BOLD PROGRESSIVES AND THE FUTURE OF OUR NATION IS ON THE LINE 30SEP14

THE PCCC / Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Sen Elizabeth Warren are asking for our support for Bold Progressive candidates for the US Senate and House. So much is at stake, and so much damage will be done if progressives are not elected on 4 NOV 14. This is not an exaggeration, check out Rolling Stone's expose of the koch brothers and their pac, american's for prosperity. Please do what you can, no donation is too small, no amount of time volunteered is too little ( I donated $3 to each candidate, you can pick who you want to donate to on the list). And be sure to VOTE ON TUESDAY, 4 NOV 14!!!!

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A slate of genuinely progressive candidates could use your help.
From Al Franken to Alan Grayson, bold progressive candidates deserve our support.
Check out top progressives in important races -- and if you can, please donate at least $1 to their campaigns.

Can't afford to donate? Let candidates know you'll Call Out The Vote from your home at least once by Election Day. Click here.

Thanks -- Adam

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Two of the boldest progressives in the Senate -- my friends Al Franken in Minnesota and Jeff Merkley in Oregon -- are in tough re-election battles.
Thanks to a ton of right-wing Super PAC attack ads, the polls in both races keep getting closer and closer.
This is our team on the line. Losing them would be a disaster.
It would shrink the number of real, bold progressives we can rely on in the Senate. And it would likely mean losing the Senate majority and spending the next two years putting everything we believe in on hold.
And just imagine what will happen if a Supreme Court vacancy comes up while Republicans are in the majority in the Senate. Or what will happen to our efforts to hold Wall Street and its regulators accountable. It won’t be pretty.
The PCCC is going all out to defend these two bold progressives and keep all of us in the majority. Can you help?
Please chip in $3 to make sure Al Franken and Jeff Merkley can keep fighting by my side -- in the majority.
(Please also sign up to make calls from home for progressive Senate candidates this coming week or at least once by Election Day. I kicked off some volunteer shifts last election and look forward to joining PCCC volunteers again!)
Bold progressives like Al, Jeff, and me need to stick together. Al was there for me during my 2012 campaign -- traveling all across Massachusetts to talk to voters and thank volunteers. And Jeff has been my mentor and ally in the Senate Banking Committee, working feverishly to hold Wall Street accountable for breaking the law.
Without Al and Jeff -- and playing defense in the minority in the Senate -- is not how I want to spend the next two years.
Can you chip in $3 to make sure Al, Jeff, and I can keep fighting together in the Senate?
(Please also sign up to make calls from home for progressive Senate candidates this coming week or at least once by Election Day. I kicked off some volunteer shifts last election and look forward to joining PCCC volunteers again!)
This is a team that needs to stay together. Thanks for making sure it does.
-- Elizabeth Warren

IF YOU DONATE TO AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY OR SUPPORT A CANDIDATE FUNDED BY THEM.......

THEN you are supporting the very people who are working to take more from you and give it to the rich. THINK AND VOTE 4 NOV 14.

Harry Reid slams Koch brothers & VIDEO Harry Reid doubles down on Koch criticism 26FEB14

THE koch brothers are evil. They are greedy and they are liars and they are behind the massive propaganda campaign attacking Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act. The don't give a damn about the common American, their goal is amass as much money and power as they can for their own benefit because they feel they are entitled to it. At least Sen Majority leader Harry Reid D NV isn't afraid of them, and isn't afraid to challenge their lies in public. Check out the documentary on david and charles koch, The Koch Brothers: Exposed, and search for more post on the koch brothers on this blog. From Daily Kos.....
Joan McCarter

Harry Reid isn't going to turn the Senate over to the Koch brothers without a fight.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused the billionaire Koch brothers of having “no conscience” and spreading lies about Obamacare through political ads. Americans for Prosperity, a group backed by Charles and David Koch, is spending millions attacking vulnerable Democrats for their Obamacare support using “horror stories” that are untrue, Reid said on Wednesday.
“The Koch brothers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars telling Americans that Obamacare is bad for them. It’s easy to do if you have no conscience and are willing to lie like they are, through the ads they’re promoting. But the Kochs should stick to what they know: The oil business … where they’ve made their multi-billions of dollars,” Reid said.

