The Russian oligarchs and the Koch Brothers

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Since Donald Trump decided to run for POTUS in 2015, our way of life, our election process, our government, some of our media outlets, and our democracy have been under siege by Russian media bots and hackers, as well as several of the GOP congressional leaders, who in reality serve as traitors for hire by Russian oligarchs and the Koch Brothers.

Kremlin oligarch Leonard Blavatnik, who has close financial ties with some of Putin’s other favorite oligarchs, poured $7.35 million into GOP campaigns between 2015 and 2016, with 2.5 million going to Mitch McConnell alone (link). The rest went to Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham, John Kasich, John McCain and Donald Trump. The Koch Brothers added another $900 million to GOP campaigns in 2016.

Of course, this was only the money that we know of, and not any money that was transferred in the early morning hours, in a hotel room and in a black suitcase, that was never recorded. With all the backdoor Russian meetings that were made during the campaign, between Trump surrogates and close supporters who claimed not to recall any meetings with Russians, we really don’t know exactly how much money was taken under the table and how many players, GOP members, had their hands in the till. We also just learned that the Russians were funneling in extra money into the NRA, to back the GOP in the 2016 election.

Together, The Russian oligarchs and Koch Brothers, with the help of Rupert Murdoch’s FOX NEWS, organized and orchestrated a master con, with con man Trump selling the voters a bill of goods they would never get. Throw in Russian bots utilizing social media, in an all out assault on Hillary Clinton, while also possibly hacking voting machines to skew the numbers over to Trump, and we now have a GOP Congress and White House, all bought and paid for, ready to serve the one percent. Let’s not forget that Mitch McConnell refused to inform the public about the Russian meddling into the election before election day, and the GOP Congress has been giving Trump free rein since the election.

This GOP government has absolutely no interest in advancing America’s interests. If it did, we would have free health care, a fifteen dollar per hour minimum wage, and free colleges. Vets wouldn’t be starving and homeless. There would have been no cuts to programs aimed at helping the disabled and elderly. Instead the GOP Congress and White House are pushing their agenda. It’s not enough that Mitch McConnell has a $30 million dollar net worth and Paul Ryan has $10 million. The majority of the GOP Congress are multimillionaires looking to take even more money from our Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Ryan just received another half a million for his fundraising committee from the Koch family after pushing through the Tax Scam Bill to benefit them and the GOP. Where does the greed end?

It’s not by accident that all these players I mention in this article are connected. Trump is friends with both Murdoch and The Koch Brothers. The Koch Brothers and Murdoch have had business ties with Russia and Putin. Fred Koch, the father of the Koch Brothers started the Koch empire in Russia by building oil refineries for Joseph Stalin. Today the Koch Brother and Rex Tillerson would have a stake in Putin’s $500 billion Arctic oil deal with ExxonMobil if Trump is able to remove all sanctions on Russia. America is under siege and we need to take our government back starting in November 2018. If the Koch Brothers, Putin and Russian oligarchs win, WE LOSE. We can’t afford to lose. Frank V. D’Ambra is the author of the books Annihilation and The Pledge

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