Exposing the Koch Brothers’ 2014 Plan: Focus On 13 States and Campaign on Social Media
If you look at the websites of the Koch-backed non-profits identified by the Center for Responsive Politics and mapped even more elaborately by the Washington Post, telling tidbits sketch out the frontline strategy of the Koch-backed wing of the GOP. Thirteen states are priorities, and social media will be used for its propagandizing.
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Voters and social media users in its 13 targeted states may soon start seeing messages from any number of little-known Koch-funded groups with anti-government messaging. These include:
• The 60 Plus Association. Founded in 1992, it tries to be the right-wing version of the American Association of Retired persons, or AARP. The Post found that it spent $4.6 million on ads against Obama, Obamacare and House Democrats in 2012.
• American Commitment. Run by a Fox News columnist, it calls for making Obamacare voluntary, opposes minimum wage increases, and is anti-regulatory, pro-fracking, anti-tax and pro-property rights. It urges people to sign a pro-ALEC petition, referring to the American Legislative Exchange Council, which drafts and distributes pro-corporate bills to state legislators to push in their home states. In 2012, it spent nearly $1.9 million on ads attacking Obama and Democrats and has online petition drives against Obamacare and in support of the Keystone XL pipeline.
• American Future Fund. This Iowa-based nonprofit spent more than $25 million on ads against Obama and congressional Democrats in 2012, the Post said, saying that $63 million of its $68 million came from money transfers from others in the Koch network. It has attacked the Internal Revenue Service and Federal Election Commission for going after its apparent violations of federal non-profit tax and election laws.
• Generation Opportunity. This group ran a national get-out-the-vote effort for the GOP in 2012 that emphasized high youth unemployment rates, the Post said. Its issues were opposing Internet taxes and privatizing student loans, its website said.
THE REST:
http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/exposing-koch-brothers-2014-plan-focus-13-states-and-campaign-social-media
