I have a 38 year old journeyman electrician in law that is living in poverty and has never belonged to a union because Reagan and the R's broke the his trade union years ago but he v**es for the R's because he's been persuaded that the R's are the party of God.

Aw, poor Charles Koch. He wants everyone to know he's being persecuted by mean "collectivists" around the country for being a really good guy, so he ran to the Wall Street Journal and put an op-ed out so we could all know what evil Alinsky-ites we are and how he's really, really the good guy who is fighting to restore a free society.

His first mistake was expecting those he's aiming his message at to actually read or pay attention to the Wall Street Journal. If he really cared about his message, he'd go live on the Rachel Maddow show.But let's hear him out anyway. I'll quote his complaint and respond below.

I have dev**ed most of my life to understanding the principles that enable people to improve their lives. It is those principles—the principles of a free society—that have shaped my life, my family, our company and America itself.

Principles laid out by none other than the John Birch Society. You forgot to note that part. Your father was a founder, and you were steeped in their principles from a very young age. Call it wh**ever you want, but these vaunted principles were spawned in the living rooms of fearful white folks across the country, led by Jack Robert Welch.

"Unfortunately, the fundamental concepts of dignity, respect, e******y before the law and personal freedom are under attack by the nation's own government. That's why, if we want to restore a free society and create greater well-being and opportunity for all Americans, we have no choice but to fight for those principles. I have been doing so for more than 50 years, primarily through educational efforts. It was only in the past decade that I realized the need to also engage in the political process."

What dignity, respect and e******y are you referring to, White Rich Man? The dignity of being turned away at the doctor's office for lack of health insurance? The respect given by a government who thinks it's perfectly fine for people to die in the street, or to starve children rather than give food stamps? The e******y of suppressing some people's v**es in order to make sure your 'principles' are the ones that win? The liberty to work for a wage below the living standard?


Or would it be the dignity, respect and e******y granted to us by your Almighty Markets, gamed by Those Who Have to make sure more of us are Have Nots?

Or perhaps it's the dignity, respect and e******y granted to our first African-American president, who you seem to think should walk around with a target painted on his back and spitballs lobbed at him at every turn?

If that's dignity, e******y and respect, I'll take the alternative.

I do believe you are suffering from some kind of delusion. That's. Unfortunate poor fellow you must be in terrible misery

He also has co produced a documentary film titled " Ine******y for all " Netflix gives it a four star rating and Amazon gives it four and a half out of five stars

Obama dosent control the US buerau's or dictate. the US buerau's furnish the stat's which have to be compiled

this is statistics from the from the US census bureau and the US bureau of labor statistics.
Here are more interesting information. Sorry it dosen't support your illusions Fsacta arfe troublsome things

The history of the role of the federal government in public education dates to 1785. The history of conservative's attempting to undermine public education dates to the Brown vs Board of Education (1954) that declared separate schools for black and white students was unconstitutional. In 1962 the Justices ruled that Prayer had no place in the class room and violated the establishment clause of the first amendment this is the reason that conservatives believe that the Federal Government had taken over the schools.

I'm not here to defend Barack Obama but he does ok. But History ? Those who don't understand that southern conservative Democrats created Jim Crow Law not progressive Dems. Or that the modern Republican party is not the party of Abe Lincoln Theodore Roosevelt or Dwight D Eisenhower. And that the two parties have flipped in their ideology beginning in the 1890's and culminating in the 1970's

Fact's ?Fact's ? you want facts Try 40 years of moving to the right the destruction of the private sectror unions. Look at the graph, the decline of the middle class follow's the decline of private sector unions. The average non supervisory worker's income has been flat for 40 years while the fat cats have been raking it in. You want to know why the rich pay most of the taxes. Because conservative economic policy of the last 40 years has re-distributed the wealth of the nation from the bottom to the top

McCutcheon, and the Vicious Cycle of Concentrated Wealth and Political Power
by Robert Reich
If wealth and income weren’t already so concentrated in the hands of a few, the shameful “McCutcheon” decision by the five Republican appointees to the Supreme Court wouldn’t be as dangerous. But by taking “Citizen’s United” one step further and effectively eviscerating campaign finance laws, the Court has issued an invitation to oligarchy.

