Showing posts with label wall street journal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wall street journal. Show all posts

Friday, April 4, 2014

Charles Koch-splains the #Kochtopia with #ConjuringWords like #Collectivism

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Just a few days after conservatives on the Supreme Court handed multi-billionaires like the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson the gift of buying future elections, poor unpopular Charles Koch took to the Wall Street Journal to express his poutrage at the "Collectivists" (Socialists/Liberals/Democrats) who are against him. In his Op-Ed he tells "merica how things are 'sposed to be, with he and his brother at the top of the ruling class, and we rabble way down below.

The tone is defensive and some would say "hurt," possibly aimed at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who is going full-honey badger again as he shakes the tail of the Tea Party Snake in attacking the Koch Brothers. With language straight out of his father's John Birch Society pamphlets from the 1950s, and using Tea Party dog whistles, Koch tries to Koch-splain just how misunderstood he is. Because Patriotism, and because those darn "Collectivists" are saying things about him, something no Republican would ever do to that Feckless Communist/Collectivist/RadicalSoros-cialist Kenyan Emperor who is destroying the country from the White House and taking all our guns.

And the biggest derp - WSJ used clip-art also used by Democratic blogger site Daily Kos to illustrate the Op-Ed. #EpicFail

Charles Koch in the Wall Street Journal
More than 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson warned that this could happen. "The natural progress of things," Jefferson wrote, "is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." He knew that no government could possibly run citizens' lives for the better. The more government tries to control, the greater the disaster, as shown by the current health-care debacle. Collectivists (those who stand for government control of the means of production and how people live their lives) promise heaven but deliver hell. For them, the promised end justifies the means.

Instead of encouraging free and open debate, collectivists strive to discredit and intimidate opponents. They engage in character assassination. (I should know, as the almost daily target of their attacks.) This is the approach that Arthur Schopenhauer described in the 19th century, that Saul Alinsky famously advocated in the 20th, and that so many despots have infamously practiced. Such tactics are the antithesis of what is required for a free society—and a telltale sign that the collectivists do not have good answers.

. . . Those in power fail to see that more government means less liberty, and liberty is the essence of what it means to be American. Love of liberty is the American ideal.

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On April 1st, Harry Reid wrote several tweets about #Kochtopia
(More Quotes and Videos from Reid at Bottom of Post)







