Here’s my last post for this run, good night. It’s a short video looking at AFP and it provides a nice summary of the information I’ve shared in this series of informative posts looking into the real Americans For (Koch's) Prosperity. Below this video I share some notes and another handful of important sources that add further details.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
YOUTHFUEL: AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY
Climate Reality | Published on Sep 16, 2014
Watch as documentary filmmaker Vanessa Black turns her lens on Americans for Prosperity (AFP).http://www.24Hoursofreality.org
_______________________________________________________________
0:15 - A closer look.
2008 No Tax Climate Pledge to oppose all legislation concerned with climate change
1:00 - Attempting to visit their unlisted headquarters.
1:15 - “Dark Money”
Marge Baker - People for the American Way
Kert Davies - Climate Investigations Center
1:45 - An organization dedicated to blocking legislation.
Nick Surgey - The Center for Media and Democracy
2:00 - Projecting a facade of grassroots.
In fact, funded and controlled buy Koch brothers.
Astro-turfing.
2:50 - AFP Hot Air Tour dedicated to denying fundamental climate science and disregarding the reality that our children will have to live with our irrevocable bad choices.
“Free Market” - (What the hell is “free market’ about the world of Koch Industries?)
3:40 - Secretive folks. (The total war footing, that absolutism drives one to?)
3:50 - AFP says one thing, does another
4:00 - bullying and arm twisting - the anti climate action pledge (see below)
Dependence on the shrill emotional vocabulary - “War on Coal” - “Anti-business” - “Anti-American”
4:25 - Andy Kroll - Mother Jones
They have framed the things we need to do to address climate change as un-American.
Coordinated effort to control legislation - ALEC
Exposing ALEC: How Conservative-Backed State Laws Are All Connected
NANCY SCOLA APR 14, 2012
A shadowy organization uses corporate contributions to sell prepackaged conservative bills -- such as Florida's Stand Your Ground statute -- to legislatures across the country.
… Nine months ago, though, a website called ALEC Exposed went live, showcasing more than 800 so-called model bills contributed by, the site's creators say, a still-anonymous whistleblower. Beyond the bills themselves, the group built out a wide-ranging, sometimes confusing wiki aimed at documenting which legislators take part in the group, which corporations support it, and where the bills go once they leave ALEC.
Lisa Graves is executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, the group that built ALEC Exposed. She's also a former Justice Department official in both the Clinton and Bush administrations. …
___________________________________________________________
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) describes itself as the largest “membership association of state legislators,” but over 98% of its revenue comes from sources other than legislative dues, primarily from corporations and corporate foundations.[1] After the 2010 congressional midterm elections, ALEC boasted that “among those who won their elections, three of the four former state legislators newly-elected to the U.S. Senate are ALEC Alumni and 27 of the 42 former state legislators newly-elected to the U.S. House are ALEC Alumni.”
ALEC’s agenda extends into almost all areas of law.
ALEC is an "associate" member of the State Policy Network, a web of right-wing “think tanks” in every state across the country.[4]
_____________________________________________________________________________________
ALEC’s Influence over Lawmaking in State Legislatures
Molly Jackson, December 6, 2013
_________________________________________________________
How ALEC Helped Undermine Public Unions
By Alexander Hertel Fernandez
___________________________________________________
5:00 - They are not using science.
Gretchen Goldman - Union of Concerned Scientists
Jay Riestenberg - Research Analyst Common Cause
Viveca Novak - Center for Responsible Politics
Public messaging
6:05 - Carbon Tax
Considering “Americans For Prosperity’s” agenda
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Monday, July 1st, 2013
Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who own the oil and chemicals conglomerate Koch Industries, may have failed to get a Republican into the White House in 2012, but they're succeeding in a broad national push for deregulation. A quarter of senators and more than one-third of representatives have signed a little-known pledge — backed by the Kochs — not to spend any money to fight climate change without an equivalent amount of tax cuts. …
The pledge was created by the libertarian grassroots organization Americans for Prosperity (AFP) in 2008. AFP was co-founded in 2004 by the Koch brothers and Koch Industries board member Richard Fink, a former economics professor and executive vice president at George Mason University.
The Investigative Reporting Workshop has tracked the No Climate Tax Pledge since its beginnings in July 2008 when it got its first signer, Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, home to Koch Industries headquarters.
While the pledge began with a marginal following, an energized turnout of conservative voters in the 2010 election swept 85 freshman Republicans into the House. Of those 85 Republicans, 76 signed the Koch pledge as candidates. And 57 of those 76 received campaign contributions from Koch Industries’ political action committee.
With the support of these newly elected Republicans, from 2011 to 2013, Congress passed increasingly smaller budgets for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), attempted to strip the agency of varying regulatory powers and discouraged policies to address climate change across multiple federal agencies, according to the Workshop’s analysis.
In addition, senior staff at more than a dozen Koch-funded nonprofit groups have made frequent trips to testify on Capitol Hill in favor of federal deregulation. …
Stories in this investigation
No comments:
Post a Comment