Senate Democrats, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid, are continuing their efforts to expose the Koch brothers and their pernicious influence in our elections. Above is Alaska Sen. Mark Begich's first ad of the campaign,
aimed directly at the Kochs in response to attack ads.
“First it was a D.C. actress pretending to be an Alaskan,” says a narrator in the ad, which was shared early with POLITICO. “Now ads attacking Mark Begich on a carbon tax have been called false and not true.” […]
The second half of the ad features Alaskan voters talking about the Kochs — and hitting them for the closure of the Flint Hills Resources Refinery, an Alaska oil refinery owned by Koch Industries.
“They come in to our town, buy our refinery,” one man says, while another follows by saying the company is “just running it into the ground.”
That's the localization of a national campaign against the Kochs spearheaded by Reid in a
series of
blistering floor
statements and in
interviews. Reid's now put up a web page, so head below the fold for
one-stop shopping for background on the radical agenda of the Kochs.
1. The Kochs want to abolish Social Security. […]
2. The Kochs want to eliminate minimum wage laws. […]
3. The Kochs are against extending emergency unemployment benefits. […]
4. The Kochs spent $400 million on misleading attack ads in the last election cycle. […]
5. The Kochs want to put insurance companies back in charge of your health care. […]
6. The Kochs are against measures that would reduce the gap between the wages women and men earn for the same work. […]
7. The Kochs want even more tax breaks for themselves. […]
8. The Kochs made improper payments to win contracts in Africa, India and the Middle East. And they sold millions of dollars of equipment to Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism. […]
9. The Kochs lobbied against recognition of formaldehyde as a cancer-causing carcinogen because it might be bad for their business. […]
10. The Kochs rank as one of America’s most toxic air polluters.
11.The Kochs have received over $88 million in government subsidies.
12. The Kochs have admitted they have “a radical philosophy.”
Sunlight is one way to fight back against the outsized money influence the Kochs have in politics. While a lot of what they spend is hidden in the Citizens United-created world of dark money, the facts of that spending and their radical agenda should be exposed. Kudos to Reid for doing just that, and for using the kind of strong rhetoric that got the media's attention. He's making the Kochs the face of the Republican party for 2014.