Koch Brothers Latest Obamacare Ad Is Their Most Dishonest And Deceptive One Yet

By: Justin Baragona/Politicusa

The Koch Brothers SuperPAC, Americans for Prosperity, is currently running an ad in Michigan targeting Democratic Senator Gary Peters, who is up for reelection in November. The commercial, titled ‘Julie’s Story: It’s Time To Listen’, states that a cancer patient named Julie Boonstra is being bankrupted by the Affordable Care Act. She discusses how her original plan was cancelled and now her out-of-pocket expenses are so high she finds them totally unaffordable.

Of course, after a few people dug in and investigated, it appears that, just like every other Koch Bros. funded Obamacare ad, the truth is a whole lot different than what was placed in the ad. Thanks to Benjy Sarlin at MSNBC, the Detroit News, Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post’s Fact Checker blog and the basic facts of the health care law, the real story is nowhere near the horror story depicted in the commercial.

When you see that ad, you’d think that Obamacare is killing Ms. Boonstra! It seems like she is dealing with a real-life horror movie where bureaucratic nonsense and an uncaring law has made her life expendable. Of course, pesky facts always get in the way of a good narrative. The truth is that Julie Boonstra did have her existing insurance policy cancelled because it didn’t meet the minimum standards of the ACA. Instead, she had to get a better policy at half the price. She was paying $1,100 a month in premiums under her old policy. She now pays $571 a month.

If she is paying less a month, how can she justify that Obamacare is bankrupting her? Well, she says it is because she now faces out of pocket expenses more often. She states that for a lot of her treatments, she is forced to do a 20% co-pay. However, under the law, there is a cap on how much she can be charged out of pocket. The cap is $6,350 a year. By her own admission, she is saving nearly that exact amount in premiums due to the ACA. So, even if she has to pay the maximum amount in out of pocket expenses a year under the new plan (doubtful), she isn’t paying anymore than she did under her old plan.

Basically, this is as dishonest as you can get with a political ad. Ms. Boonstra, at worst, is having to deal with smaller expenses on a more frequent basis, but is not spending anymore than she did previously. In fact, it is more than likely she’ll still end up spending less than before. On top of that, her old policy, that was twice as expensive, only got cancelled because it didn’t offer as extensive of coverage as it should have. She now has a better policy for half the price and she cannot be kicked off of it due to her condition.

Kessler gave the ad two Pinocchios. Personally, I think it is one of the biggest lies we’ve ever seen in politics, and that is saying something. It just goes to show how good this law really is when lobbyists and politicians have to stoop to telling outright lies in their attempts to discredit it.

Obama vs. Koch money

After Sparking Outrage In Detroit, Koch Brothers’ Tar Sands Waste Now Piling Up In Chicago

BY KILEY KROH/Think Progress

Petroleum coke, a byproduct of tar sands refining, is building up along Chicago’s Calumet River and alarming residents, reportedMidwest Energy News.

Petroleum coke is a high-carbon, high-sulfur byproduct of Canadian tar sands that are shipped from Alberta to the U.S. to be refined and is rapidly becoming a cause for concern in Chicago. “It’s growing by leaps and bounds,” Southeast Environmental Task Force member Tom Shepherd, told Midwest Energy News. “It’s coming at a breathtaking rate.”

The pet coke is owned by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch whose operations drew similar outrage from residents and elected officials in Detroit earlier this year. In July, a large black cloud of pet coke dust was spotted over the Detroit River and caught on camera by residents across the border in Windsor. Members of the communities in close proximity to the piles were complaining of respiratory problems as the thick, black dust was blowing off the piles and into their apartments.

Rep. Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Township), whose district includes the Detroit waterfront where the piles were building up, said the tar sands waste “is dirtier than the dirtiest fuel” and demanded a federal study into the impacts of the product on public health and the environment.

In August, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing ordered the removal of the pet coke piles — after which they reportedly became Ohio’s problem.

Detroit’s pet coke piles were produced by Marathon Refinery but owned by Koch Carbon, a subsidiary of Koch Industries. In Chicago they are owned by KCBX, an affiliate of Koch Carbon, which has large parcels of land along the Calumet River and, according to Midwest Energy News, expanded its presence in the area last year. And it’s not just the Koch piles area residents have to worry about; just across the border in Indiana, BP Whiting’s refinery is undergoing a $3.8 billion upgrade which includes construction of the world’s second largest coker.

Not only does petroleum coke pose a serious risk to nearby air and water supplies, but the product can also be used as a cheaper — and even dirtier — alternative to coal. Since most power plants in the U.S. and Canada won’t burn pet coke due to the high level of greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants, the companies often ship the waste product to developing countries with looser pollution restrictions.

And as companies look to expand their pipeline network to keep pace with the increased production of tar sands in Alberta, petroleum coke piles could be appearing in more U.S. communities that contain refineries, such as the Midwest and the Gulf Coast.

