A recent video reported in The Boston Globe shows Scott Brown thanking billionaire right-wing radical David Koch for critical 2010 campaign donations and asking for more support in 2012.
David Koch and his brother Charles are infamous for their extreme positions and ruthless lobbying on behalf of their oil and paper empire, which feeds their $35 billion fortune. The Koch’s have contributed tens of millions of secret dollars to:
Undercut democracy in the Supreme Court,
Back the Tea Party’s far-right congressional agenda,
Fight against environmental protections that
safeguard the health of our people and planet,
Eliminate collective bargaining in Wisconsin.
Scott Brown’s support for doling out expensive corporate tax breaks, leaving millions of Americans without health insurance, and trying to gut the EPA are straight out of the Koch play book. In this jobs crisis, Massachusetts deserves a senator who will be focused on ordinary peoples’ concerns and not take cues from out-of-touch big wigs.
“Massachusetts can’t afford a senator who keeps company with the Koch brothers,” said Bob Massie, “We need a senator who doesn’t go to the Koch Brothers with his hand out, but a leader who fights against their misguided values and principles.”
For more information or to schedule an interview with Bob Massie, please contact Matt Wilson, Campaign Manager, 617-515-2326 (mwilson@bobmssie.org) or Bob Massie 617-669-4016 (rkmassie@gmail.com)
Brownie will never refudiate the Kochs. Neither will MIT or WGBH. Money’s money.
Do you?
But still a knife worth twisting, I think. There’s nothing moderate about the Kochs, and Brown will pose as a moderate to get reelected.
Cause I know a lot of people that would call them RINOs for their social stances.
One would think a belief in, for lack of a better term, pure capitalism (cutting unions off “at the knees” — I’ll find the link if you don’t believe me) would overcome such temporal social considerations. No?
We have people to whom social issues are more important than fiscal ones. That’s why you see Huckabee being seriously considered. Huckabee is no fiscal conservative.
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p>I’m a libertarian. My pro-life stance comes out of my libertarian philosophy in that I can do anything I want as long as it doesn’t infringe directly on someone elses rights. Since I consider a baby to be a separate living human being inside the womb of a woman, my libertarian philosophy leads me to a pro-life stance. My pro-life stance is not a religious one. I’ve not been to any organized church regularly in close to 20 years now.
2. Does that right include life?
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p>Religion is a “get out of rational consistency free” card, but you’re not playing it. So, are you pro-life on both ends of the spectrum or just one?
but I would put a DNA burden on it.
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p>If you have committed first degree murder in a state with capital punishment, you have made a choice to die. That is the penalty. A baby is incapable of making that choice. I think that is a highly rational argument.
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p>As I said, I would put a very high burden on the application of the death penalty, and do understand that in the past innocent men and women have been put to death.
Thats simply “anti-abortion”. Based on your self-described Libertarian stance, presumably you also believe that terminally ill people should be able to end their life in the fashion they choose?
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p>If you insist on using incorrect terms to describe your beliefs you are only going to confuse people.
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p>I think that very few women would argue that an anti-abortion stance is a Libertarian one. I also don’t think that a fetus can legitimately be considered a “separate human being” until it is capable of living outside of the womb without extraordinary help. The fact is that outlawing abortion most definitely restricts women’s personal freedom to control her own body and therefore is not consistent with true Libertarian philosophy.
http://www.l4l.org/
Thats a debatable point
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p>
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p>Plenty of libertarians including some of their most famous Presidential nominees (Ron Paul, Browne, and Baardnick) were pro-life for the very reason that if you believe the Declaration to be literally true and the only thing you need for government “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” then protecting life seems to be a key component of that, particularly life that cannot make rational choices yet. Again as early as 16 weeks a child can survive outside the womb, at that point would you argue its just tissue thats part of its mother?
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p>A more interesting question would be where a libertarian, not resorting to religion in anyway, defines life. To me, using science as my guide, before 16 weeks is permissible since we are not dealing with beings that can survive on their own or will necessarily become life. Jonah Goldberg, not a religious conservative either, argued that he draws the line as early as possible just to be sure. Im interested if thats where EaBo also draws it.
