Koch Brothers Open Thread

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Artist – David Fitzsimmons

TPM has a profile of the man entrusted by the Koch Brothers to manage Freedom Partners, the secret group that spent over $230 million in 2012. The guy is exactly what you would expect.

Short’s first prominent association in the political world was with Lt. Col. Oliver North. In the mid-1990s, Short worked on North’s Virginia Senate campaign and as a spokesperson and executive director of North’s Virginia-based group, The Freedom Alliance. In 1995, Short was quoted in a Washington Monthly cover story about how 20-somethings were “leaning more towards conservatism.”

“One of the big things I read was Barry Goldwater’s The Conscience of a Conservative,” Short told the magazine, of his political awakening. “Those themes are very universal.”

Meanwhile, the LA Times has a fairly detailed account of what exactly happened at the Navy Yard in Washington DC today.

Once inside, officials said, he headed for the massive building 197, the headquarters of the Navy Sea Systems Command. Armed with three weapons, including an AR-15 assault rifle, he went to the building’s fourth floor, according to officials. About 8:15 a.m., according to witness accounts and police dispatch recordings, the gunman began shooting down into a crowded atrium that houses an employee cafeteria.

Washington police and Navy security officials engaged in “multiple” exchanges of fire with Alexis over the next two hours, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier told reporters, eventually shooting and killing him.

I’m still waiting for the story about a man using an AR-15 to ward off invaders or evil-doers rather than story after story of a man using an AR-15 to gun down innocents.

It turns out Real Life is not a childhood game of Cowboys and Indians or Cops and Robbers.