The Koch Network has offered up what can only be described as a bribe – they have pledged to give every Republican over a million dollars in campaign funds if they vote against the GOP healthcare bill. How is this legal? Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
Transcript of the above video:
The Koch brothers, Charles and David Koch, announced earlier this week that they’re going to help out any Republican who is willing to vote against the disastrous Republican Obamacare replacement plan. Now, according to Politico, two Koch-funded groups, Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners, are going to work together to create a seven-figure fund to bail out any Republicans who are willing to vote against this horrible piece of legislation.
Now, in my opinion, and I think probably in most lawyers opinions, this would amount to a bribe. The Kochs are offering money to any Republican candidate or sitting politician, I should say, willing to vote against this health care law. So, if you do what they want you to do, they will give you money. How is that not considered bribery? How can anyone see this and think that this is okay for two billionaires jackasses on the west coast to offer millions of dollars to Republicans to vote against a piece of legislation?
Should they vote against it? Absolutely. It’s a terrible piece of legislation. But that’s not why the Koch brothers are opposed to it. The Koch brothers don’t like the American Healthcare Act because it doesn’t include a full repeal of Obamacare. So don’t think that the Koch brothers suddenly had a change of heart, they’ve seen the light, they were visited by three ghosts, and now they don’t want to strip healthcare from millions of Americans. They absolutely do. They’re pissed off that the American Healthcare Act does not take health insurance away from more Americans and that it leaves parts of Obamacare, the good parts, in place. The Koch brothers don’t want that. They want an even more cruel, more heartless piece of legislation from Republicans in Washington, preferably for them, one that Donald Trump hasn’t stamped his name on because they hate him. That’s what’s going on here.
The Koch brothers want to pay millions of dollars to any Republican puppet that will make an even worse healthcare law for the United States. This is legalized bribery in the United States and it’s absolutely what we have seen day in and day out since citizens united, came down from the Supreme Court, telling corporations that giving money to politicians was just your right to free speech.
I think the Koch brothers have had enough free speech. They’ve had enough politicians doing their bidding in Washington because they’re able to write multi-million dollar checks to people who are grossly unqualified to serve in our government. This is not a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. This is a government picked by the Koch brothers, by people like Sheldon Adelson, people that have enough money where they can write a $10 million check and never even notice if it clears. That’s how much money they have.
And the Supreme Court, the Republican picked Supreme Court, thinks that that is perfectly fine. We don’t care because you’re giving us the money. This is disgusting. And while this healthcare legislation needs to be defeated, Republicans can’t even get enough votes to pass it, but they’re going to keep trying. The fact that the Koch brothers feel comfortable enough to come out publicly and say that we’re going to bribe you to vote against it, should leave every American feeling just a little bit dirtier knowing that that is how United States government works in 2017.
