Koch Brothers Political Group and Wisconsin

[dregn]

I'm not big into discussing politics, I have my beliefs, others have theirs, and I know stories like this can be found on both "sides of the aisle", but since this has a direct tie to people in Wichita curious what others here think.

http://news.yahoo.com/koch-brothers-group-games-wisconsin-recalls-wrong-election-144012214.html

Basically it's Republican groups sending out "absintee ballots" in democratic areas of Wisconsin that have a mailing address that isn't correct and a "mail by" date that is after the election is over even if it did make it to the right location.

Seeing stuff like this from either side makes me sick. If we truly want the voice of the people to be heard we'd be encouraging all to vote, not trying to supress the other side. I don't think it's just our "leaders" that have lost track of what our country is supposed to be, but also a lot of the vocal political people. It's all kind of laughable and sad to me.

[WuDrWu]

dregn, that which makes you sick I agree with, however, I would like to have more information here.

"The Nation" is about 7 steps left of the Huffington Post and is the home for that article. The work is so slanted it cannot be taken at face value.

I think more research needs to be done here, but I get your point.

[RoyalShock]

According to the article The Nation linked to, the AFP spokesman said those flyers went out only to AFP members. And that they get people who are only trying to keep tabs on what they are up to. That type of thing is done everywhere, all the time.

The left have been trying very, very hard to demonize the Koch's and AFP for doing much, much less questionable stuff than their pet orgs like MoveOn and Media Matters. I've pretty much tuned out anything a lefty says when they say "Koch".

It's ok for their side to do it, but not the other side. Just like they are all for free speech, as long as that speech agrees with their own.

dregn, I know you didn't post that to start a left/right debate, but it sparked a pet peeve of mine lately with the hypocritical villification of the Koch's and AFP.

That said, if the AFP spokesman is not being truthful and those were sent out to to non-AFP members to deceive voters, they need to be held accountable and some people fired.

[ABC]

As many of you know, I am with AFP. The AFP person is being 100% truthful.

The mailers were sent to only people who had signed up with AFP. Essentially, our WI chapter was hurting its own cause.

The bottom line is that the vendor screwed up. There is nothing complicated about this situation.

AFP followed up with phone calls to every single person who rec'd the mail piece.

The confusion is somewhat understandable b/c there are elections on Aug 9 and also one week later on Aug 16.

The left doesn't want to debate the facts so . . . this is what we get.

The DNC did something simliar with robo calls.

[wufan]

Wow, that was a super-left article. Look at some of the comments below the article. Those people are really mad at the Koch's. Also, I paticullarly liked this line:

"...has maintained the ethical standard set by a governor who — in the same conversation with the Koch caller — discussed sending agent provocateurs into the streets around the state Capitol with the purpose of provoking violent confrontations. The crowds of Wisconsin teachers, parents, students and public- and private-sector workers that had gathered outside the Capitol to challenge Walker’s agenda were peaceful and packed with children. Yet, when asked about sending in troublemakers, the governor said, “We thought about that.” The only thing that made Walker pause was the prospect that the violence might not play well politically."

It's like a Michael Moore documentary in which the interviewer spouts off all kind of dribble and then the camera angle changes and the interviewee is quoted for something he/she said at a different time. The only line quoted in that whole paragraph was "we thought about that." Yep, he really considered violent acts against the poor innocent children, but had to reconsider because he thought it would hurt his re-election.

[BOBB]

As a liberal I pretty much tune out MoveOn because their positions are so reflexively liberal and predictable and their methods suck too. I think they hurt the progressive cause. The Kochs and AFP are the same. Taking the position that "the other side does worse" is never the ground I want to be on when defending.

[ABC]

As a liberal I pretty much tune out MoveOn because their positions are so reflexively liberal and predictable and their methods suck too. I think they hurt the progressive cause. The Kochs and AFP are the same. Taking the position that "the other side does worse" is never the ground I want to be on when defending.

Who at AFP said the other side does worse? No one.

My point was things like this happen, particularly late in a election season. And I wanted to point out that a left group made a mistake and the media didn't jump on it like they did the AFP mistake.

And FWIW, we don't make any efforts to reach the left, b/c it is a lost cause. Our efforts are centered on the middle who have an open mind on the size of government, freedom and economic liberty.

Let me address the notion that this is Koch's political group. We have 80,000 donors across the country and 1.8 million members.

[RoyalShock]

As a liberal I pretty much tune out MoveOn because their positions are so reflexively liberal and predictable and their methods suck too. I think they hurt the progressive cause. The Kochs and AFP are the same. Taking the position that "the other side does worse" is never the ground I want to be on when defending.

I was speaking in terms of those on the left who condone and endorse organizations and tactics far worse than what they accuse the Koch's and AFP of doing. I have no knowledge of anything either has done that would be considered deceitful or deceptive.