Sat, 05/05/2012 - 11:59am
What Everyone Should Know
Two news items last week spoke loudly to the state of the Republican Party, and the resulting sad state of governance in our State and Nation. An op-ed piece in the Washington Post held out little hope for constructive legislation as long as the current GOP radicals (“an apocalyptic cult”) control Congress. Kansas newspapers carried articles about four-dozen former GOP legislative leaders who are thoroughly alarmed by the willingness of the current governor and Legislature to cut public school support “$18,000 per classroom” in order to cut income taxes.It was not so much the Post story, as who wrote it, and the flat-out headline, “Let’s Just Say It: Republicans Are the Problem.” Co-author Norman J. Ornstein is Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a nearly 70-year old conservative think-tank in Washington, D. C. (today boasting scholars Lynne Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and former Bush U. N. Ambassador John R. Bolton). Co-author Thomas J. Mann is his counterpart at the Brookings Institution, the oldest and most distinguished liberal foundation in our nation’s capital. The authors have no peers as longtime, objective congressional observers and critics
Now read the first reply to the article by a Ks. resident
What Everyone Should Know | CJOnline.com
Republicans,
The Democrats have their problems, and like both parties since they first came on the scene, both parties have recognized and generally been able to deal with our problems.
This is one thing I believe we all know: Democrats did not destroy the Republican Party this time. It was destroyed from within, after you guys left the pasture gate open so the Tea Party could get in.
I realize you did not know how destructive and extreme the Tea party was, and
I certainly don't blame Moderate Republicans for letting them in. That same
kind of insidious takeover of the Democrat Party could have also happened, and
we're just lucky it didn't.
Hopefully, now the Democratic Party can learn a lesson from our friends across the aisle. Be very very careful about your extreme fringes.
I seriously doubt that will happen to Democrats, though, because our extreme fringe isn't backed by very much big money. You can cite Soros all day long, but come up with enough big money people who you believe are extremes on the left. You can't do it. Soros is not wealthy enough to buy the whole Party.
The Koch Boys, Norquist, Rove, and many lesser known millionaires and billionaires have managed to get Citizens United past our Supreme Court, and they've set up organizations all over the country.
Have you heard of ALEC?
"Who funds ALEC?
More than 98% of ALEC's revenues come from sources other than legislative dues, such as corporations, corporate trade groups, and corporate foundations.
Each corporate member pays an annual fee of between $7,000 and $25,000 a year, and if a corporation participates in any of the nine task forces, additional fees apply, from $2,500 to $10,000 each year. ALEC also receives direct grants from corporations, such as $1.4 million from ExxonMobil from 1998-2009. It has also received grants from some of the biggest foundations funded by corporate CEOs in the country, such as: the Koch family Charles G. Koch Foundation, the Koch-managed Claude R. Lambe Foundation, the Scaife
family Allegheny Foundation, the Coors family Castle Rock Foundation, to name a few. Less than 2% of ALEC’s funding comes from “Membership Dues” of $50 per year paid by state legislators, a steeply discounted price that mayrun afoul of state gift bans. "
ALEC is a group of very rich corporations who create bills to be passed in the various states and in Washington by the legislators they can buy. Lobbyists with a vengeance. The backers of legislation like Stand Your Ground, Kill at Will, and Make My Day.
What is ALEC? - Alec Exposed
Every time I hear about one of these "think tanks" or organizations who do very secretive things - when I research who funds them, the Koch Boys namesfloat to the top.
Do you believe me when I tell you that the Koch's started the Tea Party?
Why wouldn't they do that? If they would secretly create all these other Extreme-Conservative organizations, why wouldn't they create the Tea Party?
Who do you think paid for the fancy buses, the speakers, the equipment, to put on those public protests? It wasn't Joe the Plumber. It's a widely known fact that the Koch Boys started the Tea Party.
Why?
Because the traditional Republican Party wasn't good enough for them.
Why not?
Because they are Libertarians on Speed. They found out a long time ago that the Libertarian Party can't get anybody elected. They had to leech into the Republican Party and take it over from the inside.
The Koch's father was a co-founder of the John Birch Society, which in the good old days when things were bad, was a very very bad organization. Imagine being brought up by a father with those extreme and destructive ideas, and being so rich - these boys watched their father buy what he wanted and who he wanted. They, like most of us, wanted to think their father was a good man. They don't want to think he's the Father of one of the most destructive movements in America. Nobody wants to believe that. It's a lot easier to think their father was right, and that money and power should rule America. And that anybody who won't go along with it are Socialists, Communists, Marxists... and should be utterly destroyed. And if you do go along with them, and you have no money like they do, then YOU are the tools they're using to destroy the country you love.
Think about this: A rich man can't talk to a poor man or a middle class man and be trusted. The Kochs need other poor and middle class Americans to do their talking for them. So they set up organizations called Think Tanks, who come up with ways to get messages out through right-wing media, to the "little" people. Glenn Beck. Rush Limbaugh. Fox News. And the list goes on. When you turn that television on, you're tuning directly into the Koch Boys and their co-horts.
Even the leaders of your own party, as Dr. Roy pointed out, and as we have seen with the Traditional group of Republicans who spoke out last week, see it clearly.
Why can't the middle class and poor of the Republican Party see it?
Because they've spent their lives trusting what their leaders in the statehouse and the nation's capitol say.
That's why you can't believe it.
The Republican Party is having its Armageddon all around you. That's what Dr Roy is saying to you.
And not just you, but the moderate Republicans and everyone else in America except the 1% will pay through the nose, and not someday, but NOW.
Watch Brownback and O'Neal and think about it.
I don't ask you to believe me or Dr. Roy. Think about it for yourselves. But don't be lazy minded and shove it in the back of your mind. Your party is already one foot in the grave. You have no time to waste.
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