Will the Koch brothers save America from the Tea Party?

[Chris]

Charles and David Koch, the reticent billionaires who bankroll Republican causes and candidates, have distanced themselves from their favoured party's financial brinkmanship as corporate America reacts with growing horror to the imminent prospect of a US debt default.

Money from Koch sources has supported many conservatives in Congress who have led the charge to shut down the government and breach an imminent debt limit if Barack Obama does not abandon his healthcare reforms.

But the brothers' privately held chemical conglomerate, Koch Industries, issued a rare public statement on Wednesday to deny allegations that the pair supported the high-risk strategy, and urged Congress to focus instead on balancing the budget.

Finance leaders have for some time been wary of the increasingly radical Republican tactics , which a Wall Street Journal editorial described as “kamikaze”, but the growing anxiety among mainstream corporate America and party donors such as Koch may prove to be what forces the party leadership to rethink.

Koch brothers claim no involvement in efforts to defund healthcare reforms | World news | theguardian.com

 

[TheOldSchool]

The Super Koch Brothers!

 

[Sarah G]

That would be ironic.

 

[Chris]

That would be ironic.

Especially since the Koch brothers created the Tea Party.

 

[Chris]

You know the Republican crazy train has run off the rails when the Koch brothers are trying to rein them in.

 

[Impenitent]

That would be ironic.

Especially since the Koch brothers created the Tea Party.

Among other names considered for The Tea Party, was The Modern Prometheus.

 

[TemplarKormac]

The Tea Party is being revived by the rank and file idiots in Washington slapping vets in the face by closing memorials dedicated to them, not funding them, or paying the families of Vets death benefits so they can see their fallen warrior one last time. They are being revived when people like Harry Reid scoffs at the notion of wanting to help just one kid dying of cancer.

The Koch Brothers need not do anything.

 

[BDBoop]

That would be ironic.

Especially since the Koch brothers created the Tea Party.

Yup! Before Playboy yanked their story;

"How did a minor-league TV figure, whose contract with CNBC is due this summer, get so quickly launched into a nationwide rightwing blog sensation? Why were there so many sites and organizations online and live within minutes or hours after his rant, leading to a nationwide protest just a week after his rant?

What hasn't been reported until now is evidence linking Santelli's "tea party" rant with some very familiar names in the Republican rightwing machine, from PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called "astroturfing") to bigwig politicians and notorious billionaire funders. As veteran Russia reporters, both of us spent years watching the Kremlin use fake grassroots movements to influence and control the political landscape. To us, the uncanny speed and direction the movement took and the players involved in promoting it had a strangely forced quality to it. If it seemed scripted, that's because it was.

What we discovered is that Santelli's "rant" was not at all spontaneous as his alleged fans claim, but rather it was a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign. In PR terms, his February 19th call for a "Chicago Tea Party" was the launch event of a carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign, one in which Santelli served as a frontman, using the CNBC airwaves for publicity, for the some of the craziest and sleaziest rightwing oligarch clans this country has ever produced. Namely, the Koch family, the multibilllionaire owners of the largest private corporation in America, and funders of scores of rightwing thinktanks and advocacy groups, from the Cato Institute and Reason Magazine to FreedomWorks. The scion of the Koch family, Fred Koch, was a co-founder of the notorious extremist-rightwing John Birch Society."

Open Left:: Playboy: Santelli's Rant A Rightwing Plant

More at the link.

 

[JoeB131]

That would be ironic.

Especially since the Koch brothers created the Tea Party.

Kind of like this...