If money really is now to be considered free speech, then the conservatives are screaming at the top of their lungs.

Courtesy of Salon:

There are no guarantees that future Democratic candidates will replicate Obama’s 2012 electoral success. The conservative financiers involved then regard the money that they spent that year as the initial down payment on a long-term investment, even if it did not immediately pay off. After the general election, Sheldon Adelson announced that he planned to “double” his investment in future races. “I happen to be in a unique business where winning and losing is the basis of the entire business. So I don’t cry when I lose. There’s always a new hand coming up. I know in the long run we’re going to win.” Marc Short, one of the strategists behind the political activities of Charles and David Koch, echoed that thought: “Our members are committed to the long term, not to one individual cycle.” 

In preparation for the long-term battle, these billionaires already have altered their campaign approach to maximize the odds of winning. After studying what went wrong with the 2012 campaign, individuals such as Adelson are aiming for a different kind of GOP nominee. According to Adelson’s friend Victor Chaltiel, “he doesn’t want a crazy extremist to be the nominee. He wants someone who has the chance to win the election, who is reasonable in his positions, who has convictions but is not totally crazy.” Meanwhile, Republican National Committee member Shawl Steel said that Adelson has learned from the 2012 defeat: “The candidate will have to have a strong resume—no sudden lightning-new guy—will have to build a formidable fundraising apparatus and really be emotionally tethered to bringing in middle-class Latinos, Asian Pacifics, Jews and blacks like never before.” 

Understanding the importance of the top conservative billionaires, GOP strategist and former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said that one of the most important elements in the 2016 presidential campaign would be who would win the “Sheldon Primary.” Referring to the super-wealthy benefactor, Fleischer noted that “anybody running for the Republican nomination would want to have Sheldon at his side.” The same is true for Charles and David Koch. With their abundant resources, grassroots network, and willingness to spend to influence elections, their role in the GOP is of utmost importance. And like Adelson, they have sought to learn from 2012 and develop new electoral strategies. From their perspective, it is crucial to adapt to the political environment and alter public outreach strategies. James Davis of Freedom Partners, a Koch-financed group, said donors must test and refine their message: “Being in the field and testing during the slower periods, and in smaller areas, allows you to refine strategy and tactics so that you can make the larger investments with confidence.”

And if you are paying attention to what is happening in this midterm, you can already see how muhc money the Koch brothers and Adelson are pouring into campaigns, and how exactly that money is being spent. 

In Alaska for instance the Koch brothers have spent over one point three million dollars to defeat Senator Mark Begich, with plans to spend another five point five.

But this is just the beginning, the donations are flowing from what seems to be a bottomless pit of conservative money, and there seems to be no end in sight.

As Democrats we have the energy, the ideas, and the numbers. But if money is the deciding factor in who wins elections, then we are all but doomed.

That is why we HAVE to show up in huge number in 2014 and 2016.

We must show up in numbers too big to obscure with piles of money, be too loud to be quieted down by burying us under mountains of  cash, and too energized to be slowed down by purchasing obstacles to place in our way.

We are the future, and we must show them all that the future is not for sale.

Arguably the most powerful nerd in the world enters the gun control debate in a major way.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast: 

It was reported Monday that Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder and incredibly wealthy guy, and with his wife, Melinda, have given $1 million to Initiative 594 in Washington state. The ballot initiative, if passed by voters on November 4 (and it currently enjoys overwhelming support), will require universal background checks for all firearm purchases in the state. 

Gates is only the latest Washington billionaire to give to the effort, with original Amazon investor Nick Hanauer providing crucial early funding, and more recently upping his overall donation to $1.4 million. Additionally, Gates’s Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, has provided $500,000 for the cause. 

But Gates’s fame brings more attention and further legitimizes the initiative in a way that almost nobody else could. Once the Gates Foundation made it a priority to combat malaria around the world in 2000, it brought down deaths due to the insect-borne disease by 20 percent in 11 years, saving the lives of 1 million African children in the process. 

Gates has the ability to grab headlines and make an issue go viral with the constant media coverage he receives, and the financial ability, if he wins, to fund similar efforts around the country. His involvement could be the answer to the public health crisis that makes American children 93 percent of those murdered in the 26 high-income countries around the world.

You know I have been looking for some good news on the gun control issue, and this could really be it. 

If Gates really decides to take this on it could be a game changer.

And I truly hope that he does.

"It's billionaires vs students." Elizabeth Warren introduces new plan to tax the wealthy and use the revenue to help students with college loans.

Courtesy of Think Progress:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) laid out a new plan that would tax millionaires and use that revenue to help students refinance their student loans. 

Delivering the keynote address at the Higher Ed Not Debt Campaign launch event on Thursday at the Center For American Progress, Warren argued that America faces a choice: “Do we invest in students, or millionaires?” Warren plans to introduce a bill that would create an “America that invests in those who get an education” by revising the tax code and enacting the Buffet rule. 

