whole Tea jihad might be alienating the other 0.1%ers from the Koch suckers?

  79. 79.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 7, 2013 at 6:21 pm

    @Bokonon:

    “It isn’t really a default unless WE SAY IT IS!”

    “Was it a default when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”

  80. 80.

    Violet

    October 7, 2013 at 6:22 pm

    @The Dangerman:

    while programs such as Social Security and Medicare get gashed. We’re going over that cliff and it will be one staggering crisis, just in time for the Holidays. Social Security recipients could beg Republicans to act, but they are all in on this extra-constitutional putsch; they can’t fold).

    The Republicans can’t risk this happening. Social Security and Medicare recipients make up the bulk of their voters.

  81. 81.

    Chris

    October 7, 2013 at 6:22 pm

    @fuckwit:

    The 1% likes having America as a Company Town where they control us. Medical care is the leverage. They have us by the short and curlies, and they know it. They are fighting with everything they’ve got to hold on to that.

    Yes.

    I’ve said it before; health care is one of their few tools of control that TR, FDR and LBJ didn’t take away from them when they created the American welfare state. It’s not just “the leverage,” it’s the only leverage of its kind, apart from perhaps education, that they have left. They’ve spent the last century watching their slavemasters’ whips being taken away from them one by one, and now we’re coming for their last one. No wonder they fought it so energetically for all these decades, and no matter they’re so fucking desperate now.

  82. 82.

    scav

    October 7, 2013 at 6:22 pm

    @Felonius Monk:

    Truckers for the Constitution’ Plan to Slow D.C. Beltway, Arrest Congressmen

    Do you know who else nearly makes a national hobby of Truck based demonstrations?

    No, better.

    The French.

  83. 83.

    MomSense

    October 7, 2013 at 6:22 pm

    @becca:

    surely the Patriot Act has something somewhere in it that applies to Koch subversion.

    Obama is the worst dictator ever. This would be a perfect time for the FEMA camps.

  84. 84.

    Botsplainer

    October 7, 2013 at 6:23 pm

    @RaflW:

    I may be in unicorns out of my ass territory here, but isn’t it possible that this whole Tea jihad might be alienating the other 0.1%ers from the Koch suckers?

    Each of the Kochs sees himself as Francisco D’Anconia, bravely giving that dumbassed speech about the nature of money and helping to shut down the engine of the world. They’ve got a full-on case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, a vision for the world, and the resources to carry it out, thanks to tax cuts, Citizens United and a cowed media afraid to report on what they truly are.

    In short, they don’t care.

  85. 85.

    scav

    October 7, 2013 at 6:26 pm

    @scav: To be utterly fair, The French could work up a credible manif using balloon animals.

  86. 86.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 7, 2013 at 6:26 pm

    @MomSense:

    Obama is the worst dictator ever. This would be a perfect time for the FEMA camps.

    I wish he’d get his thin black ass in motion on this. There are plenty of teatards who need to be processed into something actually useful.

  87. 87.

    The Dangerman

    October 7, 2013 at 6:27 pm

    @Bokonon:

    Betcha that they will find a way to pivot and blame it on Obama.

    Of course, but how long have they tried to kill social programs Medicare and Social Security? If there ain’t any money after paying creditors, there ain’t any money for, say, EPA or NLRB, either….

    …and if Obama were to actually default, they’ll impeach him.

    We are in for the ride from hell; not an E Ticket (youngsters, ask your parents), more like an F Ticket (for being well and truly fucked).

    I may not have enough alcohol on hand for this Fall; best go stock up.

  88. 88.

    The Dangerman

    October 7, 2013 at 6:29 pm

    @Violet:

    The Republicans can’t risk this happening. Social Security and Medicare recipients make up the bulk of their voters.

    Who gives a shit about voters if they can enact all their policies from the gerrymandered house?

    ETA; Plus, the Right will say Obama stopped those SS and Medicare checks and their base will buy it.

  89. 89.

    Botsplainer

    October 7, 2013 at 6:29 pm

    @MomSense:

    Obama is the worst dictator ever. This would be a perfect time for the FEMA camps.