The Koch brothers' response? Of course Charles and David Koch aren't personally responsible for the ads the astroturf organizations they wholly fund run, and also too, Harry Reid is a bad person. Misdirection alert! “It is disgraceful that Senator Reid and his fellow Democrats are attacking a cancer victim as part of their campaign against Charles Koch and David Koch,” says Koch spokesman. Since the Kochs don't actually want to answer to the fact that they're lying in their ads, they play the cancer victim card. A cancer victim who, by the way, would lose all the protections she just received from the Affordable Care Act if the Koch brothers get their way. Reid can take heart in the fact, however, that the Koch's have a lack of sense to go with their lack of conscience. With AFP, they spent $122 million in 2012 to get the law repealed. The $27 million spent as of February 4 in this cycle is just spending good money after bad. Their crusade for repeal is an increasingly losing cause.

Originally posted to Joan McCarter on Wed Feb 26, 2014 at 11:13 AM PST.

Also republished by Daily Kos. 

Wed Feb 26, 2014 at 02:54 PM PST

Harry Reid doubles down on Koch criticism

by Joan McCarter

http://youtu.be/tTKPGblYF6o 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had a few things to say about the Koch brothers and the false campaign ads they're running around the country in Senate races. After some more thought, Reid decided he had a lot more to say:

"What is going on with these two brothers who made billions of dollars last year in an attempt to buy our democracy is does honest, deceptive, false and unfair. Just because you have huge amounts of money you should not be able to run these false, misleading ads by the hundreds of millions of dollars. They hide behind all kinds of entities," Reid said. "It's not just their front organization, Americans For Prosperity. But they give money to all kinds of organizations, lots of money. You see, when you make billions of dollars a year you can be as immoral and dishonest as your money will allow you to be. It's too bad that they're trying to buy America and it's time that the American people spoke out against this terrible dishonesty of these two brothers, who are about as un-American as anyone that I can imagine."

Democrats are recognizing a salient fact: people don't like the idea that a couple of billionaire brothers think they can buy a government. So they're specifically running against that big money and the Koch brothers. They're responding to the ads the Kochs are running in Michigan by pointing out that they are trying to buy a Senate seat. Which is exactly what they're trying to do.

Originally posted to Joan McCarter on Wed Feb 26, 2014 at 02:54 PM PST.

Also republished by Daily Kos.

 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/26/1280611/-Harry-Reid-slams-Koch-brothers?detail=email 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/26/1280668/-Harry-Reid-doubles-down-on-Koch-nbsp-criticism?detail=email 

 

Obamacare enrollments surging, HealthCare.gov working better & The Massive Republican Campaign to Sabotage the Affordable Care Act 20NOV13

THE repiglicans and tea-baggers and their corporate masters, the voluntarily ignorant, the haters, the liars, the greedy are all ramping up their attacks on Obamacare. At times the most rabid of those who oppose Obamacare are almost hysterical, lending credence to the need to increase mental health coverage. Their goal is to destroy Obamacare, to take us back to being the nation with the "best health care in the world, if you can afford it". WE MUST NOT, WE WILL NOT GO BACK to the days of people being denied health care because they can't afford it, to people being denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions, to children being denied health care because they are uninsured, to families being destroyed financially because of catastrophic illness. There are problems with the launch of Obamacare, but the tens of thousands who have signed up since 1 OKT 13 and the tens of thousands "window shopping" on the government exchange and health care websites and even the numbers of people who tried to sign up but were not able to because of the website problems testify to the need and desire for affordable health insurance. This system will be fixed, and it will work in spite of the obstructionism of repiglicans, tea-baggers and jellyfish democrats. This from Daily Kos and HuffPost......

This should be the day's leading Obamacare news: enrollements across the country are surging, coming in ahead of projections in states across the country.

"What we are seeing is incredible momentum," said Peter Lee, director of Covered California, the nation's largest state insurance marketplace, which accounted for a third of all enrollments nationally in October. California—which enrolled about 31,000 people in health plans last month—nearly doubled that in the first two weeks of this month. Several other states, including Connecticut and Kentucky, are outpacing their enrollment estimates, even as states that depend on the federal website lag far behind. In Minnesota, enrollment in the second half of October ran at triple the rate of the first half, officials said. Washington state is also on track to easily exceed its October enrollment figure, officials said.

