Get More Smarter on Friday (Oct. 9)

Being in the belly of the Conservative Beast, the CS Indy keeps its political coverage quite demure, but even they have noticed the trashed roads that came by way of an anti-tax, anti-governing junta run by the Koch Brothers and their "Americans" for "Prosperity"

Upon learning about Colorado Springs’ steadfast refusal to spend money on basic municipal infrastructure, cyberpunk author William Gibson once called the city a “snapshot of the USA as newly third world.” 

Five years later, it’s becoming clear that the Koch Brothers are eager to keep it that way, both here and across the country.

“Whether it’s the City Hall of Colorado Springs, or the halls of Congress — you should not be able to buy America’s democracy,” declared Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid earlier this week from the Senate floor.

Reid then proceeded to quote from a Washington Post article by Springs-based journalist Corey Hutchins, headlined “The potholes of Colorado Springs draw the attention of Koch brothers’ group.” The story details how Americans For Prosperity, a right-wing advocacy group funded by the two billionaire industrialists, is fighting the city’s ballot initiative to increase the sales tax for road improvements. 

The article also reports that 60 percent of the city’s roads are “in disrepair, cracked and rutted.”

You can bet Charles and David Koch travel on only the smoothest roads, and land and take off from only the smoothest private runways.  

Nancy Pelosi put it in even starker terms:

"This all comes down to the fact that the Republicans in Congress, if you take some of the issues we talked about, are anti-governance—not government. […] The degree of government has been the debate in our country for a couple hundred years. How much government? How much federal, how much local and state? So that's a legitimate place of where you are on the spectrum. But anti-governance—shut it down and celebrate—that is unacceptable. And President Washington, as he was leaving office, cautioned against political parties of which were at war with their own government.

And that's really what we're seeing evidence of now—a political party at war with its own government."