Charles Koch

Charles Koch

"Americans have taken an important step in slowing down the march toward collectivism," Charles Koch said in his speech, seemingly in reference to the Republican takeover of the Senate during the 2014 midterm elections. "But as many of you know, we don’t rest on our laurels. We are already back at work and hard at it! In fact, the work never really ends. Because the struggle for freedom never ends," Koch said, according to excerpts provided by Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, a non-profit outfit that oversees the vast political and policy network created by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers. […] Koch, in his speech, cast the network's efforts as "largely defensive to slow down a government that continues to swell and become more intrusive—causing our culture to deteriorate." Speaking loftily about the value of "individual and property rights" and "free speech and free markets," Koch urged on his fellow donors—most of whom are older industrialists like the Kochs themselves—declaring, "It is up to us. Making this vision a reality will require more than a financial commitment. It requires making it a central part of our lives."

The notoriously secretive Koch brothers have apparently decided to let it all out, or anyway tiny bits of it that might not be too super scary for the American public to see. They had another one of their "seminars" in Palm Springs this weekend. That's what they call their events when they bring in a bunch of billionaires and a bunch of Republicans come to kiss their rings and beg. Previously, these meetings have been super-duper top secret, except when attendees slip up and leave super-duper top-secret documents lying around, or when they're infilitrated by intrepid reporters. Perhaps to pre-empt that clandestine coverage, the Kochs went a little bit public with the most recent event. But they still brought the crazy, and let the world know that they've only just begun buying it all.Just what we need, a billionaire with a messiah complex. A billionaire with a messiah complex that every serious (and ridiculous) Republican candidate for federal office, from the House to the Senate to the White House, has sold his or her soul to.