Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery A Politico piece titled Koch World 2014 revealed that the Koch brothers realized that their failure in the 2012 election was due largely to a poor field organization. They learned from their mistake, according to the article, and are spending their vast resources to help shore up local field organizing. A clear example […]

Oh, the Koch brothers are spending millions to propagate lies? REALLY?! What ARE the odds???!!! A couple of weeks ago, the Koch brothers, through their astroturfing corporatist front group Americans for Prosperity, attempted to roll out their latest attack ad on Gary Peters in the state Capitol Building. They literally planned to use the resources of the Michigan state government […]

Shameless This afternoon, at the invitation of Michigan Republicans, the Koch brothers-funded corporatist front group Americans for Prosperity debuted a new attack ad aimed at Senate candidate Gary Peters. Portrayed as an anti-Affordable Care Act “issue ad”, it clearly targets only one candidate, Democrat Gary Peters and represents another example of the corrosive grip corporate “dark money” has on our […]

Republicans aren’t telling the truth about Obamacare. So what else is new? Ever since the news broke that the Obama Administration is delaying the mandate requiring employers to provide health insurance to their employees until 2015, the GOP has been salivating over the news like a junkyard dog that hasn’t eaten in weeks. They see it as an “admission” from […]

At least they’re not hiding it…

As the debate rages on where to get the millions of dollars in funding needed to repair Michigan’s crumbling roads and bridges, Americans for Prosperity have an answer: use cuts to education and state employee wages to pay for them.

Click through for details on the efforts of this corporate whore to get the poor and middle class to pay for public improvements that benefit corporations more than anyone else.

Hoo boy…

At a recent Americans for Prosperity-sponsored “Citizens Watchdog Training” workshop in Warren, Michigan, one of their speakers was a prominent Michigan conservative and member of the North Oakland Tea Party Patriots, Norm Hughes. During his talk, he used a phrase I have honestly never heard before: “ethnically challenged”. What is “ethnically challenged”? I have no idea.

Let’s roll tape, courtesy of Progress Michigan (after the jump.)

Bra·zen [brey–zuhn], adjective: shameless or impudent

On January 15th, Americans for Prosperity held a “Citizens Watchdog Training” in Warren, Michigan. As usual, the entrance fee was a nominal $10 because he entire event was heavily subsidized and underwritten by the Koch Brothers-funded corporate front group.

At the event, tea party Senator Patrick Colbeck was very forthright in explaining how multimillionaire Dick DeVos and Michigan Republican Chair Ron Weiser bankrolled the effort to make Michigan the country’s 24th Right to Work state. Audio and transcript after the jump.

Curiouser and curiouser… The destruction of the two Americans for Prosperity tents on the grounds of the Michigan State Capitol building during Tuesday’s anti-Right to Work for Less rally has stirred interest nationally. Those on the right portray it as a violent upheaval of “union thugs” and “union goons” who acted as predicted: with violence and mayhem and racism and […]

Not that this is a surprise or anything… The American Legislative Exchange Council is a national pro-business, anti-worker group that creates model legislation for use by its conservative members who are in state legislatures. Not surprisingly, ALEC’s fingerprints are all over the new laws that make Michigan the country’s 24th Right to Work for Less state as shown by some […]

Here we go again…

NOTE: More on this story which has been picked up by the New York Times HERE.

And even more HERE.

Yesterday, I wrote about how Americans for Prosperity representatives helped knock down their own tent on the grounds of the Michigan State Capitol building during an anti-Right to Work for Less rally there. Subsequent to posting that piece, I was alerted to comments on Reddit by user “mtalna”. You can read those comments HERE. What is evident from the comments is that there is a lot of editing that has gone on with the videos Fox News is now running in nearly constant rotation making it look like all of the violence and hostility at the rally yesterday came from union members. As it turns out, significant portions of it were faked and creative Breitbart-style editing helped it along much more.

Details after the jump.

Image is everything, unless it’s a lie

There’s a video on heavy rotation at Fox News, being massively retweeted by conservatives and Americans for Prosperity, where they talk about the “brutality” and “violence” of union members at today’s rally in Lansing, Michigan to protest Right to Work legislation. The video shows an Americans for Prosperity tent coming down on the front lawn of the Capitol Building.

As it turns out, American for Prosperity (AFP) themselves were responsible for at least one of the tents coming down. Tom Duckworth watched one of the folks that had been in the AFP tent go around and loosen the straps on the tent. According to Duckworth, “the stakes came down from the INSIDE.”

Video of an interview with Duckworth after the jump.