Real Koch Facts

AFP Takes Its Traveling Circus Of Misleading Ads To Colorado

The Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity continues to blaze an impressive trail in shamelessly misleading attack ads. Their newest endeavor, like many of their others, is an attempt to tie lawmakers to Obamacare and smear the new law. But this one is different.

AFP is buying television ads to go after three Democratic state senators for supporting a bipartisan bill that allowed Colorado to establish its own health care exchanges. The bill was championed by then House Majority Leader Amy Stephens, a Republican.

According to the Denver Post, Stephens’ said that the business community was influential in her decision to sponsor, and went on to explain that her reasoning was that “if [Obamacare] is going to be in place, we needed to make it as pro-market and as free-market as possible.”

AFP’s ads conveniently left out that the bill was championed by a Republican in an effort to […]

Step right up…to the Kochs’ latest creepy effort to reach Millennials

What do implied rape, beer pong and a fire-breather all have in common? Believe it or not, these are all tactics that the Koch brothers-funded group Generation Opportunity is using to try to dissuade young Americans from signing up for health care insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

After the web ad debut of Generation Opportunity’s nonsensical Creepy Uncle Sam character, complete with a speculum, the group brought him on the road for a booze-filled tailgate party where models encouraged students not to sign up for ACA coverage. According to BuzzFeed, Generation Opportunity is now attempting to one up its efforts to creep us all out, this time with an anti-ACA “carnival” on the National Mall. The attractions include a “hipster girl with a gigantic syringe,” a fire breather, and of course, Creepy Uncle Sam as Emcee.

One thing that’s missing from this creeptastic […]

Koch-Crony Joni’s Cavalry Is Coming!

July 8, 2014

This weekend, the Des Moines Register reported on the Koch brothers’ Americans For Prosperity ramping up its operations in Iowa. Or as Joni Ernst would put it, YAY!!

Joni Ernst has already expressed her gratitude for the opportunity to attend a Koch seminar as well as to Americans for Prosperity for running attack ads against Bruce Braley. So how ever will she thank the Koch brothers for deploying their troops on the ground across the Hawkeye State? Well, she is starting by fighting for the same anti-middle class agenda.

Ernst and AFP have both supported cutting taxes for the wealthy and for corporations, shifting more of the tax burden to working families. They’ve both supported privatizing social security and slashing Medicare. Ernst has even come out against the existence of the federal minimum wage, putting her in lock-step with the Koch plan to eliminate it.

For Koch-Crony Joni and AFP, it’s ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.’ And if they win, nobody has the backs of working families in Iowa.

Background after the jump.

Rick Scott And The Koch Brothers Sitting In A Tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G

It’s a marriage made in heaven.

The idea of raising the minimum wage makes Rick Scott cringe. The Kochs and Americans for Prosperity want to get rid of the minimum wage altogether. Rick Scott won’t expand Medicaid for over 750,000 Floridians and 40,000 veterans. AFP has fought against Medicaid expansion across the country. Rick Scott won’t accept climate science. The Kochs have long funded climate change denial groups.

So of course Americans for Prosperity is lending their support to Rick Scott. It was love at first sight!

AFP Fights 4-Cent Tax Increase To Fund Infrastructure in NH

July 3, 2014

Gov. Maggie Hassan recently signed into effect a tiny 4-cent/gallon increase in New Hampshire’s gas tax in order to provide crucial infrastructure funding for the state. Even the VP of the Associated General Contractors of New Hampshire praised the small increase, calling it “very realistic” and “a great tool for contractors and for planning purposes,” and pointed out that New Hampshire still has the lowest gas tax in New England.

In return for a tax increase that will have a yearly cost to motorists of about $16/vehicle, the state will be able to continue funding highway improvements and pay off borrowed money for an interstate expansion.

So who could oppose this commonsense deal which will cost New Hampshirites next to nothing? Why the Koch brothers’ national powerhouse political group, Americans for Prosperity, of course. Never ones to miss an opportunity to oppose government spending, no matter how small or how […]

Kochs pour thousands into protecting fertilizer interests in Texas

July 2, 2014

Wayne Slater has the scoop in today’s Dallas Morning News about another effort by the Kochs to use their largesse to advance a self-serving political agenda, this time to the benefit of their fertilizer business in Texas.

