One of the main special-interest political groups, 'Americans for Prosperity,' announced yesterday that they're launching an expensive national campaign to pin the blame for high gas prices on President Obama.
There's nothing unusual in Washington about this sort of announcement, but it caught my eye because Americans for Prosperity isn't as well meaning as its name makes it sound. In fact, it's a prime example of the kind of special-interest groups that plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars this election cycle to defeat the President in order to promote their agenda. Its backers are the famous Koch brothers, billionaires who, according to one profile, believe in 'minimal social services for the needy and much less oversight of industry, especially environmental regulation.'
That's right: A couple of billionaire oil men are saying that it's all President Obama's fault that Americans are getting gouged at the pump while oil companies bring in record profits. And now they'll be spending the summer touting carefully orchestrated 'grassroots' protests across the country, with two goals in mind: damaging President Obama, and deflecting people's frustration about gas prices so their own profit margins stay safe.
But while the Koch brothers have been plotting a campaign paid for by oil company interests and designed to mislead people instead of empowering them, we've been building ours one person at a time. Since last Wednesday, thousands of first-time donors matched another supporter's pledge to give what they could. People are even connecting by exchanging messages about why they're stepping up to own a piece of this campaign.
Grab a stake in this movement by matching another supporter's $5 donation today.
Conservative candidates relied on these brothers' deep pockets during the 2010 elections, and for many of them, it was a good bet. Just last month, most of our major opponents showed up at an Americans for Prosperity event to say just how much they want that help again in 2012 -- and thanks to the Citizens United decision, the Kochs can spend as much as they want on front groups and disinformation campaigns aimed at misleading Americans about the President's record.
They can flood the airwaves with negative ads. They can launch smear campaigns to divert attention away from what matters.
That's exactly the kind of politics our campaign is aiming to change. And that's why we're building this organization not by checks from people like the Kochs, but with a grassroots match drive whose purpose is to recruit the most people into this campaign, not just raise the most dollars.
Jun 7, 2011
Obama 2012 Bashes Koch Brothers
The Obama for America organization is bashing the Koch Brothers as dishonest "billionaire brothers" in a fundraising e-mail blasting the Scott Walker allies:
Jun 6, 2011
Randy Hopper on Video: "I’m gonna get you for everything you have 'fracking' done"
Hopper faces a recall election scheduled now for July 12, barring developments from Republican Court challenges to the recall petition and a GOP effort to run fake Democrats to force a primary.
From Paul I. Tascoupe at PolitiScoop last week:
Jun 5, 2011
RFK
June 5 is the anniversary of the assassination of Robert Kennedy Jr., a man who worked for peace and justice in response to tragedy.
Listen to the audio of RFK's response to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speech here.
Senator Robert F. Kennedy
Indianapolis, Indiana
April 4, 1968
This is the text from the news release version of RFK's response to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..
---
I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.
In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black--considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible--you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization--black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.
Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.
For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.
So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love--a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we've had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.
But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.
Listen to the audio of RFK's response to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speech here.
Senator Robert F. Kennedy
Indianapolis, Indiana
April 4, 1968
This is the text from the news release version of RFK's response to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..
---
I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.
In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black--considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible--you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization--black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.
Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.
For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.
So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love--a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we've had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.
But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.
Jun 3, 2011
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