The Buffet rule is named after billionaire Warren Buffet and would establish a minimum tax on income in excess of $1 million. The measure, which never got out of Congress, raises approximately $50 billion in revenue and ensures that millionaires do not pay lower tax rates than middle-class families. 

Congress acted to lower the federal unsubsidized student loan interest rate to 3.86 percent for the 2012-2013 academic school year. But unless it acts again, the rate will increase back to its original 6.8 percent for the next school year. 

Warren’s plan would maintain the 3.86 percent rate for the federal unsubsidized student loan. The cost of the change would be covered by a “dollar for dollar” effort where for “every dollar the Buffet rule brings in, we use that dollar to refinance student loan debt,” she explained. She estimated that recent graduates who borrowed the maximum in undergraduate loans could see their payments drop by $1,000 a year and total interest paid over the life of the loan could be cut nearly in half. Students with graduate loans or borrowers from private lenders would save even more, Warren projected.

You know sometimes it feels as if Elizabeth Warren is the last real liberal standing in this country. Or at least the last one who openly embraces the liberal ideals at every opportunity.

I am not one of those who think she will, or even should, run for President. But I have to say that if she did she would have the youth vote all tied up.

(Here is the video of Warren's remarks.)

Good news liberals! We finally have a billionaire on our side.

Courtesy of the LA Times:  

For years, liberals have fretted about the power of ultrawealthy people determined to use their billions to advance their political views. Charles and David Koch, in particular, have ranked high in the demonology of the American left. 

But in Steyer, liberals have a billionaire on their side. Like the Kochs, he is building a vast political network and seizing opportunities provided by loose campaign finance rules to insert himself into elections nationwide. In direct contrast to them, he has made opposition to fossil fuels and the campaign against global warming the center of his activism. 

The former financier is an unlikely green icon. Steyer built his fortune with a San Francisco-based hedge fund of the sort that drove protesters to occupy Wall Street. Some of the investments that landed him on the Forbes list of America's wealthiest went into companies he now says are destroying the planet. Adversaries and, in private, at least some erstwhile allies call him a dilettante. 

Yet, unlike many others in a parade of super-rich Californians who have made forays into politics, Steyer has proved himself skilled at bringing attention to his cause and himself. 

He has amassed impressive victories: helping persuade recession-weary Californians to pass a $1-billion annual tax hike; creating a gusher of money for energy efficiency; and this year playing a star role in destabilizing plans for the Keystone XL Pipeline with a campaign that has sown doubt about the project inside the administration and mobilized influential Democratic donors and business leaders against it. 

Opponents of the pipeline, designed to move hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil daily along a 1,200-mile route from Canada's tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries, say it would contribute greatly to global warming. 

"Normally, in the American system, people yell and scream and holler and nothing happens, and then something happens and it gets fixed," Steyer said in a recent interview. "That happened with acid rain, with the hole in the ozone layer. That is normally what happens." 

Global warming, "for whatever reason, was not getting addressed," he said. "And it is the biggest issue." 

I know right! He IS pretty awesome, and he's all ours.

And yes I do remember that we liberals also have Warren buffet, and that he is a billionaire that has long been on our side on most issues.

But you have to admit with so many billions financing the Right Wing we could use all of the help we can get.

After their year long plans to shutdown the government have been made public, the Koch brothers attempt to deny culpability. Too late!

Courtesy of the Atlantic: 

The Kochs appear to be distancing themselves from the movement they've helped to create. In a letter released Wednesday, Koch Industries' chief lobbyist, Philip Ellender, says the company does not favor the House's push to defund Obamacare as a condition of keeping the government open. Koch Industries would prefer to see Congress focus on fiscal issues: "We believe that Congress should, at a minimum, keep to sequester-level spending guidelines, and develop a plan for more significant and widespread spending reductions in the future," Ellender writes. 

Ellender's letter came in response to Democrats' attempts to pin the shutdown on the Kochs. Speaking on the Senate floor on Tuesday, Majority Leader Harry Reid said: "Very rich people in America who don’t believe in government have used Obamacare as a conduit to shut down the government .... This has been led by, according to the news article, a former attorney general of the United States, Ed Meese, and the Koch brothers, who have been raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get us where we are right now," Reid said. He added, "By shutting down the government—and that is what has happened—we are satisfying the Koch brothers and Ed Meese, but millions of people in America are suffering." Reid cited a front-page New York Times article on Sunday that traced the government shutdown's origins in a network of right-wing pressure groups opposed to Obamacare, many of them funded by Charles and David Koch. 