(HT: Midwest Energy News)

Secret Koch Fund Decries ‘Corporate Welfare’ And Stimulus But Funds Their Top Defender

BY JOSH ISRAEL/Think Progress

The Koch brothers and their political allies quietly funneled $250 million to conservative causes last year through a secret tax-exempt organization called Freedom Partners, Politico reportedWednesday. But while the group’s website claims its top priorities including fighting runaway stimulus spending and “corporate welfare,” its donations included a $2 million gift to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, perhaps the strongest backer of such efforts.

The Freedom Partners website identifies four key political issues on which the group is focused — energy deregulation, Obamacare repeal/replacement, an end to “runaway government spending” and “temporary ‘stimulus’ programs,” and the elimination of “cronyism” and “corporate welfare.” It explicitly identifies industry bailouts, subsidies, and government loans as examples of the cronyism that “undermines the competition that is the heart of economic freedom.”

These positions seem at odds with the group’s multi-million dollar support for the the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber has consistently supported federal spending in support of America’s business community. In recent years, it has backed:

1. The Export-Import Bank: The federal government’s official credit agency finances and insures foreign purchases of American goods for customers unable or unwilling to accept credit risk. Noting that much of the agency’s works aids Fortune 500 companies, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) once described it as “corporate welfare at its worst.” But the Chamber strongly supports the Export-Import Bank, calling it “especially important to small- and medium-sized businesses.”

2. The financial sector bailout: The 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), passed by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush, offered up to $700 billion to bail out the nation’s banking industry after the subprime lending crisis caused its meltdown. The Chamber “strongly supported the creation of TARP.”

3. The auto industry bailout : Rejecting Mitt Romney’s call to “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” the Obama administration stepped in in 2009 with a bailout for the American automobile manufacturers— and helped save the industry. The Chamber lobbied heavily for the bill.

4. The airline industry bailout: In 2001, after the 9/11 hijackings, President Bush moved quickly to bail out the struggling airline industry. In an October op-ed, the Chamber’s president noted that the move was well worth the cost. “Without the timely action from President Bush and Congress, which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce fully supported,” he wrote, “our airline industry–the envy of the world–would not have survived.”

5. Ethanol subsidies: In a 2003 letter to President Bush, the Chamber enthusiastically backed a bill that would “boost job-creating highway capital investment spending while promoting the production and use of ethanol.” The
bill, which did not make it out of committee, aimed to assist ethanol producers by establishing a tax credit for ethanol production.

While Freedom Partners dismisses the value of economic stimulus, the Chamber strongly pushed for and helped craft the 2009 American Recovery and Investment stimulus law.

Freedom Partners did not respond to a ThinkProgress inquiry about its spending.

According to the Politico report, the group — run mainly by longtime Koch Brothers operatives — operates a tax-exempt 501(c)(6) trade association, meaning that it need not disclose its donors. While claiming that his funders “are proud to be part” of the effort, Freedom Partners president Marc Short refused to identify any of the those donors.

You Can Thank The Koch Brothers For The Big, Dirty Cloud Floating Over Detroit

BY KILEY KROH/Think Progress

On Tuesday, Detroit Bulk Storage confirmed that a large black cloud spotted over the Detroit River last weekend and caught on camera by residents across the border in Windsor, was indeed from the petroleum coke piles they have been storing illegally on behalf of Koch Carbon.

Watch the video, courtesy of the Windsor Star:

The petroleum coke is a high-carbon, high-sulfur byproduct of Canadian tar sands that are shipped from Alberta to Detroit to be refined. The uncovered black pile began building up along the river this year and drew outrage from residents of Detroit and nearby Windsor, Ontario as it grew to over three stories high and a block long.

The pet-coke was produced by Marathon Refinery but is owned by Koch Carbon which is controlled by Charles and David Koch — billionaire industrialists and major backers of a host of ultra-conservative efforts, including several aimed atobstructing action on climate change and impeding progress on clean energy.

According to WXYZ-Detroit, “Detroit Bulk Storage has been receiving shipments of the oil by-product and storing them near the Detroit River but a recent investigation by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality says the company broke the law by not getting a permit first.”

The company requested a permit to store the product at a public hearing on Wednesday.

Shortly after the pile appeared, Detroit residents began raising concerns about the potential impacts the growing mountain of tar sands byproduct might be having on their quality of life. According to the Detroit Free Press, “State Department of Environmental Quality regulators and Detroit city officials appeared to be caught flat-footed by the piles, and scrambled this spring to assess whether they harmed nearby air and water quality only after media reports and complaints from residents and local lawmakers.”

Although the DEQ has said the pet-coke “has low toxicity as it sits there in a pile,” citizens and local elected officials have raised serious concerns about the dust invading their air and water supplies and demanded that the long-term effects of the substance be studied.