    That’s clearly because he’s just a lazy blah. Had be been interested in some hard work like a white man would, the FEMA reeducation camps for White Christian Patriots would have been up and rolling by February 1, 2009.

    Hell, I volunteer to run one every few weeks and I’ve never heard back – and here I’ve promised to really try and keep my camp death rate fairly low, my camp gay wedding rates high, and at least a 45% conversion ratio for camp inmate conversions from Christianity to either Gaia worship or Islam.

  90. 90.

    Chris

    October 7, 2013 at 6:29 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    1. Killing Hitler on the battlefield during the Great War;

    Some form of pissed off German nationalism would’ve erupted one way or another. Killing Hitler wouldn’t have done a lot of good and, for all we know, could’ve made things worse by putting someone in charge who wasn’t a fucking idiot.

    2. Learning Aramaic, traveling to Israel in 0 BC (minus 7 months) and whispering “are you really fucking stupid enough to believe that ‘I’m pregnant by the Holy Spirit’ shit from her” into Joseph’s ear while handing him a really big rock;

    What did Mary and Jesus ever do to me? By all accounts, if Jesus existed he was a pretty good guy. His belief system just got co-opted as soon as enough powerful people noticed that it was spreading like wildfire. Might as well blame the early socialist theorists for the crimes of Stalin and Mao.

    3. Going to the USSR at the same time as Fred Koch and whispering into Stalin’s ear about how Koch was plotting against him.

    DING DING DING DING!!!

    … honestly, if you asked me to change one thing in history, it would’ve been Ronald Reagan’s election… but as with Germany in the 1930s, maybe he was just the symptom and not the cause. Going after the Koch money stream might’ve done more good in the long run.

    Say, anyone know when Perlstein’s Ronald Reagan book is supposed to come out? I am really looking forward to that one.

  91. 91.

    Hungry Joe

    October 7, 2013 at 6:30 pm

    RE “Each of the Kochs sees himself as Francisco D’Anconia,”@Botsplainer: This.

    If the Kochs were just greedy bastards, we’d be better able to counter them. But their father was a co-founder of the John Birch Society, and they are their father’s sons — which is to say, they’re nuts. Really. Seriously. They’re nuts. That makes them about six times as dangerous.

  92. 92.

    Botsplainer

    October 7, 2013 at 6:30 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I wish he’d get his thin black ass in motion on this. There are plenty of teatards who need to be processed into something actually useful.

    Soylent Communion Wafers.

  93. 93.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 7, 2013 at 6:35 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    Hell, I volunteer to run one every few weeks and I’ve never heard back – and here I’ve promised to really try and keep my camp death rate fairly low, my camp gay wedding rates high, and at least a 45% conversion ration for camp inmate conversions from Christianity to either Gaia worship or Islam.

    Too bad for you.

  94. 94.

    Chris

    October 7, 2013 at 6:37 pm

    @Ms. D. Ranged in AZ:

    Think about it….the Koch brothers are worth tens of billions…let’s just ballpark and say 90 billion–even if they lose half of that…they’re still worth 45 billion….Why would anyone who has millions give a shit? Seriously…..

    This is why when people recoil in horror at the notion of Eisenhower-era 90% tax rates, I just have to laugh. You’re telling me that the richest people in America, under this horrifying scheme, would still be left with… nine billion dollars? That’s what the billionaires consider being “beggared?” Having to live off of nine billion dollars instead of ninety? This while the country is still awash in people going broke, homeless, starving, etc, people that one measely percentage point of the Koch’s fortune could fund for ten lifetimes? Someone needs to rearrange their priorities.

  95. 95.

    Botsplainer

    October 7, 2013 at 6:42 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Too bad for you.

    You fucker! Who’d you have to blow to get the gig?

    Never mind – I’m holding out for Camp Commandant – no piddly assistant’s job for me. Plus, I want my pick of prisoners.

  96. 96.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 7, 2013 at 6:45 pm

    @Chris: But they would still have way more than that. The tax rates wouldn’t expropriate their wealth, unless we are talking estate taxes – which an estate lawyer I know has told me are entirely voluntary.

