The Koch Empire and Americans for Prosperity (Pam Martens)

[Octafish]

As anyone who's run for office or a bake sale knows,
when it comes to getting the message out, it helps to have money.
So, to help wreck the incoming Obama administration's Honeymoon, America got...

More Tentacles Surface at Rightwing Front Group

The Koch Empire and Americans for Prosperity

By PAM MARTENS
October 19, 2010
A CounterPunch Investigation

Lily Tomlin said it best: “No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.” Despite two solid years of progressive media tracking the billionaire Koch brothers’ funding of right wing front groups, new details have emerged which show a more sophisticated and ominous network than previously understood.

One of the key organizations funded by a Koch-controlled foundation is Americans for Prosperity (AFP). While it has been widely documented and publicized that the group is orchestrating the Tea Party, AFP is also a veritable smorgasbord of other “grassroots” personalities. The AFP or the AFP Foundation have spawned the following identities:

DefendingtheDream.org (August 27-28 D.C. summit for right wing strategizing and rally);

SayNoCapandTrade.org (kill tax on production of greenhouse gases);

NoInternetTakeover.com (attacks on the Federal Communications Commission);

SickofSpending.com (“…how to recruit, educate, organize, and mobilize fed up Americans to stop the radical left-wing agenda…”);

RegulationReality.com (“…educate citizens about the EPA’s attempt to implement radical global warming regulations…”);

NovemberIsComing.com (phone bank; go door to door to beat back those liberals);

TaxCutsForAll.com (don’t raise taxes on the rich);

SpendingCrisis.org (shrink the Federal government);

CaliforniaSoS.com (cut spending in California);

United4NoOn4.com (kill Amendment 4 in Florida that would give voters more say in local legislative decisions; an ironic position for people who say they want to promote more liberty).

Americans for Prosperity also created PatientsUnitedNow.com and orchestrated hundreds of rallies to help kill the public option in health care reform.

Americans for Prosperity now has chapters in 30 states, including those with the largest number of voters. As part of the focus on state level efforts, key right wing foundations are funding another nonprofit, the State Policy Network, which says it has free market think tanks in every state. The work of most of the groups is to push for privatization of public services and public schools. The State Policy Network is fueling a new, rapidly growing movement: right wing funded groups posing as independent investigative media outlets. So far, there is West Virginia Watchdog, Old Dominion Watchdog in Virginia, Texas Watchdog, Illinois Statehouse News, Missouri News Horizon, Capital Report New Mexico, Idaho Reporter, the Commonwealth Foundation’s Pennsylvania Independent, TNReport of Tennessee, the Pelican Institute’s Capital Reporter in Louisiana, Pacific Research Institute’s Cal Watch Dog in California, Idaho Freedom Foundation’s Idaho Reporter, the Cowboy State Free Press in Wyoming, and others in various stages of getting up and running.

Doing the recruiting for investigative reporters for a number of these right wing news sites is Claire Kittle, the former Program Officer for Leadership and Talent Development at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. The State Policy Network publishes strategic planning articles on how these newly anointed investigative reporters can network with each other and get stories they pen to dominate the internet and be picked up by mainstream media.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/

Guess it was easy for da John Roberts kkkort to see the correlationship between messaging, cough money, and policy, er, frei Sprache.

[Octafish]

1. Koch: Even More Powerful and Well-Connected Than You Thought

From our good friends at CommonDreams.org:

Koch: Even More Powerful and Well-Connected Than You Thought

by Abby Zimet



Right-wing brothers Charles and David Koch, each worth over $21 billion, don't just underwrite a huge conservative infrastructure of front groups, think tanks and political campaigns, reports Think Progress; they also strengthen a "culture of prosperity" through meetings with like-minded corporate "investors" who oppose health, energy, financial and other reforms. Details on their symbiotic relationship with big moneyed interests from Glenn Beck and the Chamber of Commerce to oil, health insurance, Wall Street and real estate companies here; more on those connections from CounterPunch here.

[Overseas]

2. Amazing network.

I thought it was extensive, but didn't realize these two guys had funded that many groups.

[Overseas]

3. So many groups in the right wing PR machine!

These are just two of the right wing billionaires. Wonder how many the others are funding too.

And how sad that so little attention has been paid to their funding overall in the major broadcast media and among the pundits predicting that majorities of angry Americans will rush out and vote for the guys who crashed our economy so badly two years ago.

[Starry Messenger]

4. I'm sorry I'm too late to rec, Octofish.

The Koch fortunes have been busy at work for a long time. I just a book reference to old Fred Koch yesterday and his fight against communism back in the day. The odd thing is is that his fortunes were made in the oilfields of the USSR.

[nc4bo]

5. I'm late to this great reveal so can only Kick..

It never fails to amaze me what evil hides in the shadows.

Can't Rec but can definitely share in my tiny social network.

Thanks!

[G_j]

6. kick