But Ellender, in his letter, accuses Reid of distorting Koch's stance. "Koch believes that Obamacare will increase deficits, lead to an overall lowering of the standard of health care in America, and raise taxes," he writes. "However, Koch has not taken a position on the legislative tactic of tying the continuing resolution to defunding Obamacrare nor have we lobbied on legislative provisions defunding Obamacare." 

In addition to keeping spending at sequester levels, Ellender adds, "We also believe that Congress should work to rein-in rampant government spending so that it becomes no longer necessary to continually raise the debt ceiling." 

Even as the Kochs attempt to disavow the defund movement, their money has supported it. The brothers have given half a million dollars to Heritage Action, which toured the country rallying support for defunding Obamacare over the summer, Politico reported Wednesday. Heritage Action continues to insist the way to end the shutdown must be defund or nothing: Talk of a fiscal deal constitutes "losing focus," according to a Heritage Action blog post on Tuesday, and "the House should use its leverage to battle President Obama's failed health care law." The Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity officially supports repealing Obamacare, not defunding it, but state chapters in New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, and Virginia have voiced support for defunding. 

Just like Victor Frankenstein, there comes a time in every madman'[s life when they realize that the creature they have created must die.

The question is, will it die quickly, or will take on a life of its own and ultimately leave a path of destruction in its wake?

Actually to be fair the destruction is already taking place:

During the impeachment of Bill Clinton, Republicans were pretty unpopular. After eight years of George W. Bush, same. But never in the history of Gallup polling has the party been more unpopular than it is right now.

Good job Koch brothers.  No really, good job!

Protest song for Wisconsin.

Here are the lyrics courtesy of likala.

Scott Walker works for multi billionaires
John Boehner works for multi billionaires
while corporations get billions in welfare
and millions in this country been out of work for years

Sarah Palin works for multi billionaires
American workers vs multi billionaires
they wanna end social security and medicare
while millions in this country don't have a dime to spare

Can main street get a bailout
Tell the president our checks weren't mailed out
Tell the house of representatives and senate
And whatever business got the stimulus and spent it
Now they getting record profit that's tripling with no limits
But they cutting jobs and unemployment benefits have ended
How we gone live with no income coming in
And the little help we get is cut from the budget then
What's the role of government
Do workers stand a chance if multi billionaires are running it
Oh now you worried bout the deficit and cutting it
But when them banks needed billions you had enough for them.
Them car companies you had bucks for them
2 wars rebuilding 2 countries guess we stuck with them
the average citizen just ain't lucky then
cause we be getting pimped so I guess we getting fucked again

Rush Limbaugh works for multi billionaires
Bill O'Reilly works for multi billionaires
while corporations get billions in welfare
and millions in this country been out of work for years

Sean Hannity works for multi billionaires
Crazy Glenn Beck works for multi billionaires
they wanna end social security and medicare
while millions in this country don't have a dime to spare

When did the American worker become the enemy
Why is wanting a living wage such a penalty
What happened to justice and liberty
These billionaire haters wanna crush us literally
On the box is Murdoch and his foxes
And if you watch it you might as well be an ostrich
They terrorists cause they hold facts hostage
24 hours straight of we hate what Barack did
If you want to unionize your a communist
But if you buy a congressman they just call you a lobbyist
It's so obvious but here's where the problem is
they act like regular Americans but they sloppy rich
Why you think they wanna cut taxes
cause every single one of them in the higher brackets
This ain't white or black it's class warfare time for action
Just look at wide the gap is

American workers vs multi billionaires
The middle class vs multi billionaires
while corporations get billions in welfare
and millions in this country been out of work for years

Rupert Murdoch is multi billionaires
the Koch brothers are multi Billionaire
they wanna end social security and medicare
while millions in this country don't have a dime to spare

By the way it looks like the Madison police chief has some real concerns about what Governor Walker said to that fake Koch brother:

"I spent a good deal of time overnight thinking about Governor Walker's response, during his news conference yesterday, to the suggestion that his administration 'thought about' planting troublemakers among those who are peacefully protesting his bill," Wray said in a statement." I would like to hear more of an explanation from Governor Walker as to what exactly was being considered, and to what degree it was discussed by his cabinet members."

"I find it very unsettling and troubling that anyone would consider creating safety risks for our citizens and law enforcement officers. Our department works hard dialoging with those who are exercising their First Amendment right, those from both sides of the issue, to make sure we are doing everything we can to ensure they can demonstrate safely," he said.

A Washington Watchdog group has some real concerns as well:

The Public Campaign Action fund alleges that this represents an effort to coordinate spending with an independent entity, which may be illegal under Wisconsin law. The group also alleges that such a call may not be received on or made from state property.

It appears to me that Governor Walker may have quite a lot on his plate.  Perhaps trying to bust the unions was not quite as good of an idea as his corporate overlords told him it was. Ya think?