    @Botsplainer: I applied. Commandant is a purely ceremonial position; AC is where the rubber hits the road.

  97. 97.

    burnspbesq

    October 7, 2013 at 6:46 pm

    If any operating division or subsidiary of Koch Industries delivered a return on investment as low as what the brothers have gotten on their political-advocacy spend, management would be fired or the business would be sold, or both. Yet they continue to flush tens of millions down the crapper.

    Clearly, they’ve taken leave of their senses, and a conservator should be appointed to prevent them from squandering any more money that should be preserved for the benefit of their heirs.

  98. 98.

    ottercliff

    October 7, 2013 at 6:54 pm

    Oh, Lord. Don’t tell me that Ed Meese is still above ground….

  99. 99.

    ruemara

    October 7, 2013 at 6:54 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: What would that be? They’re too toxic to eat and too toxic to spread on plants.

  100. 100.

    Chris

    October 7, 2013 at 6:57 pm

    Also, speaking of antisemites – Billy Grahama goes full-blown Left Behind.

    I won’t be sorry to see him croak. He was more of a mixed bag than the crop that went mainstream in the eighties, but he still had far too many ugly points for me to let slide. And he’s apparently decided that the ugliness was the message he wanted to go out on. So be it.

  101. 101.

    Chris

    October 7, 2013 at 6:58 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Even better, then…

  102. 102.

    TAPX486

    October 7, 2013 at 7:01 pm

    It should be obvious to a blind man that it’s all Obama’s fault. First of all he had the bad manners of not knowing his place and not losing to McCain and the seer of Alaska in 2008. If that wasn’t bad enough he compounded his uppity Muslim Kenyan attitude by not simply turning the White House over t o Mitt and Ann, since it was obvious that being president was Mitt’s destiny (or at least so said Ann). The White House would have made an excellent addition to the Romney collection of vintage homes.

  103. 103.

    MomSense

    October 7, 2013 at 7:14 pm

    You guys are cracking me up!

  104. 104.

    Mike in NC

    October 7, 2013 at 7:19 pm

    @Chris:

    Rev. Billy Graham Prepares ‘Perhaps … My Last Message’

    Yeah. Promises, promises…

  105. 105.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 7, 2013 at 7:19 pm

    @ruemara:

    Insulation for nuclear waste.

  106. 106.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 7, 2013 at 7:20 pm

    @Chris:

    It may well be his son’s words, not his, but the problem here is he’s always been a fraud and a crook.

  107. 107.

    johnny aquitard

    October 7, 2013 at 7:34 pm

    @Ramalama:We know enough about the Kochs to question this so-called philanthropy and look for what they are really after. Their motives have been consistently about gaining ever more power and money.

    The hundred mil buys them PR and moral cover for what they knew was going to follow: the hundreds of millions they have spent to deny health care for millions of the poor. It is a very cynical $100 million spent but I ask you, does that seem out of character for them?

    And consider this possibility: the Kochs are in their 70’s. Cancer is an increasing possibility. They are funding research for their own longevity. Let others be the subjects for risky clinical trials. If and when a better treatment is found, they get to cut to the head of the line, if and when they need to.

    The Kochs do not do philanthropy. They do not spend money to help others. They spend it to help themselves.

  108. 108.

    Chris

    October 7, 2013 at 7:59 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Harry Truman (love that guy) had him pegged pretty well;

    “But now we’ve got just this one evangelist, this Billy Graham, and he’s gone off the beam. He’s…well, I hadn’t ought to say this, but he’s one of those counterfeits I was telling you about. He claims he’s a friend of all the Presidents, but he was never a friend of mine when I was President. I just don’t go for people like that. All he’s interested in is getting his name in the paper.”

  109. 109.

    Chris

    October 7, 2013 at 8:05 pm

    @johnny aquitard:

    The hundred mil buys them PR and moral cover for what they knew was going to follow: the hundreds of millions they have spent to deny health care for millions of the poor.

