House Majority Leader Harry Reid is at it again. Over the last few days, he has gone into hormonal outrage about the Koch brothers.
The Koch brothers, who own Koch Industries, are being demonized by the cranky and crazy senator from Nevada.
If you believe Mr. Reid, which no sane person would believe “dingy Harry,” the Koch brothers are buying elections in America. Mr. Reid rants as if the Koch brothers were making diabolical plans at their Wichita headquarters to single-handedly run every election in America.
Of course, Mr. Reid lives in a fact free world. It is worth nothing that Koch Industries make a lot of products that people want. Mr. Reid does nothing that anyone wants.
More importantly, Mr. Reid ignores the fact that the Koch brothers rank 68th on the list of political donors. Who is the top donor?
That is liberal billionaire Tom Steyer who is trying to drive America’s energy programs back into the 1700’s. Mr. Steyer doesn’t like fossil fuels, nor does he like nuclear. He only likes expensive energies that bankrupt the middle class.
Mr. Steyer is spending $100 million dollars this year to get Democrats elected. The Koch brothers are not spending anywhere near that amount. But according to “Dingy Harry,” Mr. Steyer is a saint and the Koch brothers are the spawn of Satan.
Mr. Reid has a vested interest in so-called “campaign finance reform.” Mr. Reid wants to destroy the sources of funding for Republican candidates but protect the groups that fund liberal candidates.
No one doubts this is what Mr. Reid is up to. Why do some Republicans support these “campaign finance reform” efforts?
Every time Congress proposes campaign finance reform, all of the proposals have one thing in common. They all try to handicap challengers. Almost all of the politicians in Washington have a common goal. None of them will be happy until the system is rigged so that they get 99.9 percent of the vote. Washington politicians love the voting system of the old Soviet Union or Saddam Hussien’s Iraq.
No opposition allowed.
While Mr. Reid goes into his demented rants about the Citizens United Supreme Court case, few people remember what it was about.
Citizens United was a challenge to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act. Under McCain-Feingold, it would be illegal for a corporation or a union to make an “electioneering communication” that mentioned a specific candidate within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election.
Under McCain-Feingold, the Washington Times could not endorse candidates. Commercials could not be run. In the original oral argument before the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart, who was defending the case made the claim that the government could ban a book if it contained a single sentence advocating for or against the election of a candidate.
The cold hard truth is politicians do not want competition. They run on the promise of being able to stand up to Washington and when they get elected they say, we have to protect ourselves against that evil campaign money and therefore must make it impossible for challengers to challenge us.
For once, how about a change in the law that hampers incumbents running for reelection instead of knee-capping challengers? Why doesn’t Congress pass a law that makes it illegal for sitting senators and congressmen to raise money while Congress is in session? A number of states, including Tennessee, prohibit their state legislators from raising funds while the Legislature is in session.
Mr. Reid will never allow this as long as he is the Senate majority leader. Mr. Reid’s problem is not money in politics. Mr. Reid’s problem is money that goes to people who disagree with him.
That is what is behind Mr. Reid’s dirty war against the First Amendment.
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