Good news: Matt Lewis finally feels liberated and admits that Sarah Palin is an idiot - Bad news: Matt Lewis now promotes other right-wing idiots, and the Koch Brothers are in charge

By Patrick

Good news on Sunday: After writing his "mea culpa" article at the Daily Caller, the conservative journalist Matt Lewis also admitted on MSNBC that he finally feels free to say in public that Sarah Palin is an idiot, that he is not shackled any more, as Sarah Palin would say it:

"Mea culpa", another latin word, and it means: Man, the Republican party has really been taken for a ride.

So, we have good news on a Sunday, and now we can all hope that the world will be a better place again.

It took Matt Lewis 6 1/2 years to realize what most people realized immediately when they first encountered Sarah Palin, but better late than never.

The above interview is very interesting indeed. Matt Lewis admits that a conservative who criticized Sarah Palin in the past was "in trouble", was in danger to get "beaten up". I also find it sweet that he uses the phrase "Palin fatigue", a phrase which is only too familiar to all of us.

In his article and his interview on MSNBC, Matt Lewis pulls no punches. The love affair is over, and from his remarks, it is more than obvious that Matt has been "disenchanted" for a very long time, probably for years. He also mentions Palin's famous bus tour from 2011, when the media was "chasing her bus caravan around the country", and Matt concludes that Palin now is just interested in "attention" and "fame".

But what is the alternative to Sarah Palin? That's where the harsh reality kicks in. The Republican party is now being ruled by nutjobs, and the Koch Brothers are the paymasters in the background. They seem to be in full control of the GOP these days.

Matt Lewis, naturally, has connections to the Koch groups as well - from an article from 2010, in which he defended the Koch Brothers:

"Disclosure: Matt Lewis has previously spoken for Americans for Prosperity, 

an organization founded by David Koch."

Also, taking into account that the Koch Brothers are notorious for their secrecy, we can probably assume that the above "disclosure" is only scratching the surface, as far as the connections of Matt Lewis to the "Koch empire" is concerned...but please correct us if we are wrong, Matt.

Just today, Matt Lewis published a new article in defense of the Koch Brothers, in the UK Telegraph - and don't even search for a disclaimer:

So, who are the other contenders? Matt Lewis names them (from 1:45 in the clip): Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Joni Ernst. At the end of the clip, from 4:00, he also mentions that people should "now focus on Scott Walker and Marco Rubio."

One really does not know whether to feel sorry, or whether to be angry. The new line-up of the Republican Party, these "fresh faces", as Matt Lewis calls them, is a joke. If any of these people that he mentioned became President, the happy days would be over.

People like Ted Cruz and Joni Ernst are simply dangerous extremists, who surely would in Europe be members of some right-wing fringe party, far removed from the "mainstream". But even worse: All of the people that Matt Lewis mentions in this interviews are just "puppets" of the Koch Brothers, they are all "Koch Suckers", short and simple.

This is not a  secret. As the San Francisco Chronicle wrote two days ago:

Now, any outside group — with unlimited donations from corporations, labor or wealthy individuals — can make a direct pitch to voters right up until election day. The only caveat with these “independent” expenditures is they cannot work in collaboration with a candidate’s campaign.

But make no mistake: The campaigns are well aware of the potency of this outside help. The Koch brothers’ annual winter retreat at Palm Springs attracted aspiring Republican presidential candidates Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas.

So who are these Koch brothers, who stir so much fear and ire among Democrats, and what is their agenda?

Charles, 78, and David, 74, own the Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries, the nation’s second-largest privately held company. They are worth an estimated $41 billion each.

Their overriding philosophy is promotion of deregulation, tax cuts and smaller government. Among their specific targets are opposition to climate change — they are heavily invested in energy — and repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

The Los Angeles Daily News wrote also on January 30 regards the power of the Koch Brothers as a threat for both political parties:

The notion that two individuals with no qualification or popular mandate beyond a fat checkbook now are free to make an entire party apparatus essentially irrelevant ought to trouble both Republicans and Democrats. Since the widespread adoption of direct primaries for state and national offices, the parties have become much more democratic institutions, subject to major course corrections at the ballot box. If ultra-rich industrialists and financiers, like the Koch brothers, are now free to buy a pass that circumvents the modern parties, we’re back to the days of Mark Hanna and his ilk, when both parties essentially were run by secretive back-room arbiters subject to the influence of self-seeking special interests.

