Koch Brothers

Confederate Echoes: The Ugly History Behind Questioning Obama’s Patriotism

JarretR 37 Comments
Former Republican Mayor of New York City thinks that there colored boy is only three-fifths "Murican.

Rudy Giuliani, the Former Republican Mayor of New York City, apparently thinks that thar colored boy don’t love ‘Murica.

Remember when everyone liked Rudolph Giuliani? The former “Mayor of the World” was, after all, Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Yeah, I remember that too. But Giuliani is also a right-wing dunce.

Case in point: he recently stirred the endlessly bubbling American political chamber pot when, at a private gathering of like-minded conservative Oompa Loompas held for Wisconsin Koch Brothers organ-grinder monkey Scott Walker, he questioned President Barack Obama’s patriotism. “I do not believe that the president loves America,” Giuliani babbled, “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.” Translation: Obama’s black different; we’re not; Anti-Americanism follows. But questioning a political rival’s love of country is an old American political tactic, and it hasn’t gotten any less vile over time.  Continue Reading →

Slavery, The Economist, and the Worship of Capitalism

JarretR 19 Comments
The Economist was dissapointed that historians are negelcting the many jolly slaves who were grateful for white folks' charity.

The Economist was disappointed that historians are neglecting the many jolly slaves who were grateful for white folks’ charity.

There are plenty of sanctimonious idiots in the world, and one of those idiots writes for the Economist. You’ve heard of that magazine, right? It’s pretty well-known, and despite its right-wing leanings, it generally publishes some reasonable content — I mean, it ain’t a shameless agglomeration of conservative verbal circle-jerkitude like the National Review, right? Maybe so, but the Economist still employ some idiots, and one of those idiots wrote an idiotic review of historian Ed Baptist’s non-idiotic new book, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism.

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The GOP and the Historical Obsession with Work in America

JarretR 5 Comments
Rep. John Bohener (R-Isengard), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Mordor), and Se. Mitch McConnel (R-TN) promote squeezing the most out of workers at the lowest possible cost to employers.

Rep. John Boehner (R-Isengard), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Mordor), and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-TN) advocate squeezing the most out of workers at the lowest possible cost to employers.

Americans love to work. Just ask any politician or corporate stooge, particularly of the conservative variety, and they’ll reaffirm this eternal truth. In American culture, work is everything: it’s how we spend the majority of the time we are so graciously granted on earth; it’s how we afford the necessities of life, like feeding and clothing ourselves, procuring shelter from the elements, and affording the cable through which we experience high art like Duck Dynasty.

Americans simply must love to work. Heck, they work longer hours than anyone else in the industrialized world, even though they’re getting less and less out of work as wages continue to stagnate, unions have been decimated, and vacation times wither away along with retirement-savings. Americans also love to toil even as study after study continues to highlight the health dangers associated with excessive work. If that’s not evidence that Americans are the ultimate large-scale ant farm, than what is?! After all, the French don’t work nearly as much as Americans and often report being happier, and Americans love to mock the French. Continue Reading →

Of Kochs and Carnegies: The Myth of Capitalist Market Purity

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Charles and David Koch flood the U.S. government with cash, and get subsides in return.

Charles and David Koch flood the U.S. government with cash, and get to shape the government-private sector relationship in return.

This week a story broke that would surprise no one with even a passing knowledge of the shady relationship between business and government in the U.S. It turns out that a previously unknown conservative “sugar daddy” group called Freedom Partners had raised a cool $256 million in 2012 and then funneled out $236 million of that cash to a rogue’s gallery of right-wing organizations, including Americans for Prosperity, the National Rifle Association, and, of course, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The group organized as a 501(c)6 tax-exempt chamber of commerce, allowing it remain in the shadows raising so-called “dark money” from a host of secret donors. Several members of the board have close ties to Koch Industries, the vast industrial conglomerate based out of Witchita, Kansas and owned by ultra right-wing billionaires Charles and David Koch — better known the general public, and to those with a soul — as the Koch Brothers.

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