Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity Spent Record $122 Million In 2012

BY JOSH ISRAEL/Think Progress

Americans for Prosperity, the tax-exempt conservative political organization created by oil billionaires David and Charles Koch, spent $122 million in 2012 — more than it spent in all previous years combined. While the group’s $33.5 million campaign to defeat President Barack Obama failed, AFP has successfully helped like-minded candidates at the state and local level.

The Center for Public Integrity reported Thursday that from 2004 through 2011, AFP spent a total of $72 million. The group spent $21.7 million of that in 2010, after the Supreme Court’s 5 to 4 Citizens United ruling made it easier for tax-exempt organizations to influence elections. But documents filed in Colorado show that number more than quintupled in 2012. The group does not disclose its donors.

While the group’s most visible expenditures in 2012 were unsuccessful — millions spent to defeat Obama and now-Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) — much of its other spending was successful. It spent at least $1.5 million to say nice things about Gov. Scott Walker (R) prior to his victory over a recall attempt. AFP and its affiliated organizations also poured about $1 million into Arkansas, where Republicans successfully captured control of the state legislature for the first time since 1874. In Kansas, the group successfully replaced moderate Republicans in the legislature with staunch conservatives.

This year, AFP and its state allies have also focused on local races, including theDouglas County, Colorado school board. Their favored slate retained control, after the AFP Foundation Colorado ran several TV ads telling voters that the current board’s education reform efforts were “working.”

Conservative Rising Star Ben Carson In Deep With Koch Groups

by Farron Cousins/Ring of Fire:

With the Republican Party in shambles, attempting to find an identity that doesn’t scare off half of the electorate, a void has been created that is allowing the craziest of the crazy to have a turn in the spotlight.  The latest GOP “rising star” is Dr. Ben Carson.

During a town hall panel on the role of government the evening of April 3^rd, Ring of Fire host Mike Papantonio was pitted against Dr. Carson, where Pap specifically asked Carson if he received funding from the Koch-funded astroturf group Americans for Prosperity (AFP).  After fumbling around for a few moments, doing his best to avoid the question altogether, Carson finally managed to eek out a response that indicated he was not, in fact, in bed with AFP.

But Carson’s denial is not based in reality.  As it turns out, Carson is heavily involved with Americans for Prosperity, and is currently a headliner at events being sponsored by the group.  AFP is nothing more than a corporate front group for Koch Industries and other big business interests, who have successfully duped citizens into fighting the battles of corporate America to give them a “grassroots” brigade.

The crowd at the town hall (FoxBaltimore.com will have a full video of the event in the near future) was overwhelmingly conservative, with Tea Party activists clearly representing the majority of attendees.  This begs the question of whether or not AFP fell back to their old habits and actually shipped in their own Tea Party activists to fill the crowd, as they did during the national debate on healthcare.

Carson, an African American, has been compared to former Tea Party darling Herman Cain, who was taken out of last year’s presidential election after a series of campaign gaffes and past personal turmoil made him a political pariah.  But unlike Cain’s catchy “9-9-9” catchphrase, the only memorable quotes coming out of Carson are of hate and derision.

Carson gained the adoration of Tea Partiers and conservative media hacks during a prayer breakfast with President Obama earlier this year when he derided healthcare reform, spoke favorably about a flat tax system, and castigated the “politically correct” culture of America.  Conservative talking heads like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck immediately fell in love.

But the prayer breakfast was tame compared to some of Carson’s recent incendiary remarks.  For example, he recently compared homosexuality to bestiality, saying that there’s little difference between people who are gay and those who think it is ok to have sex with animals.  He also squeezed in a comparison to pedophiles, as well.

And then there was his recent charge that racism is too prevalent today.  But he wasn’t talking about the conservative militia types who still think African Americans are inferior to whites or the “Minutemen” who patrol our Southern borders looking for immigrants to capture; Carson was referring to the racism of “white liberals,” a group he claims are more racist than any other faction in American.

It is comments like this that caused student activists at Johns Hopkins Medical School to demand that Carson be dropped as this year’s commencement speaker.  This is a particularly bad sign for Carson, as Johns Hopkins is where he is employed as a neurosurgeon.

The Republican Party can do better than Carson, but it is doubtful that they will.  The Party is suffering from such an intense internal battle, with the Tea Party and conservative media on one side, and old guard, traditional Republicans on the other.  The Tea Party has the microphone, and they’ve chosen to give it to Dr. Ben Carson.