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p>Also, and forgive me if you have stated elsewhere, how does your pro-life libertarianism stack up when it comes to regulation of abortion. Baardnick, Browne, and Paul would’ve left it to the states, but others feel that regulating that is one of the few areas where the federal government could pass a national regulation due to the stakes involved. Are you states rights on this or do you support a Human Life Amendment? Also where do you fall on the marriage question?
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p>For the record I disagree with libertarianism and with a strict pro-life position, but I had to step in since its quite easy to make libertarian arguments in favor of the pro-life viewpoint. George Will, Barry Goldwater, Penn Jilette, Jaffa, William F. Buckley, Frank Meyer, Ayn Rand, and a few others come to mind as quite prominent in their support of the pro-life position through libertarianism and certainly not through religion (all those names with the exception of Buckley or Meyer were well known atheists or agnostics, and Buckley and Meyer did not justify their position by relying on their Catholicism). Milton Friedman, Richard Posner, Drew Carey, and Clint Eastwood come to mind as libertarians that are also strongly pro-choice. So there is a wide range of opinion on this subject and many heated debates to be found in early National Review articles and in contemporary Reason magazine.
Mass Equality, Marriage Equality, and the ACLU would need to return millions too it seems.
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p>Honestly the bigger picture is that Brown has made several concrete votes against working people, his supposed base, time and time again. Lets run a real populist campaign. This kind of politics will not resonate with anyone who has lost their job, their healthcare, and is struggling to make ends meet. Neither will nostalgic campaigns seeped in Kennedy lore, neither will calls to win one for Obama. Lets run a straight economic populist campaign about putting money back in working peoples pockets and giving them security again and find a candidate willing to fight for that message. And frankly Khazei, either Warren, Driscoll, Massie or the other dreamers out there aint gonna cut it.
“right wing radical” that funds and supports campaigns for
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p>legalization of drugs
same sex marriage
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p>amongst others.
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p>Oh and the right wing radical that funds the
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p>arts
cancer centers
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p>amongst others.
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p>Oogity Boogity David Koch.
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p>It’s not like he crashed the Bank of England or anything.
Koch front groups are legion.
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p>Koch pollution is well documented and actually I can give dozens of indictments and toxic actions by Koch Industries, if you would like, Rob.
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p>Koch support of misinformation and dangerous deregulation
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p>I like you personally, Rob. But as to the toxic impact of the Koch brothers on my country, despite their spending of their pocket change on noblesse oblige philanthropy – we will have to agree to disagree.
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p>I see the Kochtopus as sneaky, harmful,narcissistic and intent on strangling democracy.
and a lot comes from before Koch was involved with GP. I’m a paper engineer. It’s a dirty industry that does a lot to keep our economy moving.
Koch has only owned G-P for six years, and the reporting requirement lag times [and legal process lag times] means we don’t really know if G-P is getting better or worse, or even where it is relative to other paper companies.
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p>Nevertheless, like many industries, there’s a wide range of pollution outputs possible when manufacturing exactly the same widget. Where does G-P fall on that spectrum? To put a finer point on it, we know that the Koch brothers spend oodles of their money supporting politicians who oppose environmental regulations. Given that they (a) want to reduce environmental protection, and (b) own companies which generate an enormous amount of pollution, it’s awfully hard to expect anything better than the most amount of pollution allowed by law from G-P.
…they’re social liberals – good for them. In today’s economy their greed is both more relevant and more offensive.
they’re socially libertarian. They’re not advocating for public money supporting social issues.
And neither does the average voter in MA. There is plenty of shady stuff Brown has done in the open to screw working people, lets focus on tying him to his abysmal record of voting against aid to Massachusetts, job creation in Massachusetts, investment in Massachusetts, all in the vain hope of appeasing enough national Republicans for selling books and maybe running for President. While he is going on his vanity tour real families in our state are going hungry, going without healthcare, and going jobless. Brown has made it harder for them to keep their old healthcare by voting against COBRA, he has voted against extending unemployment, he has voted to weaken unions and regulations against outsourcing. He has voted against keeping and creating jobs in Massachusetts. You don’t need any boogeyman behind the scenes to scare voters, that makes the campaign about two millionaires who don’t even live here. Lets keep the campaign on Brown and his complete indifference to working people.
One lives here, a good portion of the year.
Would the converse be true to you Christopher?
Poor BoE. I recall your similar concern about Barclays.