(Photo: Public Citizen / cc / flickr)
Almost limitless political donations coupled with America’s dramatically widening ine******y create a vicious cycle in which the wealthy buy v**es that lower their taxes, give them bailouts and subsidies, and deregulate their businesses – thereby making them even wealthier and capable of buying even more v**es. Corruption breeds more corruption.

That the richest four hundred Americans now have more wealth than the poorest 150 million Americans put together, the wealthiest 1 percent own over 35 percent of the nation’s private assets, and 95 percent of all the economic gains since the start of the recovery in 2009 have gone to the top 1 percent — all of this is cause for worry, and not just because it means the middle class lacks the purchasing power necessary to get the economy out of first gear.

It is also worrisome because such great concentrations of wealth so readily compound themselves through politics, rigging the game in their favor and against everyone else. “McCutcheon” merely accelerates this vicious cycle.

As Thomas Piketty shows in his monumental “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” this was the pattern in advanced economies through much of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. And it is coming to be the pattern once again.

Picketty is pessimistic that much can be done to reverse it (his sweeping economic data suggest that slow growth will almost automatically concentrate great wealth in a relatively few hands). But he disregards the political upheavals and reforms that such wealth concentrations often inspire — such as America’s populist revolts of the 1890s followed by the progressive era, or the German socialist movement in the 1870s followed by Otto von Bismarck’s creation of the first welfare state.

In America of the late nineteenth century, the lackeys of robber barons literally deposited sacks of money on the desks of pliant legislators, prompting the great jurist Louis Brandeis to note that the nation had a choice: “We can have a democracy or we can have great wealth in the hands of a few,” he said. “But we cannot have both.”

Soon thereafter America made the choice. Public outrage gave birth to the nation’s first campaign finance laws, along with the first progressive income tax. The trusts were broken up and regulations imposed to bar impure food and drugs. Several states enacted America’s first labor protections, including the 40-hour workweek.

The question is when do we reach another tipping point, and what happens then?

You forget the Shrub when he left office his number was 22% the previous low was Truman with 32%

God also said honor your father and mother and if there is any one who curses his father or his mother he shall surely be put to death. Mathew 15.4

Read a good history book. My daughter earned her BSN last year and knowing that I'm a student of history, when her history requirement came up she purchased a text book for me to study and we took the tests and finals together. We got an A. It's frustrating debating people who dont know their history. But conservatives don't care about facts. Ronald Reagan attempting to quote John Adams (fact's are stubborn things ) said" fact's are stupid things"

are you kidding ? It's standard right wing gobbled gook. I've listened to that crap since the 1950's It's the same rhetoric that lured me in to joining the republican party and v****g against the economic interest of my family for 30 years. You can hear that stuff every day of the year on right wing h**e radio from the likes of El -.Rushbo Mark Levin and a host of others did you notice the lamebrain Sarah of tha Palin grinning like a cat just swallowed a mouse. The fact is Liberals have had no power politically since the 1970's the problems we face today that has been k*****g America is the result of a move to the right in the 1970's and Milton Friedman's Neo-liberal economic theories better known as Thatcherism, Reaganonomics., and Trickle down economics.

There was hope that Obama would bring the change working people desperately needed. It didn't happen Obama is Bush Light and business as usual that's why I laugh my butt off listening to the wing crowed with their incessant attacks on Obama. Every thing from the S&L collapse, the dot com bust, the electrical energy crises, the housing bubble to the financial collapse of 2008 are all due to the conservative policies the nation has been pursuing since the midd 1970's Liberalism collapsed along with the new deal coalition as I can clearly demonstrate with charts graphs and statistics by 1973.

What the result is of 40 years moving right is a new gilded age. That's why I say the Republicans want to take us back , not just to the gilded age not to the founding fathers but back to the mud people when Obama took away everybody's pelts and wouldn't let em bear spears. The New Deal coalition was in power for 40 years 1933 to 1973. Conservatives have had a 40 year run from 1973 to 2013 and still going and were are right back where we were in 1932. and going down...............Nick