The ultimate goal of the Koch-funded political organization “Americans For Prosperity” is to “take the unions out at the knees.” And with their aggressive involvement in the major fight in Wisconsin to strip employees of collective bargaining rights, they are making moves top do just that.
Americans For Prosperity is a group started by billionaire conservative financiers Charles and David Koch and greatly aided by the new reality of anonymous campaign contributions and unlimited political spending. AFP was born out of the post-Citizens United period when dozens of conservative independent organizations were popping up to take advantage of the Supreme Court’s destruction of basic limits on corporate political contributions and laws requiring donors to be made public.
Fueled by unlimited cash from the Kochs and the ability to spend as much as they wanted, AFP has become a major player in the circle of heavyweight independent conservative political groups.
Now, with the Kochs having successfully helped Tea Party-’allied lawmakers like Wisconsin gov. Scott Walker into power, they expect dividends. And “public enemy number one” for AFP and the base of the Republican Party is organized labor.
So it comes as little surprise that the director of Michigan’s chapter of Americans For Prosperity publicly stted the goal of his group is to ”take the unions out.”
In a speech earlier this month at the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual conference, Americans For Prosperity-Michigan Executive Director Scott Hagerstrom revealed the true goal of his group and its allies like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) efforts. Speaking at CPAC’s “Panel for Labor Policy,” Hagerstrom said that AFP really wants to do is to “take the unions out at the knees”:
***HAGERSTROM: It’s easy to go out there and fight taxes and increased regulation, you know we send out an action alert on taxes to AFP and we get thousands of people to respond. You send out one on a more complicated issue and it just doesn’t quite resonate…We fight these battles on taxes and regulation but really what we would like to see is to take the unions out at the knees so they don’t have the resources to fight these battles.***
AFP is doing their part in Wisconsin well, cementing their support for Gov. Walker’s plan to end collective bargaining for state employees by launching a $350,000 TV ad campaign this week.
Americans for Prosperity will launch a television ad in Wisconsin on Wednesday that says public employees “walked off their jobs, abandoning our children” and that Democratic state senators “don’t even have the guts to show up for their jobs.”
The Tea Party affiliated group’s $342,200 ad buy is part of its “Stand With Walker” initiative to support Republican Gov. Scott Walker. The ad will run on network and cable channels across the state beginning on Wednesday and continuing through March 1, AFP said in a news release. AFP says it has already collected 60,000 signatures in support of Walker.
“Incredibly, President Obama backs the union bosses and floods Wisconsin with out-of-state political protesters,” the ad’s narrator says.
The ad asks whether “voters” or “government unions” decide Wisconsin’s future and says Gov. Walker “has the courage to do what’s right for Wisconsin.
It is time for President Obama to demonstrate leadership, fulfill his campaign promises, put on a pair of comfortable shoes, travel to Wisconsin, and join the angry mob of uncivil protesters against the actions of the Evil Koch Brothers and Generalissimo Scott Walker.
Become the face of the Wisconsin Public Union Workers Cause, Mr. President!!
Show your solidarity with the Public Union cause by tastelessly placing a vitriolic poster (Walker with a Hitler Mustache!) on a Wisconsin Veteran’s War Memorial…
You can make side trips to Illinois and Minnesota, for photo ops as you console your terrified (at the thought of the loss of millions in Public Union campaign contributions) fellow Democrat Fleebagger Wisconsin legislators as they hide away…
And then, when the evil Walker is “forced” (because he refuses to raise taxes on the working stiffs of Wisconsin, stupid man!!) to fire 15,000 Wisconsin state employees, you can be there!
You can comfort the newly terminated State Employees! You can even bring in Van Jones, who can promise to find them (Federal Government Subsidized) jobs, Green Jobs, jobs that won’t go away!
You can make Madison, Wisconsin the Solar Shingle capital of the world, Mr. President!!
Frightening people, the Kochs. Fortunately, our ability to repulse these affluent right-wing bullies is strong and healthy. Their exploits have become more public of late and we can only hope the informed public will fare well in their efforts to push back against their covert, diabolical and generally hidden push against a liberal democracy.
So does anyone still doubt this is not a political move to dismantle the democratic party via unions/collective bargaining/middle class workers rights ?
The Koch Brother must not be allowed to succeed in preventing the Democrat Fleebagging Wisconsin legislature from preventing Totalitarian Governor Scott Walker from preventing the public labor unions in Wisconsin from destroying the state’s economy.
President Obama must get involved. Imprison the Koch Brothers and Scott Walker, and sieze control of Wisconsin. Maybe install Lisa Jackson as Interim Governor until appropriate Climate Change legislation can be implemented and corporate taxes and taxes on the rich can be assessed, and the appropriate public labor union leaders and Richard Trumka can decide on a proper permanent Governor. Maybe Van Jones!!
President Obama can march around Madison for a couple weeks with the rest of the Public Sector lunatics and reassure the rest of America that our fiscal affairs are in His capable nicotine-stained hands!
The Koch brothers are into the state legislatures far enough that they may have 3/4 of the states in their pockets.
They already own the judicial, legislative and executive branches of the federal government.
As soon as they have enough state legislators under their control, we are going to see some really really dirty filthy corrupt amendments to the Constitution.
That is why they and Murdoch are trying to seize political control on so many fronts.
They will continue to fund destruction of all democratic groups, all labor unions, and any third parties.
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Someone needs to take out a retaliatory ad, after all isn’t that fair that the stations show the other side?