The joke:

“These two brothers are trying to buy America.”

The punchline, via ABC News:

Deep-pocketed donors are turning over multimillion-dollar checks to influence November’s elections, and the sums raised by the national parties and their super PAC allies are already approaching the $1 billion mark, according to financial reports still being filed Tuesday evening. An imprecise snapshot of political giving is coming into focus as outside organizations detail their fundraising and spending through March 31. The enormous sums of money do not capture what federal candidates themselves are raising and spending. In other cases, some of the most active outside groups operate under rules that allow them to keep many details of their finances secret. Democrats, at least for the moment, seem to have a roughly 3-to-1 advantage over Republicans in cash raised and banked through independent groups, according to the early filings.

The report goes on to note that certain right-leaning groups like the NRA and Americans for Prosperity (Koch!) don’t factor into these calculations.  It also lists a number of uber-wealthy individuals and organizations who’ve been contributing to Harry Reid’s Senate Majority PAC, which has been repeatedly upbraided by fact-checkers for its conga line of factually false ads.  Quoth the Washington Post: “This is the third time in a month that the Fact Checker has given Four Pinocchios to an ad sponsored by Senate Majority PAC. That’s a pretty dreadful track record.”  So it is.  And thus I ask, who is it that’s “trying to buy America” with “lies…distorted to make political advertisements,” again?

Fred Eychaner, the founder of Chicago-based Newsweb Corp., wrote a $4 million check to the Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic group with ties to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The group raised $11 million during the first three months of the year, including $2 million from James Simons, founder and chairman of investment firm Renaissance Technologies…Committees affiliated with autoworker, teacher, municipal worker, engineer and pipefitter unions all gave six-figure donations to the group. All told, organized labor directed at least $2.5 million through the super PAC to help Democrats hold the Senate. Reid’s political action committee also wrote the group a $100,000 check to keep Reid atop the Senate. A group affiliated with Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia known as Common Ground PAC donated $50,000. The super PAC is sitting on almost $20 million to help defend Democrats’ majority. EMILY’s List, which aims to elect female pro-abortion rights candidates, raised more than $2.5 million in March, bringing its total sum to almost $25 million this election cycle…San Francisco investor Tom Steyer founded NextGen Climate Action in 2013 and sent to it $9.3 million from his billion-dollar fortune. The group spent almost $8.3 million in 2013 and Steyer pledged $100 million to influence 2014’s elections.

Big Green, big labor, big abortion.  None of these deep-pocketed special interests have been slapped with the “un-American” pejorative by Reid because they’re funneling their money to the correct political cause — namely, his own.  What’s amusing about Senate Majority PAC’s attacks is that they regularly blast conservative spots as being funded by “out-of-state billionaires.”  In addition to the names highlighted above, one of Senate Majority PAC’s biggest donors is…out-of-state billionaire Michael Bloomberg.  Ed noted earlier that Bloomy has unveiled plans to spend tens of millions to combat the National Rifle Association’s political operation, on top of his lofty ReidPAC donation.  Because that’s how you get into heaven, or something.  Therein lies an important distinction: Lefty billionaires engage in the political process to earn their angel wings.  The Koch brothers do the same whilst fanning the flames of hell’s most fiery pit.  Big difference, you guys.  (I’m still hoping out hope for a Voxplainer on that one).  MRC interviewed tourists in DC last week, and it turns out that quite a lot of ordinary people aren’t familiar with these “Koch Brother” characters Reid keeps rambling about:

A recent poll showed that a majority of Americans in battleground states have never heard of Charles and David Koch; but informing the public isn’t really the point of the Senate Majority Leader’s crusade.  His objective is to mystify and exaggerate the Koch’s influence in order to light a fire under lefty donors to “fight back” by handing over gobs of money on behalf of Democrats.  And that seems to be going swimmingly.  I’ll leave you with a reminder that quite a few Democrats have more than happy to accept filthy Koch cash over the years, including Harry Reid (through a lobbyist), Chuck Schumer, and — ta da! —Barack Obama.