The insidious Koch conspiracy strikes again!

They apparently plan to spend almost a billion bucks in 2016: “A network of conservative advocacy groups backed by Charles and David Koch aims to spend a staggering $889 million in advance of the next White House election, part of an expansive strategy to build on its 2014 victories that may involve jumping into the Republican primaries[*].”  What makes this fascinating, of course, is that the ‘insidious Koch conspiracy’ is pretty much the same as the ‘insidious libertarian conspiracy:’ to wit, they plan to take over, and then leave you the Hell alone. Continue reading The insidious Koch conspiracy strikes again!

AFSCME thinks that the UNCF should think that $60K > $25M.

Oh, dear.

A powerful government workers’ union will end its support for the United Negro College Fund after the group accepted $25 million from the conservative powerhouse Koch brothers and the college fund’s president appeared at a Koch event.

In a letter made public Thursday, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees said it will no longer partner with or raise funds for the fund, known for its iconic motto, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

Oh, dear.  How will the UNCF ever survive without AFSCME’s support? Continue reading AFSCME thinks that the UNCF should think that $60K > $25M.

Quote of the Day, @jonahgoldberg Offers A Smart Suggestion Edition.

Like he does.

A friend of mine made a good point recently. People should stop referring to the “Koch brothers.” It makes them sound nefarious. We should call them by their names. And it’s true when you think about it; for some reason the “brothers” label sounds more nefarious, like the “Stinking Diaz Brothers” from Scarface, or the “Malachi Brothers” from Happy Days, or the “Montirez Brothers” from Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead, or the “Slade Brothers” from Working Girl. Well, you get the point.

I’m guilty of this myself.

How many times must we write ‘Harry Reid may be having …issues’?

Seriously, this is kind of weird.

It’s not just bizarre, or downright creepy; it’s also not working.

Oooh, those scary Koch Brothers and their AFP minions!

First, watch these two Americans for Prosperity (AFP) ads: they will show you exactly what the Democratic party is up against this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2wPxdmBrco

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNRQMqmTmLM

Spoiler warning: the Democrats have got nothing currently up that can beat either.

Continue reading Oooh, those scary Koch Brothers and their AFP minions!

@KindforCongress, @Barrow4GA, Collin Peterson, @ericswalwell, & @BishopforCongress’s dirty Koch money.

Note: I do not actually consider Koch Industry [and employees: see Update below] campaign contributions to be in point of fact ‘dirty.’  And neither do the following Democrats!

  • Barrow, John (D-GA)
  • Bishop, Sanford (D-GA)
  • Matheson, Jim (D-UT)
  • Kind, Ron (D-WI)
  • Peterson, Collin (D-MN)
  • Swalwell, Eric (D-CA)

Screenshot here, just in case.
Continue reading @KindforCongress, @Barrow4GA, Collin Peterson, @ericswalwell, & @BishopforCongress’s dirty Koch money.

New York Times: TREMBLE, mortals, at the power of the Koch Artillery War-Zeppelin!

Seriously,  that’s the image that the New York Times is going with in their editorial “The Koch Party.”  EXPLICITLY.

Only a few weeks into this midterm election year, the right-wing political zeppelin is fully inflated with secret cash and is firing malicious falsehoods at supporters of health care reform.

…honestly? I just stopped reading at that point.  Mostly because I go distracted by the possibilities; if the Koch Brothers are handing out War Zeppelins then I want mine to be cyberpunk, with electro-cannons and a steam organ.  And maybe ornithopters.  Yes, definitely ornithopters: otherwise, there’s no freaking point.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: I am taking this editorial as seriously as it deserves.  Look, you throw Artillery War-Zeppelins right over the plate, fat, slow, and happy: I’m going to take a swing at it.

#rsrh Big Labor Watch: Jon Geenen’s timid heresy.

Saw this posted over at RedState by LaborUnionReport (who lives and breathes union issues; compared to him, I’m a rank amateur and dilettante): Jon Geenen, (current) International Vice President of United Steelworkers has belatedly come to the realization that these awful free-market libertarian Koch brothers* happen to somehow also manage to create jobsGood jobs.  Good union jobs.  Good union jobs in America.  This leads to a somewhat equivocal pushback against his own side’s message:

This presents a dilemma and a paradox. While the Koch brothers are credited with advocating an agenda and groups that are clearly hostile to labor and labor’s agenda, the brothers’ company in practice and in general has positive and productive collective bargaining relationships with its unions.

It’s not a paradox – dilemma, I will grant (if one of Big Labor’s own making), but not a paradox.  The Koch brothers and other practical libertarian types are generally hostile towards labor leadership, to be sure… because labor leadership is generally hostile to them, and their basic operating philosophy.  Individual workers, or even individual private sector unions, may be (and often are) different stories.  It is a particularly pernicious myth among the Left that industrialists and manufacturers wish nothing less than to reduce the American working class to the status of neo-peasantry; that this supposedly policy goal flies in the face of the self-evident truth that prosperous people buy more stuff is never adequately explained, mostly because the people who maintain the Left’s shared ideology take Karl Marx far too seriously**.

Geenen himself never comes close to facing that issue, and while I suppose he gets some credit for even timidly bringing up the subject he picked a fairly obscure venue in which to lapse into heresy.  If he really wants to get the message out then I suggest he try calling up Fox, CNN, ABC, the Washington Post, the New York Times… heck, even a fringe network like MSNBC would have him on in a heartbeat.  I suggest this – but I’m not holding my breath that he will.

Moe Lane

*Whose political contributions are, by the way, dwarfed by the political contributions of Big Labor.  I mention this because Geenen was lading out the anti-Citizen’s United porn again.

**Note that I am not calling them Marxists themselves, only that they take his basic arguments far too seriously.  Because remember, folks: Marxism is intellectualism for stupid people.