Detroit resident Serene Arena told the Free Press that thick, black dust began appearing in her apartment this spring. Tests confirmed that the dust contained petroleum coke and “includes the metal vanadium, which is believed to cause cancer in high concentrations and prolonged exposures.”

Last month, protesters blocked the entrance to the dock where the pet-coke was being dumped. Detroiter Andre Glen, who lives in an apartment building nearby, told CBS Detroit that “he and his neighbors have been having respiratory problems due to thick black dust in the air.”

Congressman Gary Peters, whose district includes the waterfront where the pet-coke has been building up, told the Guardian earlier this year, “This is dirtier than the dirtiest fuel.”

In a statement released Tuesday, Peters expressed his outrage at the latest incident and demanded a federal study into the impacts of the product on public health and the environment. “We’ve been told that the pet coke dust issue is being contained, but here is firsthand evidence to the contrary. I am concerned and alarmed about repeated reports of pet coke blowing off the piles and into homes and businesses.”

Last year, the Marathon Refinery underwent a $2 billion expansion to allow for increased processing of Canadian tar sands. And as production expands, the mountain of pet-coke will continue to grow.

Not only does petroleum coke pose a serious risk to nearby air and water supplies, but the product can also be used as a cheaper — and even dirtier — alternative to coal. Since most power plants in the U.S. and Canada won’t burn pet-coke due to the high level of greenhouse gas emissions, the companies often ship the waste product to countries with looser emissions restrictions, such as China and India.

In June, the New York Times reported that a Canadian power plant, owned by Nova Scotia Power, had begun burning the pet-coke from Detroit “because it is cheaper than natural gas.”

The dangers of petroleum coke — both as a waste product gathering in communities and as an extremely dirty energy source — will only be compounded as increasing amounts of Canadian tar sands are brought into the U.S. to be refined. If, for example, the Obama administration approves the controversial Keystone XL pipeline and facilitates the transport of more tar sands into the country, it will exponentially increase the amount of pet-coke building up around the refinineries — leaving cities like Detroit wondering what to do with the mess it leaves behind.

New Koch Brothers Group Revamps Billionaires' Dark Money Operation

Peter H. Stone/Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON -- The sprawling conservative network backed by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch is being overhauled, with some key Koch operatives moving to a fledgling "dark money" group that is poised to become a chief financing vehicle for the mega donors' political and ideological projects, The Huffington Post has learned.

The new organization, called the Association for American Innovation, is expected to ultimately funnel millions of dollars to other dark money groups nationwide. It's being staffed with Koch stalwarts, including Marc Short, who currently oversees other Koch-funded projects, according to a few GOP operatives familiar with the overhaul.

In a twist, the association has been established under Internal Revenue Service rules as a 501(c)(6) business league, setting it apart from many of the dark money groups into which the Kochs and allied donors have in recent years poured hundreds of millions. Adding a business league, which will have members, to the Koch-backed conservative orbit could boost corporate funding, while still allowing some political spending and letting donors remain anonymous, tax lawyers say.

By contrast, Americans for Prosperity, which was founded by the Koch brothers and spent close to $140 million last year on electoral and advocacy drives with little to show for it, has two arms: It is a 501(c)(4) social welfare group -- which can engage in some political activity and keep its donors secret -- and a 501(c)(3) charity.

The staffing-up at the business association comes at a sensitive moment as several older 501(c)(4) groups face increasing scrutiny from government regulators and private watchdogs about their political activities. In California, officials are probing alleged money laundering that might violate state election disclosure laws by a few groups, including one run by Sean Noble, a prominent Koch operative in Arizona.

"501(c)(4) groups are getting a lot of heat these days, but (c)(6)s are like mom-and-apple-pie organizations," said Ken Gross, a political law expert at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and many other business groups in Washington have 501(c)(6) status.

The roles now being carved out for the Association for American Innovation, which will promote Koch-favored free market solutions in the states, were sparked in part by last year's bitter electoral losses. In the 2012 cycle, the two Koch brothers and other wealthy donors poured hundreds of millions into electoral and related advocacy efforts by dark money groups -- from TV ads to grassroots drives -- in a failed effort to defeat President Barack Obama and help the GOP take the Senate.

Now the new group is looking to enhance donor interest by rebranding Koch-backed projects and to improve controls over their funding, according to GOP operatives familiar with the plan. It also may help Koch-backed efforts fly under the radar better and lower the Koch brothers' public profiles after last year's intense media coverage.

"The outside political efforts last year by Republican-leaning groups are widely regarded as a failure," said one GOP operative. "Trotting out the same old groups and strategies will not be received well by donors. That's why you see major rebranding efforts."

The GOP operatives who spoke to HuffPost requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the inner workings and funding of Koch political projects, which are often shrouded in secrecy.

Koch Industries spokesman Rob Tappan did not respond to requests for comment.