After last year’s tragic fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, Texans’ interest in knowing where these dangerous chemicals are stored naturally increased. According to the report, for decades, this information was available to the public on the Department of State Health Services’ website. Yet in the wake of the accident in West, Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott has ruled that these records are closed, citing a post-9/11 anti-terrorism state security statute. Abbott contends that concerned Texans can still drive to chemical facilities in their area and inquire in person about what potentially dangerous or explosive chemicals are stored on-site. (Sounds safe, right?)

Why the change in disclosure policy? According to Slater, Abbott’s campaign […]

Terri Lynn Land Has A Koch Problem

Terri Lynn Land’s campaign has been floundering as of late. Republican pollster Frank Luntz recently called her “Really?” campaign ad – also known as Land’s desperate attempt to whitewash her abysmal record on women’s issues – the worst spot of the cycle. According to Public Polling Policy, “Land has seen her favorability numbers drop precipitously as the campaign has unfolded.” She has religiously avoided taking positions on key issues (except when she’s been forced to). And she created an infamous mess at the Macinack Conference, stumbling through a few answers from press before declaring, “I can’t do this.”

But luckily, Land has at least two supporters who aren’t going anywhere–Charles and David Koch. The Kochs’ Americans For Prosperity has already poured more than $4 million into her Senate race, and now, Land has been endorsed by the Koch-funded NFIB. In typical Terri-style, Land doesn’t want to answer […]

Good news everybody, the Kochs are invested in your well-being!

July 1, 2014

Well, more precisely, they are invested in convincing you that your well-being is tied to unrestricted free enterprise.

The Charles Koch Institute just launched its “Well-Being Initiative” purportedly to “advance our understanding of the meaning, foundations, and drivers of human flourishing.” But there is little doubt about the real motives for the new endeavor.

The board of advisers is stacked with libertarians, including Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, who has written extensively on this topic. According to Slate, some of that work was previously featured on the Charles Koch Institute’s website. Brooks has written on the link between free enterprise and well-being, and in doing so, argued broadly for shrinking government, stressing that many programs that aid working class families do not necessarily increase happiness.

As the Slate piece points out, this sentiment is right in line with a memo from the Kochs’ Americans for […]

Restricting Women’s and Workers’ Rights: For the Kochs, Not Just a Hobby

June 30, 2014

This morning, the Supreme Court handed down two controversial decisions on Hobby Lobby v. Burwell and Harris v. Quinn that deal significant blows to women’s access to birth control and workers’ rights, respectively. The two issues may seem unrelated, but both decisions represent an extreme right wing agenda that is increasingly acting against the best interests of the middle class and working families. Both of these dangerous decisions have already elicited support from groups closely allied with the Koch brothers and their self-serving agenda.

In its Hobby Lobby decision, the Supreme Court ruled that “closely held” for-profit companies don’t have to comply with the Affordable Care Act requirement that employer-sponsored insurance plans cover birth control if it is perceived to interfere with the company’s religious beliefs. Shortly after the decision was handed down, Ilya Shapiro, editor in chief of the the Koch-founded CATO Institute’s Supreme Court Review heralded the decision, bizarrely claiming that “nobody has been denied access […]

AFP expanding effort to push Koch agenda in Louisiana

June 26, 2014

According to a report Tuesday from the Independent Weekly, Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity is planning to grow its presence in Louisiana. The report notes that AFP’s national president was recently in Louisiana meeting with donors and prospects.

AFP’s state president told the newspaper that AFP seeks to have an “impact on public policy in the state,” but did not specify which policies comprise this “laundry list” of issues. We certainly know what issue isn’t on AFP’s list — protecting Louisianans from sky-high flood insurance premiums. After Congress passed the Biggert-Waters act in 2012, in an effort to ensure the solvency of the National Flood Insurance Program, flood insurance premiums went through the roof for some Louisiana families. When lawmakers attempted to address these impacts, AFP did its utmost to end all federal flood insurance subsidies and succeeded in delaying Congress’ vote on the fix, which ultimately passed […]