GOP Can't Kick Addiction to Koch Money

If you get your, um, "information" from talk radio or fringey blogs or Fox "News", you probably won't believe a single word I'm about to write. Your world is so far from mine that for all I know, you still think smokestacks, coal, oil and gasoline represent America's energy future. Hell, you might even believe in the Tao of Ted Cruz. You'd probably be better off revisiting your frayed copy of "Atlas Shrugged", but I don't know how you can read in the dark.

With the government shut down by the hostage takers in the Republican's Tea Party minority and fingers pointing all over Washington, I'll point mine at the money men behind the right-wing curtain--Charles and David Koch. 

Last Sunday's "New York Times" had a well-researched piece on the makings of the shutdown, and writer Sheryl Gay Stolberg points to the Koch's central role as financiers:

     "A defunding “tool kit” created in early September included talking points for the question, “What happens when you shut down the government and you are blamed for it?” The suggested answer was the one House Republicans give today: “We are simply calling to fund the entire government except for the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare.”

     The current budget brinkmanship is just the latest development in a well-financed, broad-based assault on the health law, Mr. Obama’s signature legislative initiative. Groups like Tea Party Patriots, Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks are all immersed in the fight, as is Club for Growth, a business-backed nonprofit organization. Some, like Generation Opportunity and Young Americans for Liberty, both aimed at young adults, are upstarts. Heritage Action is new, too, founded in 2010 to advance the policy prescriptions of its sister group, the Heritage Foundation.

     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."

It gets weirder. As "Death and Taxes Magazine" points out, Koch-backed "FreedomWorks" actually told people what to Tweet:   

"The key hashtags for this week are:

#DontFundIt

#MakeDCListen

#DefundObamacare

#ObamaCare

.@Senate_GOPs Stand with @TedCruz! #DontFundIt #MakeDCListen

.@LindseyGrahamSC Your vote for cloture was a vote to fund #ObamaCare #DontFundIt

.@TedCruz & .@SenMikeLee thank you for standing strong. #DontFundIt

Call both of your Senators today 202.224.3121 and ask them to delay #Obamacare. #DontFundIt #MakeDCListen

If all of Obama’s friends deserve #Obamacare waivers, don’t the rest of us deserve a one-year delay? #DontFundIt #MakeDCListen

#ObamaCare isn’t ready for Big Labor, Big Government, or Big Business, so they all got exemptions. What about the rest of us? #DontFundIt #MakeDCListen"

The Koch-backed group came up with these talking points:

1. What happens when you shut down the government and you are blamed for it?
—> We are simply calling to fund the entire government except for the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare.

—> If Congress is willing to defund this terrible law and stand up for the American people, the American people will support them

More Koch Brothers' talking points: What about the people with pre-existing conditions who cannot get health insurance without the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare?

—> Health insurance does not equal health care. There are several studies that show that patients on Medicaid have no noticeably improved health outcome over people who completely lack health insurance. After studying 800,000 patients, the study’s authors at the University of Virginia concluded that patients on Medicaid (a program that Obamacare greatly expands) are just as
likely, and sometimes more likely, to die than patients without any health insurance coverage.

Ask yourself: do you think the Koch Brothers forgo health insurance? I mean, they might die with it, anyway...

The Koch's are on record as advocating the dissolution of Medicare and Medicaid, privatizing the Veteran’s Administration, getting rid of the EPA, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Education. Why? Once all those things are privatized we’ll need corporate solutions to fill the services they provide. And guess who can provide those corporate solutions? 

Republicans have an addiction problem, but things don't go better with the Kochs.