    As long as I’m posting scathing quotes, here’s Doctor Who;

    “You let one of them go, but that’s nothing new. Every now and then a little victim is spared because she smiled, ’cause he’s got freckles, ’cause they begged…and that’s how you live with yourself. That’s how you slaughter millions, because once in a while, on a whim, if the wind’s in the right direction, you happen to be kind.”

  110. 110.

    Roger Moore

    October 7, 2013 at 8:06 pm

    @Chris:

    … honestly, if you asked me to change one thing in history, it would’ve been Ronald Reagan’s election… but as with Germany in the 1930s, maybe he was just the symptom and not the cause.

    OTOH, think of what you could have done by redesigning the butterfly ballots in Palm Beach County. Shrub’s election was no kind of historical inevitability, and President Gore would have given us a very different post-2000 history.

  111. 111.

    Roger Moore

    October 7, 2013 at 8:09 pm

    @Chris:
    Psst. Billy Graham is a Cracker.

  112. 112.

    johnny aquitard

    October 7, 2013 at 8:11 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    There are plenty of teatards who need to be processed into something actually useful.

    How about Soylent green?

    FEMA Death Panels FTW!

    We can feed them to starving North Koreans!

    Or use as goldfish food. Some of that stuff looks and smells like it already is soylent green.

  113. 113.

    Ramalama

    October 7, 2013 at 8:11 pm

    @johnny aquitard: The Koch who funded the building/center already had cancer. He cited that as his motivation for donating the funds. A bunch of the researchers I worked with said that the Koch approach was totally antiquated – that real discoveries have been made through interdisciplinary collaborations, not old school research, one-subject only kind of approach.

    Kind of says everything, now that I see the argument all pixelated and such.

  114. 114.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    October 7, 2013 at 8:12 pm

    @johnny aquitard: David and Charles aren’t the same. Charles seems to be the more reactionary of the two. David’s foundation supports a lot of the arts, shows on PBS, etc.

    Koch Family Foundations.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who supports high taxes on folks like that, and significant inheritance taxes to boot.)

  115. 115.

    NobodySpecial

    October 7, 2013 at 8:22 pm

    @Felonius Monk: Who will be our Pigpen and Rubber Duck in these parlous times?

  116. 116.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 7, 2013 at 8:32 pm

    @Trollhattan:

    Find out here on the same day that Ed Meese and Billy Graham are stil with us.

    I know. I feel as though I have to keep Wikipedia permanently open to the Meese and Graham pages, and refresh every couple of hours. It’s amazing the FSM would continue to allow them (and Cheney) to roam the earth.

  117. 117.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 7, 2013 at 8:41 pm

    @Chris:

    “But the prophet who shall presume to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak, even that prophet shall surely die. And not a moment too soon.” (Deuteronomy 18:20)

    Fixed, however presumptuous of me it may be.

  118. 118.

    Roger Moore

    October 7, 2013 at 8:42 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    It’s amazing the FSM would continue to allow them (and Cheney) to roam the earth.

    I think the fact that none of them has been crushed by a giant falling meatball is the surest sign that the universe is not controlled by a giant, intelligent pasta creature.

  119. 119.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 7, 2013 at 8:48 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    Soylent Communion Wafers.

    So much win.

  120. 120.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 7, 2013 at 8:52 pm

    @Chris:

    The more I learn about Harry Truman, the more I like him.

  121. 121.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 7, 2013 at 8:57 pm

    @Roger Moore:  Sad face. I know. Not even strangled by a spaghetti or mauled by a macRo I.

  122. 122.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 7, 2013 at 8:58 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Or even a macaroni.

    Gods damned auto correct thing.

  123. 123.

    johnny aquitard

    October 7, 2013 at 9:04 pm

    @Chris:

    but as with Germany in the 1930s, maybe he was just the symptom and not the cause.

    I think by the 30’s the wealthy and the right that elevated that funny little painter guy to chancellor had whipped up and mis-informed and dis-informed people so much and for so long, it was inevitable. The scape-goating of jews and other rightwing targets began even as soldiers were returning home from the trenches of WWI.