Enrollments are moving at a faster clip than during October in these, despite the fact that some people are confused by the problems the federal site has had, not sure if the sites in their own states are working. Covered California's director said that the state has had to change its marketing to remind people that the state site wasn't the same as the federal site, and was working just fine. Unfortunately, so far enrollments on the federal site are still lagging. For example, just  2,991 people in Texas were able to complete enrollment in October, fewer than Kentucky, which has a sixth of Texas' population. But there's better news on the federal site front today, as well. HealthCare.gov is now working for 90 percent of users who have tried again to sign up. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services updated reporters Monday with the news that the site was functioning better, and that it had sent out 275,000 emails to people who had started to create accounts, but couldn't get through the process. CMS says that 90 percent of those people who tried again got all the way through the process. So far in November, 50,000 people have selected a plan in the federal site, up from 27,000 for the entire month of October.
Many people are likely still in window-shopping mode, and enrollments should pick up even more—both on the state sites and the federal site—in the last week or two before the December 15 deadline for insurance to be in place on January 1, and then again in February and March before the final deadline. The Massachusetts experience provides the best model for enrollment patterns, and in the first four months of enrollment just about one-fifth of the uninsured population enrolled.
The people will come. They're not freaked out over what most people perceive as inevitable: a problematic new government program. They're not abandoning support for the program in droves. They're not calling for an end to the program. They're patient enough to give it time to work, even if Republicans and the traditional media are not.

Originally posted to Joan McCarter on Tue Nov 19, 2013 at 09:32 AM PST.

Also republished by Daily Kos. 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/19/1256749/-Obamacare-enrollments-surging-HealthCare-gov-working-better?detail=email 

We're entering a bizarre end-of-the-year edition of Silly Season in which the news media is laser-focused on the wrong things. As stories about the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act begin to dissipate, it looks like we've segued into an especially nonsensical "MSNBC Anchor Wants to Poop in Palin's Mouth" meets "Wacky Toronto Mayor Does Wacky Stuff" news cycle.
Lost in the mix, of course, is the ongoing far-right effort to sabotage the Affordable Care Act.
I'm not talking about the myths and propaganda -- the "death panel" nonsense and the like. This is serious business: the well-financed, broadly implemented sabotage campaign designed to rig the law for failure, while also making it more difficult for Americans to receive insurance.
Sabotaging the Website
We've known for quite some time that most Republican governors refused to open health insurance exchanges in their states. 27 states don't have exchanges and therefore uninsured residents are shuffled over to the Healthcare.gov website to buy a policy.
However, earlier this month, we learned that Republican Party leadership directly urged those governors not to do it -- chiefly to burden the federal exchange with a heavier load.
Worse yet, the ACA contained zero funding for the development and implementation of the site, and there's no way the congressional Republicans would ever authorize more money for it. It's unclear why the federal exchange was unfunded in the law, but one thing's for sure, a House of Representatives that voted 46 times to totally repeal the law wouldn't have coughed up a dime to rectify the oversight.
So, what happened? A cash-starved Healthcare.gov development process, which precipitated serious glitches when October 1 rolled around -- problems that should never have occurred.
And those glitches might've been exacerbated when right-wing hacktivists reportedly conducted "denial of service" attacks against Healthcare.gov -- deliberate attempts to overwhelm the website's servers. CNN reported on Monday:

Hackers have attempted more than a dozen cyber attacks against the Obamacare website, according to a top Homeland Security Department official. The attacks, which are under investigation, failed, said the official. Authorities also are investigating a separate report of a tool designed to put heavy strain on HealthCare.gov through a so-called distributed denial of service. It does not appear to have been activated.

