The Koch Spider Web

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by: Allison Kilkenny, Truthout | News Analysis
http://www.truth-out.org/koch-spider-web/1312231636

An election took place last fall in Virginia that didn't garner national attention, but it should have - not for the candidates or issues - but for the giant pile of corporate cash manipulating events behind the scenes.

Rick Boucher, a then-28-year incumbent Democratic Congressman from the Ninth District - the longest-serving Congressman in that district since the Civil War - was surprisingly defeated by Republican Morgan Griffith. The upset came as a shock to many, since an early October poll showed Boucher ahead by double digits, including one measure earlier in the month that put him ahead by 10 percentage points.

(snip)
Griffith nonetheless seized upon the "Boucher is bad for coal" narrative and added it to his existing arsenal, accusing Boucher of being too cozy with President Obama (Boucher voted against both versions of the House health care bill, but refused to repeal the law).

These kinds of campaign smears aren't unusual, save for the fact that the "Boucher Betrayed Coal" ads that played in Virginia and that were so effective they eventually cost Boucher his seat, were paid for by the Americans for Prosperity, a special-interest group founded with the support of David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch of Koch Industries, and the same group that was so instrumental during the now infamous health care town hall debacles.

[Dawson Leery]

1. Boucher's average margin of victory was over 20%.

[Bozita]

2. In Detroit, AFP papered a neighborhood with fake eviction notices ...

... to help out billionaire Matty Maroun in his quest for a new privately owned international bridge. There's video at the link below.



Conservative group: Fake eviction notices were 'meant to startle people'
11:37 AM, Jun. 7, 2011
BY JOHN GALLAGHER
DETROIT FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER


The state director of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity offered no apologies today for papering homes in Detroit’s Delray district Monday with fake eviction notices.

Bearing the words “Eviction Notice” in large type, the bogus notices told homeowners their properties could be taken by the Michigan Department of Transportation to make way for the New International Trade Crossing bridge project. The NITC is the subject of debate in Lansing, and Americans for Prosperity is lobbying heavily against it.

“It was meant to startle people,” Scott Hagerstrom, the group’s state director, said today. “We really wanted people to take notice. This is the time that their opinions need to be heard. We wanted people to read it.”

The fake eviction notices sparked outrage in Southwest Detroit, with State Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who represents the area in Lansing, complaining that the tactic has created chaos among the district’s residents.

Hagerstrom said the fake notices were meant to prompt residents to contact lawmakers in Lansing and urge them to vote against the NITC project.

“The flyer was designed to get peoples’ attention and to let them know that their opinion still matters, and that this is the time to get involved,” Hagerstrom said today. “Once this passes and this is set in motion there’s really nothing that they can do to have a voice in what happens.”

Businessman Manuel (Matty) Moroun, owner of the Ambassador Bridge and its operating arm, the Detroit International Bridge Co., is lobbying heavily against the NITC project because it would draw traffic and toll revenue away from his privately owned bridge. His company is running a series of TV ads against the NITC project, claiming that the project would cost Michigan taxpayers $100 million a year, a charge that NITC supporters say is false.

more...
http://www.freep.com/article/20110607/BUSINESS06/110607025/Conservative-group-Fake-eviction-notices-were-meant-startle-people-?odyssey=tab