Are the Koch Bros and their Tea Party followers shutting down the Government now?

Negotiations in Congress to prevent a government shut down have reportedly fallen through. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid placed the blame on Tea Party Republicans who are refusing to compromise in budget negotiations saying, “The infighting between the tea party and the rest of the Republican Party…is keeping our negotiating partner from the negotiating table."

One of the main obstacles in the budget negotiations are demands by Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood and “Obamacare”. In other words – Republicans are arguing that if disadvantaged women and more than 52 million people nationwide are allowed to have access to critical healthcare services – then they’ll shut down the government!

You can’t make this stuff up. Are Koch Bros and their followers shutting down the Government now?

Comments

Minny's picture
Minny 11 years 51 weeks ago
#1

Koch Conference was "Mission Accomplished"

The conference held in CA several months ago was the Koch brothers telling their operatives "Mission Accomplished" and pulling out ALL of the stops. Their massive attack on American workers became an alarm clock for workers and their response became alarming for the Kochs. They clearly did not expect any significant blowback on this.

Now, just when it seemed things are are ridiculous as they can possibly be, CLARENCE THOMAS writes the Supreme Court decision regarding Walmart and its female employees? Alert Anita Hill!

baryon's picture
baryon 11 years 51 weeks ago
#2

On the show today, Thom mentioned clasified help-wanted ads for right-wing internet astroturfers in Canada. He then guessed the Kochs have an interest. It was a well-educated guess.

From the Edmonton Journal: Billionaire Tea Party financiers to lobby Alberta government

Alberta’s lobbyist registry shows that on March 15, Koch Industries signed up to lobby the province on energy and resource development policy issues, as well as taxation and economic development. Calgary-based lobbyist David Keto of Global Public Affairs has been hired to arrange meetings and conduct grassroots and informal communications on behalf of the company.

So there's a good lead on who might be placing the ads.

The larger context here is that Canada's government has just been dissolved, which is like the entire US congress suddenly being up for reelection. Canada is up for grabs and the Koch's have a huge vested interest.

Alberta is of special interest to them because of the boom in the oil sands industry that's taken off since 2006.

dianhow 11 years 51 weeks ago
#3

Extreme Tea party folks will cause GOP to lose - if and when people begin to think logically- use reason and check facts. Angry short sighted very Gullible 2010 Voters gave these power mad dictators / GOP Gov's the power to ram rod over us - the ' small ' people - the peasants as Bank of America called us in a memo that went public. Hope they are happy Most of them do not yet have a clue that the GOP is out to destroy working people- lower wages & benefits- continue to push wealth favoring Reaganomics Bush Greenspan- Goldman FEd policies of last 30 yrs since 1981 Reaganomics deregulation of the Robber barons- 1986 total amnesty with open borders for slave wages- Iran contra sale of guns which Reagan lied about for months untill he was forced to admit the facts . Obama has just 2/14 years vs Reagan Bush 1-2 Cheney & Goldman Fed boys like Greenspan Rubin Sommers Bernacki who's policies we lived under from 1981 - 2008 Bush global crash TARP 2 long wars- lies- fear tactics- greed- 3 huge unfunded Reagan Bush GOP tax cuts and hidden debt

dnarnadem 11 years 51 weeks ago
#4

As I told my wife this morning - there are 5 Catholic Judges on the Supreme court - 4 who are men. Can you guess what the decision will be? I know it will be 5-4. I give it 75% chance it will be against. Any takers?

dnarnadem 11 years 51 weeks ago
#5

As to the meo-cons wanting to shutting down the government - Yes! They actually believe that this will be beneficial to them. Unfortunatelly for the rest of us 335 million Americans it will not be so beneficial!

2950-10K's picture
2950-10K 11 years 51 weeks ago
#6

The whole Govt. shut down issue revolving around inept Republicans and their dysfunctional Tea Party counterparts will only speed up the inevitable spotlight on truth. A shutdown would finally jolt the general public into paying attention to the dynamics playing out here. It's not rocket science understanding the real motivations and forces behind the Tea Party madness. A few wealthy concerns, like the Koch brothers have, manipulated a rightfully angry and frustrated segment into voting against their own best interests. The promise that tiny Govt. without regulatory constraints leads to a DON'T TREAD ON ME NIRVANA is the biggest fairy tale I've ever heard. This lie leads to tax breaks for the super rich, unaffordable healthcare; the dismantling of social security, low wages, and the list is endless. The only people benefiting are the super rich, the wealthy puppet masters, and, to a lame extent, their political stooges. The realization that the vast majority of us are getting screwed will just happen sooner in light of a shutdown. What a twisted silver lining to a tragic movement that large numbers might wake up and realize the Tea doesn’t smell like DEMOCRACY.