What else?
Sabotaging the Medicaid Expansion
Americans for Prosperity, funded by Charles and David Koch, launched advertising campaigns to strong-arm state lawmakers to block the expansion Medicaid in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Ohio, Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Once again, in the 26 states that blocked the Medicaid expansion, we're left with five to eight million people who are consequently unable to afford exchange policies but who also make too much money to qualify for Medicaid.
In Alaska yesterday, Governor Sean Parnell, a Republican, obviously, rejected the Medicaid expansion thus denying health insurance to 40,000 Alaskans. Parnell said, "I believe a costly Medicaid expansion especially on top of the broken Obamacare system is a hot mess."
That's a lie. Fact: the federal government pays the entire cost of the Medicaid expansion for 2014 through 2016. The states pay nothing. So it's not costly at all. In fact, it's free for the first three years.
What happens when the expansion is blocked throughout more than half the nation? Potentially millions of pissed-off working class Americans due to what's perceived as punitively expensive Obamacare premiums -- premiums that are only too expensive because Republican governors blocked the Medicaid expansion.
There's more.
Sabotaging ACA Marketplace Enrollment
Speaking of the Koch brothers and Alaska, a group called Foundation for Government Accountability launched a campaign to convince Alaskans to deliberately not buy insurance policies in order to undermine ACA enrollment goals, and, naturally, to express their self-defeating hatred of President Obama. Smart.
A pair of websites, along with accompanying Facebook pages, were launched back in September: dontenrollalaska.org and knowthefactsalaska.org. And go figure:

Based in Naples, Fla., the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) is a 501(c)3 non-profit that "promotes public policies that achieve limited, constitutional government and a robust economy that will be an engine for job creation across the states." One of the foundation's directors is Robert Levy, the chairman of the board of the Cato Institute, the Washington, D.C. think tank with a long and complicated relationship with the Koch brothers.

Yep. All roads lead back to the Kochs.
There's something especially visceral and sinister about well-protected billionaires telling middle class Americans to go without health insurance in order to, you know, kick Obama in nuts.
At the end of the day, if not enough people enroll in the exchanges, the law entirely falls apart. Combined with everything else, that's sabotage, plain and simple, while the Koch brothers can rest assured knowing they'll never be without quality healthcare, so screw it. Let fly. After all, the traditional press won't really cover it with the same hard-nippled vigor with which they've covered the buggy website, or with which they've almost universally blamed the low enrollment numbers on the president.
For that, much of the press is an active, though not entirely knowing conspirator in the sabotage plot. And there's no indication any of it will change any time soon.
Cross-posted at The Daily Banter.
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Ad says stimulus tax credits funded jobs in Finland from POLITIFACT 3MAI12

THE repiglicans and tea-baggers have done nothing to stimulate the economy to get us out of this recession and so have nothing to offer the electorate but lies and deception, like these lies from americans for prosperity (the people who are sending jobs overseas) about stimulus money being sent to Mexico, Finland and the prc. The real kicker about this story is that the loan in question is from a program signed into law by george w bush!!!! See my earlier post on the solar plant in Mexico Ad says stimulus tax credits funded a solar company building a Mexico plant from POLITIFACT 2MAI12
http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/ad-says-stimulus-tax-credits-funded.html   The truth about these projects from PolitiFact.....

The Truth-O-Meter Says:

Says the stimulus bill sent tax credits overseas, such as "half a billion to an electric car company that created hundreds of jobs in Finland."

Americans for Prosperity on Saturday, May 26th, 2012 in a TV ad

Ad says stimulus tax credits funded jobs in Finland

Share this story:

A TV ad from Americans for Prosperity claims that stimulus tax credits went overseas, including "half a billion to an electric car company that created hundreds of jobs in Finland." That's not what happened.

Americans for Prosperity released this ad April 26, 2012, to air in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and Virginia.

Is your tax money paying for jobs in Finland?

A TV ad running in eight states blames President Barack Obama for sending stimulus money overseas while Americans are out of work.

"Tell President Obama, American tax dollars should help American taxpayers," the narrator says. Instead, $2.3 billion in tax credits funded jobs in Mexico, Finland and China, the ad claims.

Americans for Prosperity, a group dedicated to "educating citizens about economic policy" that works closely with tea party activists and has been funded by the conservative Koch family, released the ad April 26, 2012.

Here’s the string of claims, starting with an image of the president signing a bill:

Washington promised to create American jobs. We passed their stimulus. But that's not what happened. Fact: Billions of taxpayer dollars spent on green energy went to jobs in foreign countries. The Obama administration admitted the truth, that $2.3 billion of tax credits went overseas, while millions of Americans can't find a job. $1.2 billion to a solar company that's building a plant in Mexico. Half a billion to an electric car company that created hundreds of jobs in Finland. And tens of millions of dollars to build traffic lights in China.