Starting on Sunday in Palm Springs, Calif., Charles Koch is hosting a two-day strategy and fundraising conference for hundreds of wealthy conservative donors and corporate executives. Pitches to financially help the new association and other Koch-backed outfits will be made, say the GOP operatives. (The event is one of two that the Kochs hold each winter and summer, but this year the winter event was postponed until this weekend to finish a post-election analysis.)

Other topics on the agenda include the need to improve the recruitment of "principled candidates to run for office" and to "more effectively communicate" with key demographic groups such as Hispanics, women and youth, according to an email invitation sent to donors by Kevin Gentry, who coordinates Koch conference fundraising.

More broadly, Gentry's missive -- first disclosed by Mother Jones magazine -- promised that conference attendees will have an opportunity to "join the most strategic market-oriented minds in the business world to advance a plan to defend our free enterprise system." To attract donors and pry open checkbooks, the conference will feature some big-name GOP governors, members of Congress and conservative commentators.

The shakeup and shifts in the Koch-backed political network have been underway for months. The realignment is designed to better position conservatives to take on Democrats and some GOP moderates in the next elections and to enhance the credibility of the Kochs' free market messages.

Perhaps to boost those prospects and advance their small government agenda with the media, the Koch brothers are reportedly weighing a bid for the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and several other papers.

The Association for American Innovation was set up and approved by the IRS last year, according to public documents, with help from veteran Koch operative Wayne Gable, who since the 1980s has held top posts with the brothers' conservative outfits. Gable was once a senior lobbyist with Koch Industries, the energy conglomerate that's enriched each brother to the tune of over $30 billion, according to Forbes.

For now at least, the association is being spearheaded by Kansas-based Alan Cobb, who previously spent several years leading the state operations for Americans for Prosperity and is expected to focus heavily on state free market programs to reduce the size of government, as Politico first reported. Cobb also did a stint lobbying for Koch Industries.

It's another sign of the importance of the new effort that Short, who has overseen political spending for the Kochs in Washington, is moving to the association, according to the GOP operatives. They say that Gentry, the Koch donor network's lead fundraiser, may also be shifted there.

More broadly, the launch of the innovation group mirrors past attempts by the Koch brothers to start new outfits to attract more funding and increase their influence -- efforts that also often involved shifting around veteran Koch operatives.

Why the Kochs opted to set up the Association for American Innovation as a business league isn't entirely clear, but there's no doubt that the scrutiny of 501(c)(4) social welfare groups intensified during the last election. Watchdog groups have sharply criticized several (c)(4)s for their hefty political spending, charging that some have violated IRS rules mandating that (c)(4)s cannot have politics as their primary purpose. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will hold hearings this spring to examine IRS oversight of (c)(4) groups.

"It's possible that the Kochs think there's less audit exposure with a (c)(6)," said Marc Owens, who used to run the tax exempt division at the IRS and is now a partner at the law firm Caplin & Drysdale. Owens added that there could be risks with the business association: "It's not clear to me what line of business is furthered by an innovation group. That could make it difficult to establish entitlement to (c)(6) status with the IRS."

Some other experts echo Owens. "A dues or annual payment to a business association isn't likely to raise questions," said Ken Gross of Skadden. "But if the business league isn't actively promoting a line of commerce and is acting more like an ideological group, the payments may come under scrutiny."

Nonetheless, the benefits of launching the association as a 501(c)(6) may outweigh other risks given the intensifying probe by California's Fair Political Practices Commission and the state's attorney general. Working closely together, they have issued more than a dozen subpoenas to groups and individuals in order to find the true source of $11 million that was funneled through three dark money groups -- including the Center to Protect Patient Rights run by Koch operative Sean Noble -- to influence two ballot initiatives last fall. Under California law, donors to ballot initiative campaigns have to be publicly disclosed.

In the last two federal elections, Noble's group also funneled more than $60 million to some two dozen conservative groups, such as Americans for Tax Reform, the American Future Fund and Americans for Job Security, to buy television ads to help GOP candidates. Noble is expected to play a significantly smaller role in the Koch network going forward, say GOP operatives.

In Palm Springs on April 28 and 29, donors will receive briefings from various Koch operatives on the brothers' months-long post-election review of what went wrong and hear pitches for new Koch-backed ventures like the Association for American Innovation and for others. In the last few years, the Koch donor network has stepped up its financial backing for a few Hispanic and women's groups that take conservative stances on lower taxes and less regulation, efforts that should increase given the GOP's poor 2012 results with these constituencies. Among those groups receiving money from the Koch donor network, GOP operatives say, are Concerned Women for America and the Libre Initiative, which was launched by Dan Garza, a former White House aide under President George W. Bush.

The retooling of the Kochs' political machine and perhaps the innovation association were presaged late last year. In post-election comments to Forbes, both Koch brothers voiced clear disappointment with the election results but showed no signs of slowing down their giving.

