Incredible, yet highly predictable new video out today from Lauren Windsor at The Undercurrent (disclosure: my organization, American Family Voices, sponsors The Undercurrent): Mitch McConnell acting arrogant and aggravated while refusing to answer a really important question about offensive statements made at a Koch brothers retreat that he recently attended. Check it out!
The Richard Fink speech and the other speeches McConnell called "inspiring" were jaw-droppingly extreme, even for the Koch brothers. And here's the other thing: the outrageous remarks Harry Reid cites in the video are just the tip of the iceberg. They obscure the Kochs' even more extreme philosophy of government, articulated at the retreat by Dr. Will Ruger, the vice president of research and policy of Charles Koch Institute:
Government is thus limited to a small, but absolutely critical number of tasks, basically keeping our neighborhoods and cities safe from crime, defending our country from those who might violate our national territories, our commerce at sea, and providing justice in a fair and apolitical -- political court system.
As I wrote when Lauren's original article on the Kochs' ideology came out in Huffington Post:
That means no Social Security, no Medicare or Medicaid, no public support of any kind for the severely disabled, no public prenatal care or assistance for hungry or homeless children, no minimum wage or regulation of safe working conditions, no child labor laws, no emergency assistance in the case of natural disaster, no food or water or drug or consumer safety protections, no oversight of financial markets or banks, no environmental laws of any kind, no public roads or bridges or schools...
What does Fink think when he sees the homeless? "Get off your ass, and work hard like we did..." What does he think of people on minimum wage? "People are being paid more than their value-added...
This gem from Fink is quintessential to the entire Koch philosophy:
Yeah, we want decrease regulations. Why? It's because we can make more profit, okay? Yeah, cut government spending so we don't have to pay so much taxes (inaudible). There's truth in that, you all know, because we're in the 30 percent of the freedom fighters. But the middle part of the group doesn't see it that way.
Instead of giving Lauren the death stare from hell, Mitch McConnell needs to answer Harry Reid's and Lauren Windsor's question: is he going to repudiate this extremism? Or if he continues to find it inspiring, he should tell America, and especially his own constituents, why. Sign this petition and force McConnell answer the question.