We rated one claim from the ad, about stimulus tax credits supposedly funding a plant in Mexico, a Pants on Fire falsehood. A second claim, on building traffic lights in China, we rated Mostly False.  In this fact-check, we’re examining if those tax credits included "half a billion to an electric car company that created hundreds of jobs in Finland."

(We've also checked many other exaggerations about the stimulus.)
The ad said its source for the Finland claim was an ABC News article, "Car Company Gets U.S. Loan, Builds Cars In Finland."

A loan for U.S. work

The first clue something’s wrong is in that ABC News headline. A car company got a "U.S. loan." That’s not the same thing as a tax credit. Taxpayers expect to get loan money back, with interest. (Though, they don’t always. See: Solyndra.)

Things get even more wrong from there.

That U.S. loan program? It's the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program through the Energy Department. And it's not funded by Obama’s stimulus bill — otherwise known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It is, in fact, a program signed into existence by President George W. Bush in 2007 and first funded by legislation Bush signed in 2008.

The program was designed to support development of advanced technology vehicles.

The Bush administration was in charge when the automaker filed its application. The Obama administration was in charge when the company’s loan was approved. The stimulus bill had nothing to do with it.

Now, the ad could have raised relevant criticism of the Energy Department’s loan programs. Watchdogs inside and outside government have argued since the Bush administration that the programs haven’t included safeguards sufficient to protect taxpayers. Instead, the ad says stimulus tax credits funded overseas jobs. That’s the claim we’re weighing here. And that’s just not the case.

Fisker Automotive, a U.S. automaker with global headquarters in Anaheim, Calif., got its $529 million federal loan to develop and produce two lines of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles — the Karma and the Nina.

The project was expected to create about 2,000  jobs in Wilmington, Del., where the Nina would be manufactured, according to the Energy Department.

Part of the loan — $169 million — paid for design, engineering and other work in the United States on the Fisker Karma. A larger part — $359 million — was slated to help buy and reconfigure a shuttered General Motors plant in Delaware to build the Nina.

Here’s where Finland enters the story: Before its Energy Department loans were approved, Fisker had decided it would manufacture the Karma at a plant in Finland. The company argued there simply wasn’t a U.S. plant available for the type of car they were building. But 65 percent of the parts for the Karma, based on cost, would come from U.S. suppliers.

"There was no contract manufacturer in the U.S. that could actually produce our vehicle," Henrik Fisker, the company's founder, told ABC News. "They don't exist here."

The loan for the design of the car "was only used for the U.S. operations" and could not be spent overseas, according to  Fisker and the Energy Department.

Meanwhile, most of the loan has yet to be disbursed. Fisker says it stopped taking loan money from the Energy Department in May 2011, after drawing $190 million — most of it for Karma design and development. Its Nina project, now called the Atlantic, has been delayed.

The News Journal in Wilmington, Del., reported the payments to Fisker stopped after the company failed to meet Energy Department milestones set as conditions for the loan.
"Our loan documents require borrowers to meet certain milestones and other conditions prior to receiving loan proceeds," department spokesman Damien LaVera told PolitiFact. "As has been widely reported, Fisker has experienced some delays in its sales and production schedule -- which is common for start-ups.
"As Fisker works through those issues and incorporates lessons learned from the production of the Karma, the department is working with Fisker to review a revised business plan and determine the best path forward so the company can meet its benchmarks, produce cars and employ workers here in America."
That makes it an open question when the Delaware plant will produce Fisker autos. As of April, it only employed a small maintenance team. In the meantime, it's not getting loan money.
Our ruling

An ad from Americans for Prosperity starts with an image of Obama and says the stimulus bill sent tax credits overseas, such as "half a billion to an electric car company that created hundreds of jobs in Finland."

The reality: Half a billion in loans from a Bush-era program were approved for Fisker Automotive. But they weren’t tax credits, weren’t part of the stimulus bill, and didn’t go to Finland. And so far, the company has only gotten $190 million in those loans, far less than the half a billion.

Instead, the U.S. company spent a third of the money on U.S. engineering of a new electric vehicle. It chose to manufacture the car in Finland, without U.S. help. Another two-thirds of the loan, which it may or may not get, will go toward retooling a shuttered GM plant in Delaware.