"We're going to study what worked, what didn't work and improve our efforts in the future," David Koch vowed. "We're not going to roll over and play dead."

Bloomberg analyst: Koch brothers interested in ‘trophy value’ of major newspapers

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

Paul Sweeney, senior media analyst for Bloomberg Industries, on Monday discussed what billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch could gain from buying major newspapers.

Noting that buying a large newspaper was currently not a smart financial decision, he said the Koch brothers and others were more interested in their “trophy value.”

“To the extent that they’re looking for a platform for their conservative political views, you know, owning these iconic papers in major political markets such as California, Illinois, Florida, for example, major swing states, that is certainly a good place to start.”

The Koch brothers have bankrolled a number of libertarian and conservative causes, including the tea party movement. They are currently looking at buying several newspapersfrom the Tribune Company, including the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel and the Hartford Courant.

“This would be a very small transaction for them,” Sweeney noted. “These papers don’t come up for sale very often, they’re typically held by families who tend to pass them on from generation to generation, so when these papers do come up for sale we tend to see individuals such as Warren Buffett or some other wealthy individuals take a look at these papers, and I think the Koch brothers are a similar type of group.”

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube by Bloomberg, below:

 

 by

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.

There's Been a Dictatorial Coup -- Koch Bros. Have a Bunch of Czars Running Cities Across Michigan

By Jim Hightower/ AlterNet

Here's a political storyline that might seem familiar to you: With economic pain and political discord ripping across the land, he appeared to have the ideal resume to become the Republican contender for the top job. Not just another career politico from the dysfunctional Congress, he was a son of heartland Michigan who had founded his own venture capital firm. He looked like the image-perfect "job creator," and he'd achieved notable financial success in the no-nonsense corporate world. That success, he figured, would now catapult him to electoral victory, for it demonstrates that he's a can-do fellow with the know-how to run government like a business and fix the economy.

Mitt Romney? Yes, but before him, Rick Snyder [3] played the lead role in this made-for-TV political drama--and it hasn't worked out well at all for the people of Michigan. Two years ago, this former corporate chieftain and founder of two venture capital outfits stepped into Michigan's political arena, snatching the GOP gubernatorial nomination from the grasp of a congressman, the state attorney general, and a couple of other experienced pols. The times were right for a Mr. Fix-it--with Michigan's key auto industry in the ditch and middle-class wages decimated, working families were struggling, poverty was on the rise, and whole cities were on the brink of broke.

Backed by bales of corporate cash, Snyder won the general election by ceaselessly running a series of "job creator" ads (never mind that he had been a top executive and director of a computer corporation that relentlessly shipped thousands of American jobs out of the country until 2007, when the corporation itself was shipped to Taiwanese owners). Snyder said he had a plan to "reinvent Michigan," the essence of which he expressed in one of his campaign ads [4]: "Eliminate Michigan business tax. Cut taxes on job creators $1.5 billion. Slash needless regulations. Help small business."

That's not a plan, it's a scam--essentially the same ol' Republican same ol', now being regurgitated by the Romney-Ryan duo. However, Michiganders were desperate enough for a way out of the state's economic doldrums that 58 percent of voters cast their ballots that November for the "Businessman with a Plan."

What they didn't know--because the campaign never hinted at it, much less spoke of it out loud--was that a cabal of corporate-funded, far-right extremists behind Snyder would soon spring a secret plan on them. It was to be a horrific "Spring Surprise" that literally would reinvent Michigan--along with negating the very idea that the American people have a democratic right to be self-governing.

Michigan goes berserk
One of our nation's finest political satirists, cartoonist Garry Trudeau, has created a buffoonish character named Trff Bmzklfrpz [5] for his "Doonesbury" comic strip. A caricature of despotic thugs everywhere, Bmzklfrpz is presented by Trudeau as the ruler of the aptly named Greater Berzerkistan.

Rick Snyder must've studied there, for he had barely taken his oath of office before suddenly teaming with leaders of the Republican-controlled statehouse and senate to ram into law an astonishing measure of despotic rule. It only took two weeks in March of 2011 for the ponderously titled "Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act" [6] to be rushed through both houses of the legislature and signed by Snyder. Before the public knew it--BAM! --the governor was authorized to establish his own autocratic republic: Michiganistan.

At bottom, the LGSDFA Act is a doozy of autocratic mischief-making. It lets the governor seize control of any local government he deems to be in fiscal trouble, suspend the people's democratic authority, impose a corporatized version of martial law, and install his own "emergency financial manager" to govern by diktat (like some hybrid of Soviet czar and tinhorn potentate--a Bmzklfrpz, in other words).

The official rationale is that many Michigan cities and school districts are in dire financial straits, requiring extraordinary intervention to "save" them from their own people and elected officials. "It's about helping communities," Snyder dissembled [7], as he began installing EFMs.