In short: We can stop worrying about an imbecile like Sarah Palin, although her legacy as the "folksy demagogue" of the Republicans will last for much longer.

But we really have to worry about the Koch Brothers and their band of puppets, aka "Republican presidential candidates."

The intentions of the Koch Brothers have been known for years. They want to buy themselves a president, and they are deadly serious about it.

Already in 2011, secret recordings from the super-secret Koch meetings were published, which revealed that the Koch's form a coalition of ultra-rich donors, in order to buy themselves a president. In 2012, they failed, but in 2016, their funds seem to have no limits.

Watch:

If the Koch Brothers achieve their goal, to buy themselves a president, then you can say good-bye for example to environmental regulations and effective health insurance. The progress of several decades will be reversed.

The Koch Brothers might be billionaires, but their greed seems to have no limits.

Just a few days ago, I watched on German TV an excellent documentary about the early US industrialists, the "Men who built America." I only found out just now that this documentary by the History Channel won two Emmys, well deserved in my opinion. You should all definitely watch it!

The documentary also tells the story about how the industrialist bought their own presidential candidate in 1896, who finally managed to win the election, through excessive donations and bribes to the media: William McKinley.

Luckily, this excerpt from the documentary is available as a free clip on the website of the History Channel:

Then of course it struck me immediately: The Koch Brothers try to replicate the success from 1896. This is more than obvious, and this should worry us all, A LOT.

It is a shame that intelligent people like Matt Lewis are caught in their conservative bubble and cannot see this danger. It took him 6 1/2 years to finally speak out openly against Sarah Palin. Taking his pace into account, it will probably take decades until he finally admits that the Koch Brothers posed a huge threat to Democracy, and to the welfare and well-being of the "common people" in the USA.

It's a tragedy, and we can only all hope that the Democrats learn from 2014 and get their act together in 2016.

Hopefully the "sub-standard" line-up of the GOP will help the Democrats (h/t ScoutandAbout):

Have a nice Sunday, everybody!

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UPDATE:

Excellent new article by Politico, very detailed, worth reading (h/t again ScoutandAbout):

The poll is by no means a definitive assessment of the feelings of the hundreds of wealthy business leaders who comprise the vaunted network created by billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch. But it does provide an early glimpse into the leanings of a pool of megadonors who are being hotly courted by the field of would-be candidates, and whose checkbooks could go a long way toward determining who emerges with the GOP nomination — regardless of whether the Koch network decides to formally back a candidate.

The network has thus far steered clear of endorsing specific candidates in primaries, but it is coming under internal and external pressures to do so. It hopes to raise $889 million from wealthy backers like those who gathered in Rancho Mirage to push its agenda in 2015 and 2016, more than double what it spent in the 2012 election cycle.

In addition to Cruz, Paul and Rubio, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker paid a visit to the Ritz meeting, though he was not present for the forum. The three-day conference was organized by Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit outfit that oversees the vast political and policy network created by the Koch brothers.

Particularly interesting is this excerpt:

The meeting — part of an ongoing series of twice-a-year “seminars” as they’re called in the Kochs’ orbit — featured a mix of presentations on policy, politics and business. This winter’s session included a discussion moderated by conservative journalist Stephen F. Hayes on principled corporate citizenship and a luncheon discussion featuring MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, according to an attendee.

Yes, the famous hosts on the supposedly "left" cable-channel MSNBC now turned into Koch-Suckers as well.

To their credit, Joe and Mika talked openly about this appearance on their show, and they clearly are impressed and actually seem to believe that the Koch Brothers are good people, believe it or not:

You really don't know what is more terrifying: Industrialists who try to buy a Democracy, or a mediocre line-up of candidates, or incredibly naive journalists who apparently lack any political education. In any case: The Koch Brothers need to be defeated, or Americans will be in real trouble.

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UPDATE 2:

There are two more clips which I would like to add to this post.

First: In a new segment with Howard Kurtz on Fox News, he and his three female guests now conclude that Sarah Palin was never relevant again after 2008!

The conservatives now basically try to "erase" the memory of the GOP politician Sarah Palin, who was highly regarded within the GOP as long as she was a useful idiot for relentlessly attacking President Obama.

Watch:

Second, Howard Stern did a brilliant new segment about the GOP, who in his opinion has been "hijacked by idiots like Sarah Palin":