The ad strings together disparate statements to tell a concocted story. The result is simply False.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/may/03/americans-prosperity/ad-says-stimulus-tax-credits-funded-jobs-finland/

About this statement:

Published: Thursday, May 3rd, 2012 at 11:11 a.m.
Subjects: Corporations, Energy, Environment, Message Machine 2012, Stimulus
Sources:
Americans for Prosperity, "AFP Wasteful Spending Ad," April 26, 2012

Americans for Prosperity, "AFP Ad Scrutinizes Wasteful Use of Taxpayer Dollars," April 26, 2012

PolitiFact, "Ad says stimulus tax credits funded a solar company building a Mexico plant," May 2, 2012

PolitiFact, "Ad says stimulus tax credits funded traffic lights in China," May 2, 2012

New Yorker, "Covert operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging war against Obama," Aug. 30. 2010

NPR, "Who's raising money for tea party movement?" Feb. 19, 2010

Los Angeles Times, "Koch brothers now at heart of GOP power," Feb. 6, 2011

Americans for Prosperity, "About Americans for Prosperity," accessed Nov. 11, 2011

Washington Times, "'Green' jobs no longer golden in stimulus," Sept. 9, 2010

ABC News, "Car Company Gets U.S. Loan, Builds Cars In Finland," Oct. 20, 2011
Inteview with Damien LaVera, spokesman for the Energy Department, May 2, 2012

Fisker Automotive, Fisker Automotive Fact Sheet, accessed May 2, 2012

Energy.gov, "Fisker, Tesla, and American Auto Innovation," Oct. 20, 2011

Fisker, "Press Releases: Fisker Statement re: Misleading News Reports," Oct. 21, 2011

Fisker Automotive, "Fact Sheet: Fisker Karma and Fisker Automotive," Feb. 16, 2012
Energy Department Loan Programs Office, "Fisker Automotive," accessed May 2, 2012

Energy Department Loan Programs Office, "About the ATVM Loan Program," accessed May 2, 2012

Department of Energy Loan Programs Office, "The Financing Force Behind America’s Clean Energy Economy," accessed May 2, 2012

Energy Department, "Department of Energy Announces Closing of $529 Million Loan to Fisker Automotive," April 23, 2010

Federal Register, "Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Incentive Program," Nov. 12, 2008

Wilmington, Del., News Journal, "Can Fisker keep its promise?" Feb. 13, 2012, via Nexis

Wilmington, Del., News Journal, "Fisker catches flak on GOP campaign trail" April 19, 2012, via Nexis

Taxpayers for Common Sense, "DOE Loan Guarantees: Overview, Risks and More," Nov. 3, 2011

Government Accountability Office, "New Loan Guarantee Program Should Complete Activities Necessary for Effective and Accountable Program Management," July 2008

Government Accountability Office, "Further Actions Are Needed to Improve DOE’s Ability to Evaluate and Implement the Loan Guarantee Program," July 2010
Written by: Becky Bowers
Researched by: Becky Bowers
Edited by: Bill Adair

Ad says stimulus tax credits funded a solar company building a Mexico plant from POLITIFACT 2MAI12

THE repiglicans and tea-baggers have done nothing to stimulate the economy to get us out of this recession and so have nothing to offer the electorate but lies and deception, like these lies from americans for prosperity (the people who are sending jobs overseas) about stimulus money being sent to Mexico, Finland and the prc. See my post on the Finland story Ad says stimulus tax credits funded jobs in Finland from POLITIFACT 3MAI12 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/ad-says-stimulus-tax-credits-funded_04.html
The truth about these projects from PolitiFact.....

The Truth-O-Meter Says:

Says the stimulus bill sent tax credits overseas, such as "$1.2 billion to a solar company that's building a plant in Mexico."

Americans for Prosperity on Thursday, April 26th, 2012 in a TV ad

Ad says stimulus tax credits funded a solar company building a Mexico plant

Share this story:

Americans for Prosperity released this ad April 26, 2012, to air in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and Virginia.

A TV ad from Americans for Prosperity claims that stimulus tax credits went overseas, including "$1.2 billion to a solar company that's building a plant in Mexico." That's not what happened.