Helping? This is the kind of "help" a fox brings to the henhouse:

Emergency managers begin by usurping the power of all elected officials or simply "firing" them.
They can then rewrite the public budget without any public participation, unilaterally eliminate various services, cancel contracts, seize and sell off public assets, privatize government functions, and dictate new laws.
They can even dissolve a city's charter.
This isn't merely un-democratic--it's aggressively anti-democratic.

Yes, there are some severe fiscal messes in Michigan's local governments, but the big debts that have piled up are not caused by too much democracy, bloated bureaucracies, or reckless spending by hometown officials. That's just mendacious political claptrap spewed by those wanting an excuse to impose their anti-union, government-shriveling, privatizing, partisan agenda on vulnerable people. It's no accident that the cities presently under state siege (including Benton Harbor, Detroit, Flint, and Pontiac) are heavily populated with low-income, union, African American, Democratic-voting households. While it's true that these places are in deep budgetary holes, there are real reasons for their fiscal woes, including:

The implosion of the auto industry that's central to these local economies, resulting in massive joblessness and drastically downsized family incomes.
The tanking of housing values, destroying the one source of wealth that working people had, creating a sudden plummeting of property tax collections that finance schools and city services.
The grim (and largely successful) corporate campaign to crush unions and bust middle-class wages.
US trade policies and tax subsidies that encouraged Michigan corporations to move manufacturing offshore, eliminating good jobs and forcing a large number of former taxpayers to leave their cities in search of work.
Oh, let's not forget another major cause that Snyder & Company don't want discussed: His $1 billion cut in corporate taxes [8]. This increased the state's budget hole, which he helped fill by slashing or eliminating state funds and tax credits that went to local school districts, low-income workers, and seniors.

The LGSDFA coup against local democracy does absolutely nothing to address--much less fix--these actual causes of the financial crises that mayors and other elected officials face. And by the way, since when did self-styled, small-government "conservatives" become such gleeful champions of using centralized governmental power to whack the once-hallowed Republican tenet of local control? Indeed, to see the irony of their governor trampling their democratic rights, Michigan citizens need look no further than the website of the state Republican Party. Right up front, it proudly posts a list of nine inviolate GOP principles [9], including this gem: "The most effective, responsible, and responsive government is government closest to the people."

Spawn of the Kochs
While corporate plutocrats rant about out-of-control government regulators, they do not really hate big, invasive, authoritarian government--as long as they can own it and use it for their own needs. This is why such multibillionaire corporatists as Charles and David Koch have been pumping truckloads of money into dozens of front groups like the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan [10]. Set up 25 years ago and linked to a network of Koch-headed centers in nearly every state, Mackinac is an idea factory and advocate for shrinking people power and enhancing corporate control.

While it refuses to name its super-wealthy individual backers on the absurd grounds that disclosure "would be a tremendous diversion," the Center does have to report donations from "charitable funds," which includes money from a host of corporate foundations tied to the Koch brothers, Domino's Pizza, Amway, Coors, GM, ExxonMobil, JPMorgan Chase, and Walmart, among others.

In 2005, one of Mackinac's grand ideas was put forth in an essay [11] written by a privatizing enthusiast named Louis Schimmel, who was the Center's director of municipal finance. Noting that Michigan already had a limited program for sending state managers to aid cities engulfed in a fiscal crisis, he argued that the law should be radically expanded to create an emergency financial manager with autocratic power to take control of Detroit's troubled budget. Specifically, Schimmel's Mackinac proposal called for four fundamental changes: (1) the financial overseer would "replace and take on the powers of the governing body"; (2) have sole discretion to alter the governing charter; (3) be immune from lawsuits; and (4) have the power to alter and ultimately abolish union contracts.

After Snyder won and the GOP gained big majorities in both legislative chambers in November 2010, the Mackinac Center moved quickly to reprint and circulate Schimmel's paper. Lo and behold [12], the governor's LGSDFA proposal, which seemed to come out of the blue three months later, actually came out of the Koch boys' Mackinac machine. Snyder's bill included all four of Schimmel's democracy-usurping components, as well as other authoritarian add-ons presumably drafted by the Center.

With a solid, lock-step majority in both the state senate and house, Snyder and Republican legislative leaders were able to railroad [12] the full extremist pack-age into law. The GOP slapped down even the most token gestures to local governance--for example, a little amendment that merely would've required EFMs to hold monthly public meetings--so locals could be told what changes their czar was making-- got crushed in the senate.

Respect the rule of law? Ha! For half a century, Michigan has had a constitutional rule that a new law doesn't take effect until 90 days after the legislative session ends--thus giving affected citizens time to adjust or try to repeal it. By a two-thirds vote in each house, however, a law can be declared an emergency and allowed to take effect immediately.

