America’s billion-dollar mess: How Koch bros are trying to buy a right-wing future

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http://www.salon.com/2015/01/28/americas_billion_dollar_mess_how_koch_bros_are_trying_to_buy_a_right_wing_future/



Besides our learning that one of the nation’s most valuable properties is outrageously vulnerable to attack, the biggest news on Tuesday probably came from the Koch brothers, who are reportedly planning to organize and spend nearly $1 billion (that’s billion, with a b) on the 2016 election. As the New York Times and Politico both noted, that figure would be significantly more than either the Republican or Democratic parties spent in 2012. At least in terms of financial power, it would potentially turn the Koch brothers into the most significant third party in U.S. politics since the days of Bull-Moose. Even if we assume that, like early reports of an NFL contract, the number is inflated for purposes of hype, it is still a lot of money.

Of course, this is far from the first time the Kochs have promised to man liberty’s ramparts, checkbooks in hand. In advance of the 2012 election, for example, they made a lot of noise about wielding their largess. And subsequent reports, which found them to have raised more than $400 million to defeat President Obama, proved they were not bluffing. Yet despite all that, 2012 ended up being quite a good year for Democrats — so good, in fact, that it led some observers to conclude that the effects of outside spending in American elections are overrated.

I fully expect to hear some too-clever-by-half contrarians make the same argument in the coming weeks and years. They’ll tell us that the Kochs aren’t remotely as important or influential as liberals — and the Kochs themselves — would like to think. And as tends to be the case with contrarianism, which I’m distinguishing here from straight-up trolling, the contrarians will have some kernels of truth embedded in their spin. Nevertheless, a small but profound insight from deep within the Politico report shows why we shouldn’t believe the folks asking us to pay no attention to the men behind the super PAC curtain.

According to Politico, the Kochs, and their network of hyper-wealthy and comparably conservative donors, show an “eagerness … to resume their big giving” that is undeterred by 2012’s failures. They do this, the piece continues, because they “are taking a long view” of their mission, one that Politico describes as “unusual in American big money politics.” That’s probably a veiled reference to George Soros, who took his ball and went home after John Kerry lost in 2004. But it’s definitely an accurate reading of how the Kochs are running their operation — which, if we shift our focus away from the White House, is hard to describe as anything less than a success.

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1. K&R....

How can anyone be OK with this?

[meow2u3]

2. These two miscreants belong behind bars

They also need to have every penny of theirs forfeited for the sake of this country. They're the two most dangerous men in the world.