"It's Possible"
That may go down as the most definitive quote of the 2016 election cycle. In
this topsy-turvey race, anything can happen, but evidently it will happen
without the Koch Brother's imprimatur.
It shocked the GOP's world.
Billionaire businessman Charles Koch said in an interview airing Sunday that "it's possible" another Clinton in the White House could be better than having a Republican president. Koch, the CEO of Koch industries, made the comment to ABC News' Jonathan Karl for an interview airing on ABC's This Week. Koch and his brother, David, and their associated groups plan to spend nearly $900 million on the 2016 elections. The comment came after Karl asked about former President Bill Clinton's term, to which Koch said Clinton was "in some ways" better than George W. Bush.
Charles and his brother David, it is said, plan to spend almost a billion
dollars on the 2016 elections.
But on whom?
The two have been famous for pouring millions into Republican coffers for
decades (they supported Scott
Walker's union-busting legislation
- a tactic which ultimately failed). So to turn around and say that the two top
Republican candidates are "terrible role models" and that he would
consider it possible that his political kingmaking money could endorse Clinton,
was the worst possible bombshell to the GOP in at least a decade.
A special moment for Hillary came with that rejection. Not really a defining moment, to be sure, but one that could silence some of her detractors for being to venal. She could have taken a gloating stance against the GOP, but instead chose to be guided by principle, the same kind of principle fit for a good "role model."
The Morality Of Libertarian Extremism
We've all seen that extremism in any form, be it in religion or secular worldview is harmful to humanity. What the extreme libertarianism of the Koch Brothers endorses is not smaller government, but practically NO GOVERNMENT. Everything is to be run on a free market basis.
Everything.
The man in the interview whose equally powerful brother says he actually believes in gay marriage, comes off as a kindly gentleman who genuinely believes what he is saying. But what he is saying disguises the fact that he once thought Ronald Reagan, the icon of conservatives, too liberal. His brother David has denied being an extreme libertarian (voicing a raise in taxes), but the two have repeatedly campaigned for protection of their own financial interests and political spending (e.g. Citizens United). In the Koch world, the undeterred flow of money - an unfettered free market - will benefit mankind. As will an unfettered flow of gas, oil, coal and all the other Koch Industries, regardless of those despicable climate change scientists.
The Heartland Institute (funded by the Kochs, who are Catholic) even lectured Pope Francis on the subject of climate change:
"Humans are not causing a climate crisis on God's Green Earth -- in fact, they are fulfilling their Biblical duty to protect and use it for the benefit of humanity. Though Pope Francis's heart is surely in the right place, he would do his flock and the world a disservice by putting his moral authority behind the United Nations' unscientific agenda on the climate." (Wonkette)
Concerned about Hillary Clinton's rhetoric, Charles Koch fails to see how his
beneficent rhetoric contradicts his erase-it-all actions and support for the
politicians he has bought and paid for to do just that: erase it all -
Medicare, Social Security, Affordable Care Act, all government regulations,
EPA, you name it, and Koch Brothers really want it obliterated from the
country.
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