With a supermajority in the senate, GOP members easily rushed their EFM measure into effect, but in the house, the party is 10 votes short of the necessary two-thirds tally. No problem--they simply cheated by pulling a quick count and lying about the result. The presiding officer of the house barked out the following in one breathless, three-second sentence: "Themajorityleaderhasrequestedimmediateeffect AllthoseinfavorpleaseriseImmediateeffectisordered."

We're to believe that in only three seconds, he called for a vote, the members got to their feet, he was able to count two-thirds of them standing in favor, and he gaveled the law into effect. Magical!

Plutocrats in action
Let's go to Pontiac, a once proud city boasting that one of America's iconic cars was named after it and made there, employing 23,000 auto workers in the General Motors factory. Today, though, those jobs have been moved out-of-state or eliminated, the Pontiac brand itself has been jettisoned by GM, the city's population has dropped, property values have plummeted, and the city government has been left in a fiscal wreck. To add to its miseries, Gov. Snyder's cutbacks in revenue sharing mean that Pontiac's funds have been slashed by a third.

The governor did give something to the people of Pontiac, though: An emergency manager [12]. Appointed last September for an indefinite period (he's still there), he promptly relieved the city council of their powers and salaries. Then he fired the city attorney, clerk, and director of public works before acting on his own to outsource the work of various departments. Next, he offered up about half of the people's property in a fire sale of assets--including city hall, police and fire stations, the library, water-pumping stations, a golf course, and two cemeteries. More recently, he has issued five edicts undermining contracts with union workers and retirees.

Who is this guy? Louis Schimmel, the privatizer man from Mackinac!

Asked last year if the EFM law made him a dictator, Schimmel conceded with a sigh [13]: "I guess I'm the tyrant in Pontiac."

On to Benton Harbor, the home of Whirlpool Corporation and once the major producer of that giant's appliances. Whirlpool's executives, market analysts, and other top-paid employees still are based in Benton Harbor, ensconced in the corporation's brand-new, gleaming, tax-subsidized $68 million corporate campus in this town on the shores of Lake Michigan. But, beginning in the 1980s, the bosses have steadily emptied out all of their local factories, moving Benton Harbor's manufacturing jobs abroad to cut labor costs.

This has decimated the local economy, cutting the town's 20,000 population in half, destroying its tax base, and leaving it with chronic unemployment. Benton Harbor is now the poorest city in Michigan, with a per capita income of about $10,000.

The town's major asset, a public park overlooking the lake, is being absorbed into "Harbor Shores," a $500 million Whirlpool-backed resort project that includes a sprawling, Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course. Of course, impoverished locals can't live or golf there, but the developers (who got government subsidies for the project) are hoping that Chicago weekenders will make the two-hour trek to the place.

These people are losing their park, but worse, a fellow named Joe Harris [14]has taken a more valuable asset from them: Their democracy.

Harris is Snyder's EFM and literally the Dictator of Benton Harbor. A former Detroit auditor, he began by summarily stripping all power from elected officials, decreeing that city commissioners can meet, but the only action they can take is to approve minutes of their last meeting and then adjourn. When commissioners made a mild (but clever) protest by proclaiming this past spring that the city would observe Constitution Week, Harris monocratically nullified their action. What perfect symbolism! He then expressed surprise [7] that this had upset townspeople: "All I told them was, 'Hey, guys, you have no authority.'"

With unfettered control, Harris has kicked elected officials out of their city hall offices, fired the city manager and other administrators, dismissed the planning commission and installed his own loyalists, merged the police and fire departments, and sold the com-munity's public radio station (which had criticized him). He also intends to privatize the water system (after raising residents' water rates by up to 40 percent) and has jacked up annual garbage fees by about $300 per home.

Harris is proud and happy to be a commissar for the Koch-Mackinac vision of a privatized America with a neutered democracy, and he definitely likes being in charge with no fussy checks and balances on his decisions: "I don't have to worry about whether the politicians or union leaders like what I'm doing. I love this job. I am the mayor and the commission, and I don't need them."

Meanwhile, Benton Harbor is still deep in debt--and absolutely nothing has been done to address its real problems of joblessness, poverty, inadequate education, inequality, and civic depression. As for an actual plan to boost the economy, Harris points excitedly to his idea of economic development: Selling "I <3 and="and" benton="benton" bumperstickers="bumperstickers" harbor="harbor" p="p" souvenirs="souvenirs" t-shirts="t-shirts" to="to" tourists.="tourists.">
Rebellion
City after city in Michigan--including Flint, Highland Park, and even Detroit--are presently under assault by this mind-numbing, right-wing, ideological stupidity. Dangerous stupidity--Detroit Mayor Dave Bing had to surrender control of his city's finances this year to a Snyder austerity czar, who has sought to increase the number of students in each classroom to 61, and the czar's budget cuts are so severe that the fire chief says if empty buildings catch fire, he'd have to let them burn down.

