Harry Reid Attacks ‘Morning Joe’ for Asking Koch Brothers ‘Easy Questions’
"Mr. President, over the last several months the Koch brothers have been on a public relations campaign. This Koch propaganda campaign has accelerated in the past few weeks. Charles and David Koch have been going to great lengths to convince the American people that they’re not just a couple of billionaires who are trying to dismantle Social Security, and who closed the Export-Import Bank, putting 165,000 Americans out of work and costing the government billions of dollars, and who fought a zoo in Ohio, and who fought the Republican mayor of Colorado Springs as he tried to fix the city’s potholes. The Kochs want everyone to believe that they’re not the ones rigging the system to benefit themselves and their wealthy friends. The Koch brothers are spending their vast wealth, holding newspaper and television interviews on their propaganda campaign.
But in spite of all their efforts, this Koch media tour has failed to bury the one simple truth: the Koch brothers are trying to buy America. During an interview yesterday, the scales fell away once again and revealed the Koch brothers’ true intentions. In justifying his and his brother’s efforts to inject hundreds of millions of dollars into conservative political campaigns, Charles Koch said: 'I expect something in return.' The Kochs are getting plenty in return, indeed. So far they have bought: a Republican House, a Republican Senate, a government shutdown, an ousted Speaker of the House, a shuttered Export-Import Bank, and a Republican presidential field in which nearly every candidate kowtows to these billionaires.
But that’s not all. The Kochs also have procured a media that is too intimidated by their billions to hold them accountable. Consider yesterday’s interview with MSNBC’s Morning Joe show. Here are some of the questions that Joe and Mika asked the Koch brothers: Joe Scarborough asked: 'It’s hard to find people in New York, liberals, we were talking about this before, liberals or conservatives alike, who haven’t been touched by your graciousness, whether it’s towards the arts or cancer research. Do you think you got that instinct from your mom?'
Mika asked: 'Sitting here in your childhood home, we have the Koch brothers. Which one was the good brother?'
Joe asked: 'You guys both play rugby together, right?' Sometimes they weren’t even questions – they were just compliments. At one point, Joe commented: 'You sound like my dad. That’s very diplomatic. That’s very good.'
Wow – those are some really tough questions asked by the hosts of 'Morning Joe.' That’s tough journalism. Those questions are so easy, that may even qualify them to moderate the next Republican presidential debate.
It seems that some journalists are determined not to get on the wrong side of the Kochs’ brothers and their billions. After all, we’ve seen how the Koch empire targets people, cities, and states that do anything that conflicts with the Koch brothers’ radical agenda. When the media rolls over for these modern day robber barons, as it is doing now, our country is in trouble.
As Charles Koch himself said, he and his brother are not spending this money for altruistic reasons – they are doing it for one reason only – for the profit of themselves and their fellow billionaires who have rigged the system against the middle class. They said it themselves – they want something in return. And what they want is profit for their corporations. Their own publicist once explained why the Koch brothers are trying to buy a new government: “It’s because we can make more profit, OK?” That’s what this is all about for Charles and David Koch. Bigger profits. More money. $100 billion isn’t enough for these two.
By their own admission the Kochs will spend and spend and spend until they get the government they want – a government that lets Koch Industries do what it wants; a government whose sole goal is to make these billionaires even richer. And unfortunately for the United States, the Supreme Court has constructed a political system that allows them to do it. Citizens United has effectively put our government up for sale to the highest bidder. Right now, our country has no real restrictions on how much money a billionaire or a millionaire can spend to buy the government they want. All the power is with the wealthy, and that puts middle class Americans at a disadvantage.
We must not stand idly by while our government sits on the auction block. Instead, we should be working to rid the system of the Koch brothers’ dark money. But this cannot and will not happen if reporters and journalists refuse to ask Charles and David Koch probing questions. Otherwise, no one is holding these two oil barons accountable for their nefarious actions."