Then he wrote more on April 3-4 while Supporters Chimed In.
The #Kochtopia Hashtag is Here to Stay









~~~~~~~

About the Daily Kos Figurehead used by WSJ



From the Pundits:

Just to put the whole joke in context. Here we have the Wall Street Journal owned by Rupert Murdoch. Here we have a full-page Op-Ed piece that just happens to come out after the (Supreme) Court decision (on McCutcheon). Ghost-written for Charles Koch. Who knows who writes this stuff for him? He pays for it as if he's literate. I'd like to put that guy in a room for an hour and see if he could actually write an Op-Ed piece!
~ Chris Matthews on Hardball

Let’s us have a moment of silence for the plight of misunderstood businessmen. Time’s up.
~ Joe Romm, ThinkProgress

Poor Charles Koch who fancies himself an American Patriot. Just tryin' to do what's right! Who only has access to a small little outlet called the Wall Street Journal! Charles Koch "I'm trying to restore a free society."
. . . Mary! Oh, Mary! Zuzu! Zuzu! You're alive, and I'm here, and Mr. Potter's here. That mean man, Barack Obama, who's trying to take wings from angels!
. . . This is the essence of big government and Collectivism. Things like food stamps and why can't you go out and own your own Big Ag company. Why I remember there was a time when my Daddy could just go out and hire a couple a' thugs with baseball bats. And you know, do a little bean bag on people's heads.
. . . Collectivists seek to intimidate members of the press. I could barely get into the pages of the Wall Street Journal to write this. In fact, I had to make two phone calls. Well, my assistant did.
They engage in character assassination. Why, why - I almost couldn't get that documentary about me on PBS squashed. That's how HARD it is for folks like me.
. . . That's why I spend so much money in politics - 'cause I don't want any favors.
~ Sam Seder on Majority Report






STOPPPPPP YOU’RE HURTING MY FEEEEEELINGS is apparently the new clarion call of the conservative movement. I’m still a little shocked by it.
. . . When you spend a ton of money to control democracy, particularly on ads that are shamelessly dishonest like the Koch ads have been, people are going to say things. They’re going to say mean things that aren’t nice, and if your best response is to go crying to your mommy you’ve exposed just how weak your soft underbelly is.
And we’ll get louder.
~ Oliver Willis on The Daily Banter

So the trouble is that his critics attempt to “discredit” and “intimidate” him and employ “character assassination.” All these terms appear to be Koch synonyms for “saying things about Charles Koch that Charles Koch does not agree with.” In the kind of “free and open” debate he imagines, Koch would continue to use his fortune to wield massive political influence, and nobody would ever say anything about him that makes him unhappy.
Luckily, Koch restrains himself from overtly comparing the Obama administration to Hitler and Stalin, instead likening it to unnamed 20th-century “despots." No character assassination here!
~ Jonathan Chait, NYMag

Like the spoiled kid whose extravagant birthday party is ruined by one of the kids his mom made him invite, Charles Koch is sick and tired of being yelled at for trying to remake the entire country as he sees fit.
~ Philip Bump, The Wire

Is this what your little rant is all about? You know you've lost the war on Obamacare, and so now it's all about "collectivism?"
The more government tries to control, the greater the disaster, as shown by the current health-care debacle.
I'm suppressing the urge to scream "neener neener neener" in your face. It really is about health care! Wow, you're truly angry that I have access to affordable health care. Too damned bad.
~ Karoli on Crooks and Liars

A liberal sparrow does not fall from the sky that these guys (the Koch Brothers) do not know about."
. . . Modern conservatism have been really good at creating "conjuring words" that with their base, that all they have to do is say them: Alinsky, Benghazi, Acorn. . . . The Right has been very good at creating political symbols that are durable for political purposes within their own base. Harry Reid is trying to turn "Koch Brothers" into a conjuring spell for Democrats and I think he's doing it.
Harry (Reid) is starting from a deep hole because he doesn't have a megaphone and he doesn't have the Right Wing Media Bubble to strengthen the "conjuring words."
~ Charles P. Pierce of Esquire on "In with Chris Hayes"


I think I must be getting under their skin. Most people here are familiar with the Koch brothers. If I've helped make them a little more infamous or famous, I'm glad I've done that. These two men are a pair of shadowy billionaires spending millions of dollars to rig our political system. And who does it help? Them.
~ Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, via Washington Post

(The Paul Ryan Budget is) ...a blueprint for a modern… how would we say this? Koch-topia. Yes, that’s it. Call it whatever you want. We might as well call it the Koch budget because that’s what they’re doing, protecting the Koch brothers.
It’s a fool’s errand for the Koch brothers to think they can use their money to frighten me or to brainwash Nevadans or the rest of the country. There have been times in my life I’ve been a little afraid, but I’m not afraid of them.
. . . To any and all groups who wish to attack me on behalf of multibillionaires, fire away … I am very happy, I’m proud to be the target of those attacks. I will gladly endure them in order to call attention to the unscrupulous acts of these two barons
~ Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid
Via Politico










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Saturday, March 9, 2013

GOP Poutrage Diva Peggy Noonan Stays at Hotel Crap, Blames the President

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So-called "Celebrated" and increasingly depressed Wall Street Journal writer Peggy Noonan apparently doesn't realize she can just walk out of her bad hotel when she realizes it isn't the Ritz-Carlton. Instead, she projects own sadness (probably about Mitt not winning the election, as predicted by her special vibrations about yard signs) and feels moved to write an extended Best-Days-are-Behind-Us metaphor about Apocalypse America because . . . it's Obama's fault.

Apparently she's never visited Trip Advisor. Or perhaps her secretary should.



Wall Street Journal
I'm in Pittsburgh, making my way to the airport hotel. The people movers are broken and we pull our bags along the dingy carpet. There's an increasing sense in America now that the facades are intact but the machinery inside is broken.

The hotel has entrances on two floors. I search for the lobby, find it. Travelers are milling about, but there's no information desk, no doorman, no bellman or concierge, just two harried-looking workers at a front desk on the second level. The man who checked me in put his phones on hold when I asked for someone to accompany me upstairs. As we walked to the room I felt I should explain. I told him a trial attorney had told me a while back that there are more lawsuits involving hotels than is generally known, and more crime, so always try to have someone with you when you first go to your room. I thought the hotel clerk would pooh-pooh this. Instead he said, "That's why we just put up mirrors at each end of the hall, so you can see if someone's coming." He made it sound like an amenity.

"What should we do then, scream?" I asked. He laughed and shrugged: "Yeah."

Things are getting pretty bare-bones in America. Doormen, security, bellmen, people working the floor—that's maybe a dozen jobs that should have been filled, at one little hotel on one day in one town. Everyone's keeping costs down, not hiring.

What that hotel looked like is America without its muscle, its efficiency, its old confidence.

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A few hours after this column reached WSJ readers, we learned American businesses added 246,000 jobs in February, and 2.33 million jobs over the last year. It's unfortunate that Noonan received poor service at a hotel, her attempt to extrapolate from that experience misses the mark.
I'll never know why Noonan's editors didn't send her a quick note, saying, "Um, Peggy? Are you sure you want to publish this?"
~ Steve Benen on Maddow Blog

Note the seamless segue from Peggy's statement of the preternaturally boring thing she is doing, straight into an unqualified statement about the "sense" of a nation of 300 million people. Peggy Noonan knows these things. She has traveled from frontier to frontier. Of airport hotels.
~ Gawker

Peggy Noonan Didn’t Like Her Hotel Room. Thanks Obama!
. . . Can’t you just smell the mines and poverty and sadness? Can’t you see the little children, their faces unwashed and bodies shriveled, an army of walking Walker Evans photos, making Peggy Noonan sad? Oh, sorry, no, we forgot. There are no waifs in this story, just a dingy carpet.
. . . Why did Obama fire all the hotel workers? Is it because he hates capitalism, and jobs, and wants everyone to be poor so they can all be ACORNs?
Yes. Stupid Obama murdered all the jobs.
~ Wonkette

"The room had one of those sad clown pictures from 1971, and when I looked closed, I could see a resemblance to America. I gazed longingly for a time in America when a gin and tonic before breakfast was okay, and I realized I was staring at myself in the mirror. When had I become a sad clown? Probably 1972."
~ EatsBabyDingos on Wonkette

The bedbugs heard Peggy was checking in and they left in a huff.
~ Barbara on Wonkette

Ask not for whom the bellhops. It hoppeth not for thee, Peggy.
~ Mumbletypeg on Wonkette

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peggy noonan tries to exercise at the ymca: another in a series of tales from barack obama’s degraded amercia
. . . It is Wednesday morning, 8:30 AM, and I find myself carrying a faded pink duffel bag across the beaten and worn floors of my neighborhood YMCA as I search in vain for the duffel bag porter to relieve me of this burden and take it to my locker. A fire, perhaps the same fire that is smothering the very richness of American ingenuity under this blinkered administration, as rendered my usual workout facilities unusable, and I am left without recourse on this bitter morning, as bitter as the shapes of discarded American lives I see strewn all around me as I furtively look for someone, anyone, to assist me. There’s no one to call to, no one who can answer my plaintive cry for help, just as the White House is empty of anyone who can respond in kind to the plaintive cry of America herself in this dark time. There is no information desk, no concierge, no sports drink sommelier at this facility. These are good jobs that are going unfilled because of President Obama’s inability to fill them.
I go to the information desk and ask why there are no valets to take my duffel bag, but I am brusquely told to produce an “identification card” by which I may obtain entry into the facility. Yes, in Obama’s America, we are denied access to that which would nourish the steel and brawn of this nation . . .
~ Parody by FastEddie9318 on Wordpress












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