Is this America? It no longer will be if these social-engineering autocrats prevail. But, good news: Michiganders are in full rebellion! As always, though, battling the bastards is never easy, because... well, they're bastards. And they're very well-funded. And sneaky. Yet the people keep pushing, as we see in this chronicle of the 2012 Michigan Rebellion:

Feb. 29--A broad grassroots coalition (ranging from union workers to tea party members) that was organized under the umbrella of "Michigan Forward" filed more than enough citizen petitions to put the repeal of Snyder's EFM nonsense on the ballot for this November's election.
April 19--At the last minute, just before the repeal question would have been certified for the ballot by the state board of canvassers, a complaint by Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility is filed to stop certification. Reason? "The font size of the [petition's] heading" is claimed to be too small to comply with state law. Font size!
April 9-25--Legal jockeying takes place, and digging by journalists and coalition members reveals that (1) CFR is not a real group, but a creature of the Sterling Corporation, a GOP political consulting firm--same address, phone number, and staff; and (2) a Sterling partner, Jeff Timmer, was a chief executive of the Michigan Republican Party and now happens to be one of the four voting members of the state board of canvassers. There are widespread calls for Timmer to recuse himself from the board's petition decision, but the secretary of state (a Republican) says no one can force him to do that.
April 26--Decision day for the board. Timmer does not withdraw, so the board deadlocks two-to-two, which kills the repeal referendum.
June 18--Timmer resigns from the board.
June 29--Citizens coalition appeals the board's rejection to Michigan's Supreme Court.
Aug. 3--In a four-to-three decision, the court majority (including one Republican) rules that the font size does not disqualify the petition, so the board must put the repeal question on the ballot.
This victory means that American democracy literally will be up for a vote in Michigan on Nov. 6! The Republican and Koch political networks are going all out to win--and if they do, your state/city could well be next on their Berzerkistan anti-democracy agenda.

Random Friday:Stephanie Cutter: Get the facts on Mitt Romney, Big Oil, and the Koch Brothers

Michigan Residents Say “No Thanks” to Koch Brothers’ Front Group

From Michigan Democratic Party

Americans for Prosperity Propaganda funded by Big Oil Special Interests

LANSING – Out-of-state special interest front groups have already started spending big in Michigan by launching false TV ads attacking Senator Stabenow. Independent fact checkers have repeatedly called these ads “just wrong,” and also “ridiculous.”

Today, Americans for Prosperity – another deep-pocketed organization funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers who made their fortune in the oil industry – launched its election plans by funding biased partisan polls to further the Koch’s extreme agenda in Michigan. This is a typical tactic for the Koch brothers and Americans for Prosperity.  In other states, the group has used partisan polling firms asking selective questions to try to mislead voters.

“Debbie stands up for Michigan’s middle class, not out-of-state oil billionaires like the Koch brothers,” said Mark Brewer, Michigan Democratic Party Chair. “Americans for Prosperity, is nothing more than a front group that has a long history of trying to buy elections to the benefit Big Oil and other special interests.  Senator Stabenow is doing everything she can to break the stranglehold that Big Oil has on the US economy so it’s no wonder Big Oil is coming after her.”

Brewer was joined by a group of Michigan residents who said “no thanks” to the Koch Brothers and to outside interest groups trying to push their special interest agendas.

“Senator Stabenow is fighting for jobs and economic growth in Michigan,” said Percy Johnson, an autoworker from Troy. “She’s fought to end taxpayer giveaways to companies that ship our jobs overseas and to help middle class families get back on their feet in tough times.  These guys don’t care about Michigan, they just care about their own bottom line.”

“The middle class is being asked to sacrifice and all I see is Big Oil fighting for even greater profit,” said Ashley Forsberg, a nurse at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing. “Groups like AFP want to see Medicare eliminated so oil companies and other special interests can get more tax cuts.  That’s wrong. I can’t afford biased polls, lobbyists and negative TV ads, but I know Debbie is fighting for middle class families like mine.”

The Koch brothers and Americans for Prosperity present a vision for Michigan that puts special interests first, not Michigan residents. According to news reports, Koch Industries has enriched itself at the expense of consumers by keeping oil off the market, storing it in offshore tankers, and waiting to cash in when the cost of oil rises.  They’ve also worked to protect tax breaks for companies that send American jobs overseas, and squash investments in new clean energy technologies that would reduce America’s dependence on Big Oil.

On the other hand, Senator Stabenow has a long record of fighting for policies that will build a stronger economy.  She has led the effort to develop advanced battery technologies in Michigan, help farmers and agricultural businesses expand as Chairwoman of the Agriculture committee, stood up for small businesses and is a leader in the effort to end China’s predatory trade practices.

The Koch brothers made billions taking advantage of the American people – it’s no wonder they need to fund their own polls to justify their false attacks against Senator Stabenow.