Charles and David Koch are rallying
their billionaire friends to help Republicans take the Senate.
The
Koch brothers — the GOP megadonors and fossil fuel magnates — live in their own
special world, enshrouded in the fumes emanating from their family’s enormous
stockpiles of wealth.
Charles
and David Koch have always felt very special, and they expect those of us in
the down-to-Earth world to treat them as special too.
Scions
of Koch Industries, the boys were born rich and right-wing, and they parlayed
Daddy Fred Koch’s millions into a huge industrial conglomerate that has made
each of them überbillionaires.
Twice
a year, the Kochs convene a secret summit of superrich supermen to plot
strategy and pledge millions of dollars to their right-wing political efforts.
In June, members of a billionaire brotherhood gathered with Charlie and Dave at
the St. Regis Monarch Bay Resort on the Southern California coast.
As
investigative reporter Lauren Windsorwrote in The
Nation, the Koch confab, which bore the heroic title of
“American Courage,” took over the entire luxury resort for three days.
Attendees
were treated to an all-you-can-eat buffet of right-wing boilerplate from a
gaggle of GOP congress critters summoned to the summit. The billionaires were
especially delighted to hear Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell assure them
that he would defend to his last sour breath their right to buy our elections.
Then,
reports Windsor, the 300 Koch-headed supermen pledged to do just that,
promising to put up $500 million this year to turn the U.S. Senate over to
Republican control.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is
a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also editor of the
populist newsletter, The Hightower
Lowdown. OtherWords.org