Cartoonish evil billionaires The Koch Brothers have told their allies that the groups they support plan to spend $900 million to influence the 2016 elections. That's a lot!

Specifically, that means that the Kochs and their rich, conservative allies who donate to the various conservative groups that operate under the Koch umbrella will spend more than twice the $400 million they spent on the last presidential election, and much more than the $657 million that "the Republican National Committee and the party's two congressional campaign committees spent" in the 2012 presidential election cycle. It is an amount almost equal to the $1 billion that the Republicans are expected to spend on their nominee this time around. It means that the Koch brothers in effect represent a political money force equal to that of the Republican party itself. "And unlike the parties," the New York Times notes, "the Koch network is constructed chiefly out of nonprofit groups that are not required to disclose their donors. Among other advantages, it makes it almost impossible to tell how much of the money is provided by the Kochs — who are among the wealthiest men in the country — and how much by other donors."

The only people who stand to benefit from a system in which unlimited amounts of money from undisclosed rich people can be used to influence political elections are rich people themselves. Statistics tell us that you are almost certainly not rich. Therefore you should be enraged about this. Why did all of the Republican candidates dutifully troop out to the Koch's conference and listen to their concerns? Because the Kochs are buying these candidates, and you are not.

It doesn't have to be this way. But this is the way it is. Until some laws are changed.

(They won't be changed by the Koch bros. They will be changed by you, yelling at the Koch bros, profanely, for years.)

[Photo: AP]