    For 15 years they had fanned the fire of resentment and bigotry and sought to ride a political updraft.

    And when such a fire gets hot enough, intense enough, there appears a figure, as if summoned by incantation, dancing a victory jig while like Nero crazily fiddling the flames higher and higher.

  124. 124.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 7, 2013 at 9:06 pm

    @johnny aquitard:

    Every time I buy a roll of paper towels* I think to myself, Welp, I hope I’m funding cancer research or opera or something I approve of, not a new think tank or Congresscritter.

    *Have you ever really tried to boycott all products that are owned by the Kochs one way or another? Have you really?

  125. 125.

    MomSense

    October 7, 2013 at 9:07 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: @johnny aquitard: @Botsplainer: @Omnes Omnibus:

    We just might get our chance after all.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6d96mXZ3YY

  126. 126.

    WereBear

    October 7, 2013 at 9:14 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: Yeah, it is tough. But there’s an app for that.

    Just not buying Bounty/Georgia Pacific; that alone could send quite the message.

  127. 127.

    johnny aquitard

    October 7, 2013 at 9:28 pm

    @Ramalama: Yup. It kinda fits.

    Also, let me say it never fails that wingers never can empathize until a particular misfortune befalls them. Which means they won’t ever understand what not having heath insurance is like, since that won’t ever happen to them.

    Also, I’m guessing by taking the one-subject only, non-interdisciplinary kind of approach also means the credit and hence the PR value doesn’t get spread around either.

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:

    David and Charles aren’t the same.

    LMFAO. Looks like the Koch PR investment worked.

  128. 128.

    johnny aquitard

    October 7, 2013 at 9:50 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: Yes. It’s pretty damn impossible because they own stuff that is everywhere, or things that you can’t reasonably switch, like where the coal or oil came from that was used to generate your electricity.

    But we avoid as many Koch brands as we can because even something is better than nothing. Apparently there’s an I-app for boycotting kock brands. Tee-hee.

  129. 129.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    October 7, 2013 at 9:56 pm

    @johnny aquitard: Protip: You’re not persuading many by overstating your case.

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  130. 130.

    Ruckus

    October 8, 2013 at 12:03 am

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    Really sort of kills the idea of a just and fair deity doesn’t it?

  131. 131.

    Ruckus

    October 8, 2013 at 12:05 am

    @johnny aquitard:

    You probably meant it that way but it does sound like history repeating itself.

  132. 132.

    jc

    October 8, 2013 at 3:43 am

    So what do the billionaire Koch brothers want? They want the government to turn to shit, apparently. Who elected Charles and David Koch to run the government? Exactly zero percent. No one.

    Why do Charles and David Koch hate democracy?

  133. 133.

    sherparick

    October 8, 2013 at 8:42 am

    @? Martin: Yes, Charles and David are playing a long game whereby they their little club of some 200 plutocrats basically rule the U.S. and grant little charities that supplicate to them or reaches a their attention level (MIT & Sloan-Kettering). They, not Sam Brownback, now rule Kansas. They, not Scott Walker, now rule Wisconsin. Their friend Art Pope now rules North Carolina. And once they establish their rule, they don’t intend to let any democratic process take it back from them. And they have the money, and the Supreme Court, to do it. $100,000 in annual dues is to them what tip money for service at a restaurant is not us. With $62 billion in net combined worth, and a company that produces $115 billion in revenue a year, spending $200 million on political campaigns is a rounding error on their bank accounts.

    “Charles and David own 84% of it, after a bitter split with brothers William and Frederick in the 1980s. FORBES estimates Charles and David each to be worth $31 billion, tying them for fourth place on The Forbes 400, behind only Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Larry Ellison, and they say they reinvest 90% of the company’s profits each year. In 2012, with revenues of $115 billion–and estimated pretax profit margins of 10%–that’s a stunning amount of money. How they then deploy all that cash, and delegate that control, is one of the world’s alltime capitalist case studies.” from http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2012/12/05/inside-the-koch-empire-how-the-brothers-plan-to-reshape-america/2/

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