K. Douglas Brooms's picture
K. Douglas Brooms 11 years 51 weeks ago
#7

It was stated “One of the main obstacles in the budget negotiations are demands by Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood and “Obamacare”. In other words – Republicans are arguing that if disadvantaged women and more than 52 million people nationwide are allowed to have access to critical healthcare services – then they’ll shut down the government!”

Every American must remain astutely aware that defunding the “Affordable Health Care Act” of 2010 would have monumental dire consequences as measured in human lives.

A Harvard Medical School research study, released Sept. 2009, and appearing in the Dec. 2009 The American Journal of Public Health, analyzed participants aged 64 years and younger, and found a 40% higher risk of death among uninsured, compared with privately insured adults. See http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58G6W520090917, and http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/6-health-care-restrictions-cost-thousands-of-lives-in-us/. It was stated:

· Lack of health insurance causes 44,798 deaths each year among the 46 million uninsured Americans.

· “These unnecessary deaths will continue under the new health care reform legislation. The bill would do virtually nothing for the uninsured until 2013, and leave at least 17 million uninsured over the long run.”

· According to the Congressional Budget Office, 23 million Americans will remain uninsured in 2019, when the law is fully implemented. This will translate into about 23,000 unnecessary deaths annually.

· Unfortunately, Congress bowed to pressures from the insurance and drug industry, and refused to consider the reform that would have comprehensively covered all Americans – single-payer national health insurance.

From Sept. 2009 until 2011, the numbers of the uninsured evidently has swollen from 46 million to 52 million, which revised would translate from 44,798 to 50,641 deaths each year. That is an average of 139 unnecessary deaths each day.

Among the uninsured, it is equivalent to having a special “early death” lottery ticket, compliments of the health insurance industry and lobby via their Republican proxies. Every day, 139 uninsured Americans will have a winning ticket, meaning that they prematurely will lose their life. Unfortunately, the odds of “winning” are significantly better than with a regular lottery ticket, plus we’re playing every day.

For perspective, there were 2,977 victims from the 9/11/01 attacks. We as Americans still remain incensed by the barbaric assault by the Saudi nationals at the behest of Al Qaeda. Yet, a needless and avoidable loss of 50,641 American lives each year would be equivalent in numbers to a 9/11 catastrophe every 17 days, an ongoing human cataclysm far greater in magnitude.

A national memorial for the 9/11 victims is held each year with much solemn fanfare. Yet there is no such national memorial for the uninsured victims, ostensibly at the hands of the Republicans and their benefactors. What does this say about our respect and reverence for human lives needlessly lost, absent the horrifying spectacle?

The Republicans in the Senate and in the majority controlled House remain obsessed with defunding the Affordable Care Act, and to obstruct any further health care reforms. The consequences, as measured in human lives, can no longer be ignored or minimized.

Why is there not a daily memorial or daily moment of silence for the 139 unfortunate Americans who each lost their life today, and each and every yesterday and tomorrow? How many funerals have you attend for those uninsured friends who perhaps many months ago had been denied essential life saving health care intervention? What are the faces and obituaries of these victims? Who else do you know has an “early death lottery ticket”, and whose number will be next? Most importantly, why is there no outrage?

President Obama has intervened to avert the inevitable slaughter of tens of thousands of Libyans at the ruthless unrepentant hands of Muammar Gaddafi. Why has no one successfully intervened to avert the inevitable avoidable deaths of tens of thousands of uninsured Americans, at the ruthless unrepentant hands of Congressional Republicans? Why is there no uprising among the masses here, as we’re seeing throughout the Middle East and North Africa?

Would it not be fair to characterize those who would be party to the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act as akin to sitting in judgment on a Death Panel? Who would be of such moral and ethical repute to knowingly obstruct and deny essential medical access that assuredly and predictably will result in continued widespread and needless premature loss of American lives and untold suffering? What Congressional Republicans would relegate American lives as of lesser importance than to the penchant of their health care insurance industry reelection contributors?

Lastly, any Republican loyalist who touts the party line, lambasting health care insurance for the public while brazenly enjoying their own public health care insurance, must be held to account for their hypocrisy. Each of them should be singled out and challenged to either support the funding of the Affordable Health Care Act, or to voluntarily drop their Federal health care coverage, and perhaps join the 52 million other uninsured Americans having a “lottery ticket”.

Please comment.

leighmf's picture
leighmf 11 years 51 weeks ago
#8

Every Republican official and Democrat too has been compromised by the Koch underground, which is really a front for the Harriman underground, which is really a veil for the 37th Congress which gave itself the nation in 1863 during the Civil War. So what do you expect? The leopard cannot change its spots. Each generation it gets a little worse, the further we get from the scene of the crime.

