Koch Lobbyist Admits Tea Party ‘Designed’ To Elect Republicans in 2010

[Emit]

During Secret Retreat With Billionaires, Koch Lobbyist Admits Tea Party Group ‘Designed’ To Elect Republicans In 2010

This morning, blogger Brad Friedman, writing in Mother Jones and BradBlog, revealed a set of audio tapes from the last major donor meeting convened by the billionaire Koch brothers. There are a number of startling revelations from the scoop — but the opening remarks from Kevin Gentry, a Koch Industries executive at the firm’s DC lobbying office, blow the cover off the many Tea Party efforts underwritten by the billionaires in the Koch network of donors.

Gentry, who doubles as the official responsible for doling out Koch charitable grants, admits privately what ThinkProgress and others have noted for years: Americans for Prosperity, the front group founded by David Koch, orchestrates Tea Party events simply to elect more Republicans. Gentry said he met with Fred Young, a Wisconsin owner of engine manufacturing plants, at an Americans for Prosperity (AFP) event “designed to help in the Congressional races” during one of their “get out the vote tours”:

KEVIN GENTRY: I’m going to turn it over to a dear friend, Fred Young, for the purposes of an introduction. Fred is a long-time fighter, freedom fighter, in this movement, from Racine, Wisconsin. Former owner of Young Radiator. As part of our efforts last year, in 2010, I was on the road for (TN?) in Wisconsin, here at one of Americans for Prosperity’s last minute kind of get out the vote tours. And I went to an event in Racine, Wisconsin, and met up with Fred. It was sort of a Tea Party AFP event designed to help in the Congressional races. And Fred was kind enough to lend me a sweatshirt because I wasn’t actually prepared for Racine, Wisconsin in November. So Fred, let’s take it away, please.

~snip~

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/09/06/312478/koch-admits-tea-party-gop-gotv/

The post above is two of a two-part series that Brad from Bradblog wrote for Mother Jones. Good Job, Brad, for exposing these bastards further! Here was the previous piece posted yesterday: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1885642

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. Sure, that's why there is really no such thing as "The Tea party". nt

[gratuitous]

2. Boy, the major media sure got that story wrong, didn't they?

One of these days, they'll get internet connections and learn how to work that Google thingie, and find out some of this stuff. As it is now, they're confined to getting their information from RNC blast faxes and Drudge (aka America's assignment editor).

[starroute]

3. And why do multi-millionaires think of themselves as "freedom fighters"?

It was bad enough when Reagan slapped that label on the Contras. But now we have a Koch lobbyist applying the same term to this guy:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nAe0nVdIrtoJ:www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/1999/01/04/focus2.html+%22fred+young%22+%22young+radiator%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

January 3, 1999

Young Radiator Co.`s acquisition by a Pittsburgh manufacturer is expected to produce several winning results . . .

Fred Young Jr. gets to "retire."

"I will stay on long enough to have a smooth transition to ownership by MotivePower," said Young, whose father, Fred Young Sr., founded the company in 1927. Fred Jr., 56, who's been with the company for 31 years, will remain president for up to six more months, after which he will relinquish his office and take on a consulting role for the company.

The only group not expected to benefit from the acquisition are the 120 unionized employees fired in 1991 when Young Radiator closed the Racine plant and shifted production to nonunion plants in Iowa and Tennessee.


http://rootriversiren.blogspot.com/2011/07/racines-fred-young-is-koch-wannabe.html

July 7, 2011

Oh that Fred Young just doesn't know what to do with his millions does he? Instead of legally donating to Scott Walker through unlimited PAC channels, Freddy wanted to make sure Walker knew who was bankrolling him so he gave directly to the campaign...only he gave too much. Sure, sure he wrote his wife's name in the memo but Walker's campaign staff (who have the collective intelligence of a bag of hair) missed it and now he's in hot water for breaking campaign finance laws. . . .

Ultimately, Fred Jr. sold the company in 1998 for $70.5 million and retired. . . .

Young is a trustee for the Libertarian Reason Foundation along with major teabag funders, David Koch and Robert Poole. He is a Director of the Koch funded Cato Institute (Young's son, Ryan works for Cato's Government Affairs Department.) along with his buddy, David Koch and rubs elbows with Amway founders Dick and Betsy DeVos. . . .

Fred Jr. isn't in the Charles and David Koch league of world class money and he isn't in the John Menard, Herb Kohl or Johnson Family solar system, but he does okay.

[Warpy]

4. Gee, organizing angry, bitter, loudmouthed Foxbots

was directed toward electing Republicans! What a shocker!

The whole thing was Astroturfed from the beginning. Every teabagger prides himself on being an independent thinker and every teabagger has been led around by Koch funded operatives from the very beginning.

I don't know why this comes as a surprise to anyone who's been paying attention.