red dog 1
red dog 1's JournalThe KBParty of Plutocratic Rule by Jim Hightower
Jim Hightower
March 25, 2015
Shouldn't America have at least one major party that isn't beholden to the corporate elite?
Well look here -- just such a party has popped up, raring to roar into the 2016 presidential race.
Called the KBParty, it has the funding and political punch to bypass the establishment's control of the election system.
But don't rush to sign-up: KB stands for Koch Brothers.
Yes. Charlie and David - the multi-billionaire, right-wing industrial barons who already own several congress critters, governors, think tanks, astroturf campaign machines, front groups, etc.
Now they have their very own, private political party.
And it's not beholden to the corporate elite, since it is the elite.
The Koch boys have rallied roughly 300 like-minded opponents of democracy to their brotherhood of plutocrats, intent on purchasing a president and Congress that will impose their vision of corporate rule over America.
At a secretive retreat in January for KBParty funders, the 300 barons ponied up $900 million for their campaign.
That's nearly $200 million more than the combined expenditures of the Republican and Democratic parties in last year's elections, and it's way more than either of those parties will have for 2016.
That means that, in our nation of 350 million people, a cabal of only 300 of the wealthiest will have the wherewithall to narrow the choice of candidates presented to the rest of us, restrict the range of policy ideas that are proposed to voters, imbue the overall campaign with a negative tone, and - most important - shape the governing agenda of those who get elected.
The Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens United edict created this mess.
To help ban the corporate cash that's clogging our elections and killing our people's democratic rights, go to
http://www.democracyisforpeople.org/
A Canadian, a Texan, and a tea bagger walk into a bar...
...and the bartender says: "What'll it be, Senator Cruz?"
An upstart People's campaign is upsetting Chicago's mayor -- by Jim Hightower
Jim Hightower
March 10, 2015
If you're in a big political race, you know you're doing poorly when your campaign resorts to warning local voters that your opponent would upset Wall Street bond dealers.
Amazingly though, that's the panicky claim of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's re-election campaign.
A preening prototype of plutocratic politics, the one-term mayor has delivered the goods for the moneyed establishment so - richly backed by campaign cash from that elite - he assumed he'd easily be re-elected.
But to Rahm's shock, Jesus intervened.
Not that Jesus, but Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, a popular county commissioner who challenged Emanuel's coronation with a broad-based, overtly-populist, people's campaign.
Though he was outspent 12 to One, Chuy had the vision, issues, grassroots organizers and enthusiastic volunteers to rally middle-and low-income voters to the polls, forcing the Royal Rahm into a run-off.
Moreover, polls show that Chuy has already pulled even with Rahm and may now be leading the mayor's race as the two approach the April 7 election.
That stunning reality spurred U.S. Senator Mark Kirk - another faithful servant of the establishment - to rush forth in a bumbling attempt to rescue Emanuel.
"The people who are running against Rahm," lectured the learned solon, "don't have the gravitas with the bond market."
Kirk's underlying message was that no one named Jesus "Chuy" Garcia could "command the respect of the bond market."
You could practically hear workaday Chicagoans saying in unison: "Well good!"
The Chicago swells who are protected by the Wall Street clique have wrecked the city's budget with corporate giveaways, and now they expect the people to suffer cutbacks and job losses to pay for the budget mess.
To connect with the democracy movement that's on the rise in this heartland city, go to
http://www.ReclaimChicago.org
More links:
http://www.jimhightower.com/node/8567#.VP9yIHY5mTM
Billionaires without-a-clue want to "fix" Washington.......by Jim Hightower
Jim Hightower
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
"If you think the Koch Klub of Plutocratic Billionaires couldn't get any more self-centered and whiney - meet Doug and Holly Deason of Dallas.
The Deasons, along with 10 other Dallas members of KKPB, recently co-signed an op-ed in that city's Morning News.
The privileged coterie expressed dismay at the widespread criticism of the Koch brothers' January conclave of uber-rich right-wingers who pledged about a billion bucks to try buying the 2016 elections.
The dozen Dallasites were at that meeting, joined the pledge, and want us commoners to know that the Kochites are flooding the elections with so much money merely because they want to install a national government that is "impartial" and "accountable."
Really?
No - a truly impartial government would place toxic waste, factories, and fracking wells in everyone's zip codes - including theirs.
They don't want that!
Also, these notorious tax-dodgers certainly don't want every dollar of their income taxed - just as, say, schoolteachers do.
And doesn't "impartial" mean that their children would have to go fight in America's endless wars, too, rather than leaving that unpleasant task to the non-privileged?
They really want to install an "impartial" government that's partial to them, letting them run roughshod over the rest of us in their avaricious accumulation of greater wealth, power and privilege.
And what a hoot for the 1-percent-of-the-1-percent to demand that government be "accountable," when they're running dark-money political campaigns that hide their identities and use front-groups to keep voters from knowing that the KKFB is out to buy America's democratic process.
Any government that would be installed by the money and deceit of such self-righteous, narcissistic cowards would not be worthy of America's name, it's democratic ideals, or it's people."
"Koch-Supporting Texas Billionaires Explain What Richest Americans Are After," www.alternet.org. February 4, 2015
"Holly and Doug Deason: What do the Koch brothers want? To defend the American dream."
www.dallasnews.com, February 2, 2015
http://www.jimhightower.com/node/8563#.VPecHxY5mTM
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