XXXXX

Martin Sandberg's picture
Martin Sandberg 11 years 51 weeks ago
#9

Our current deficit is roughly a Fukushima every two months. (http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/03/how_big_is_the_federal_budge...) :

"The $309 billion price tag would make Japan's earthquake the costliest on record, surpassing the $125 billion that the Insurance Information Institute estimates Hurricane Katrina cost the Gulf coast in 2005. It would also top the $100 billion in damage caused by the 1995 Kobe quake in Japan.

Uh... hold on a minute. Something seems wrong with these numbers. Do I understand this correctly; all those coastal cities and towns that were leveled, the tens of thousands of cars and homes that were pulverized, all the stores, shops, factories, warehouses, schools, freeways, roads, ships, aircraft, trains, port facilities and infrastructure reduced to rubble and it will only cost as much as US Federal deficit for a couple of months?"So, something, a LOT of things, simply must be cut. You cannot solve the problem by raising taxes - there just isn't enough money (http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/03/higher_taxes_cant_solve_the_...):

"In 2008 there were 4,359,000 tax returns filed with modified taxable income (MTI) of $200,000 or above. The total amount of MTI above $200,000 was $1.189 Trillion."
In other words, we are currently getting $1.189T X 35% = $416 billion a year from the portion of incomes over $200,000, leaving $773 billion. We've got a deficit this year of 1.5 Trillion (http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/120xx/doc12039/SummaryforWeb.pdf). There isn't enough money, not by half. This wanton destruction of our country is one reason for my sig:Atlas Shrugged was supposed to be a warning, NOT a newspaper!

brian a hayes's picture
brian a hayes 11 years 51 weeks ago
#10

wonder if Soylent Green is one of the Koch brothers favorite movies. they are doing everything possible to kill the middle class and poor

Pythoncharly's picture
Pythoncharly 11 years 51 weeks ago
#11

Let's face it. A vote for a republican is a vote for cancer, war, poverty and ignorance! period.

desert fox's picture
desert fox 11 years 51 weeks ago
#12

The Tea Party and their funders are Economic Terrorists!

stantak's picture
stantak 11 years 51 weeks ago
#13

Wow! You mean Clarence Thomas took his nose out of his porm mag long enough to write an opinion? Gotta mark the calendar!

How many years are we going to have to put up with this activist Supreme Corp? Can I wish a plague on these agents of evil?

Thank goodness there's still a few lefties in the Supremes

habanero_eye's picture
habanero_eye 11 years 51 weeks ago
#14

There's a good article about the Koch Brothers from north of the border. No doubt the Kochs are heavily investing in Canadian and Alberta governments especially during this current election.

http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/03/22/KochBrothers/

Recovering conservative2's picture
Recovering cons... 11 years 51 weeks ago
#15

Who is benefiting from the Tea Party?

Did most Americans benefit from extending the tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 a year? No

Do most Americans benefit from continuing cooperate Welfare to the Oil Companies to the tune of $4,000,000,000 a year - No

Maintaining tax loopholes so GE, Bank of America - Don't pay taxes - No

Do many Americans ( especially vulnerable Americans) who can't give millions to astroturf organizations like Bankruptamerica.org ( thank you Carl Rove) From Woman, Infants and Children - Yes, Food Stamps- Yes ( 45 million that is one in five Americans), grants to city, counties, and towns - yes ( these grants pay for new fire trucks)

So why isn't the media asking the Tea Party Representatives how they can sleep at night when they are increasing the hardship that most Americans face and only helping less than 1% of the population?

I would call HR 1 - extreme, unbalance and basically attacks most Americans.

Freedom4's picture
Freedom4 11 years 50 weeks ago
#16

I sure hope they are. Here we are burrying our children in debt and the democrats won't even give up liberal entertainment (NPR) and cowboy poetry. What a bunch of freaking jokes you are.

Freedom4's picture
Freedom4 11 years 50 weeks ago
#17

The Koch brothers are angels compared to the evil george soros. He destroys economies for fun and the left worships him.

Recovering conservative2's picture
Recovering cons... 11 years 50 weeks ago
#18

If Exxon, Bank of America and GE, etc would pay their taxes your children would be in debt. NPR 5 million dollars vs 4 Billon for Exxon, do you not understand that 1 billion is a 1,000 times larger than a million so if you cut Exxon tax payer paid welfare payment of 4 billion dollars you could have 1,000 NPR's. Please stop quoting Glenn Beck with out thinking.

Recovering conservative2's picture
Recovering cons... 11 years 50 weeks ago
#19

According to who? Glen Beck? The Koch brothers are advertising for people to fix their repupation on the internet not George Soros, are you one of the people that Koch's have hired?

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