Koching Up Our World Very Badly

America has real enemies who are destroying the country from within-- and that's neither horrific Libyan tyrant Moammar Qaddafi nor-- if he's even alive-- religious fanatic Osama bin-Laden. Predatory and reactionary billionaires Charles and David Koch do more to harm our country at its essential core than any foreign enemy ever has. Yesterday Brave New Films launched the resistance. Take a look at the clip above.

Whether it's in Tripoli, Pakistan or Afghanistan, conservatives always get boehners over collateral damage-- or anywhere else for that matter.

As Congress struggles to negotiate a budget deal to keep the government running, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) told lawmakers Wednesday that the GOP version of the budget bill would result in the deaths of at least 70,000 children who depend on American food and health assistance around the world.

"We estimate, and I believe these are very conservative estimates, that H.R. 1 would lead to 70,000 kids dying," USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah testified before the House Appropriations State and Foreign Ops subcommittee.

"Of that 70,000, 30,000 would come from malaria control programs that would have to be scaled back specifically. The other 40,000 is broken out as 24,000 would die because of a lack of support for immunizations and other investments and 16,000 would be because of a lack of skilled attendants at birth," he said.

Why must these children die? Why must Americans struggle against forces of enslavement? Because the Koch Brothers and 399 other families have the power to have bought all of one political party-- and much of the other-- and can get away without paying their share of taxes. That the discussion in DC-- and in the Koched-up states like Michigan, Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin-- should be about cutting back on ordinary American families while giving away more and more to the 400 greediest and most predatory families is nothing less than criminal. And the Democratic Party-- conflicted and careerist-- is in no position to be our bastion against the determined onslaught.

Which reminds me, Democratic career pols-- even going all the way to the top-- seem to hate and disdain their party's base as much as the Republicans fear theirs. Yesterday The Nation published Ari Berman's great analysis of the role of Obama's enforcer, Jim Messina, someone we cavalierly usually just refer to as Rahm, Jr.

The hardball tactics used by Messina against CAF exemplified how the Obama administration would operate going forward-- insistent on demanding total control, hostile to any public pressure from progressives on dissident Democrats or administration allies, committed to working the system inside Washington rather than changing it. As deputy chief of staff, Messina held the same position once occupied by Karl Rove (and Josh Lyman on The West Wing). He worked as a top lieutenant for Rahm Emanuel and became the administration’s lead enforcer after Emanuel left for Chicago. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer calls Messina “the most powerful person in Washington that you haven’t heard of.” Messina’s dream job was to become chief of staff. Instead, he recently got an arguably more important assignment-- manager of Obama’s re-election campaign.

...Unlike Plouffe, who became a revered figure among Obama supporters, Messina begins the re-election campaign with a significant amount of baggage. As a former chief of staff to Baucus and deputy to Emanuel, Messina has clashed with progressive activists and grassroots Obama supporters both inside and outside Washington over political strategy and on issues like healthcare reform and gay rights, alienating parts of the very constituencies that worked so hard for Obama in 2008 and that the campaign needs to reinspire and activate in 2012. Obama’s fixer has arguably created as many problems as he’s solved. “He is not of the Obama movement,” says one top Democratic strategist in Washington. “There is not a bone in his body that speaks to or comprehends the idea of a movement and that grassroots energy. To me, that’s bothersome.”

Yeah... bothersome, and as good an explanation as any about why progressives haven't made much progress since the 1940s.