A TV ad running in eight states blames President Barack Obama for sending stimulus money overseas while Americans are out of work.

"Tell President Obama, American tax dollars should help American taxpayers," the narrator says. Instead, $2.3 billion in tax credits funded jobs in Mexico, Finland and China, the ad claims.

We checked all three examples — and found the ad incorrectly describes them all.

(We've also checked many other exaggerations about the stimulus.)

Americans for Prosperity, a group dedicated to "educating citizens about economic policy" that works closely with tea party activists and has been funded by the conservative Koch family, released the ad April 26, 2012.

Here’s the string of claims, starting with an image of the president signing a bill:

Washington promised to create American jobs. We passed their stimulus. But that's not what happened. Fact: Billions of taxpayer dollars spent on green energy went to jobs in foreign countries. The Obama administration admitted the truth, that $2.3 billion of tax credits went overseas, while millions of Americans can't find a job. $1.2 billion to a solar company that's building a plant in Mexico. Half a billion to an electric car company that created hundreds of jobs in Finland. And tens of millions of dollars to build traffic lights in China.

Sounds like a scandal and an outrage. Is that what happened?
For this fact-check, we’re focusing on whether "tax credits" that "went overseas" included "$1.2 billion to a solar company that's building a plant in Mexico." (In other fact-checks, we found the Finland claim False, and the China claim Mostly False.)

The ad listed two sources for its Mexico claim, the Energy Department and PV Magazine. We tracked those down, then chatted with the companies involved.

Two programs, two projects

We’ll start with what’s true: An American solar company, SunPower, was approved for federal stimulus money. It also opened a solar panel plant in Mexico.

(Or, rather, it moved its Mexican manufacturing from Chihuahua to a building it’s leasing in Mexicali, said company spokeswoman Natalie Wymer.)

That’s where the claim’s relationship to the truth ends.

• The company didn’t get tax credits, but a $1.2 billion loan guarantee. What’s the difference? The Energy Department expects the loan to be paid back — with interest.

• That loan guarantee wasn’t for the Mexico plant — a separate project with its own funding — but to build the California Valley Solar Ranch in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Construction on the California project has already started, with the Energy Department projecting 350 construction jobs and 15 permanent ones. Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the state’s largest utility, will ultimately buy the power.

• Most of the solar panels for the California project will come from SunPower’s California manufacturing facility in Milpitas, though given the size of the project, they’ll also come from the company’s plants in Mexico and Asia, Wymer said.

• SunPower no longer owns the California Valley Solar Ranch project. The solar project — and the loan guarantee — belong to New Jersey company NRG Energy. That’s the company that will get the federal loan money, and be responsible for repaying taxpayers.

Our ruling

A TV ad from Americans for Prosperity says billions of tax dollars spent on green energy went to jobs in foreign countries. It claims that stimulus bill tax credits went overseas, such as "$1.2 billion to a solar company that's building a plant in Mexico." The ad even cites sources for its claim.

But those same sources, plus a few phone calls, quickly bring down the ad’s house of cards. Sure, taxpayer money was originally approved for a California solar company that also happened to open a plant in Mexico. But that loan — not tax credits, as the ad claims — will go to a New Jersey company for a solar project in California, employing construction workers in the state, using mostly California-built solar panels, to create solar power that’ll be purchased by a California utility.

That’s a completely different story. The ad strings together alarming-sounding tidbits about actual stimulus projects to create the impression of something else entirely — in a way that’s ultimately ridiculous. And that earns our lowest rating, Pants on Fire.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/may/02/americans-prosperity/ad-says-stimulus-tax-credits-funded-solar-company-/

About this statement:

Published: Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012 at 11:31 a.m.
Subjects: Corporations, Energy, Environment, Government Efficiency, Message Machine 2012, Stimulus
Sources:
Americans for Prosperity, "AFP Wasteful Spending Ad," April 26, 2012

Americans for Prosperity, "AFP Ad Scrutinizes Wasteful Use of Taxpayer Dollars," April 26, 2012

PolitiFact, "Ad says stimulus tax credits funded jobs in Finland," May 3, 2012

PolitiFact, "Ad says stimulus tax credits funded traffic lights in China," May 2, 2012

New Yorker, "Covert operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging war against Obama," Aug. 30. 2010

NPR, "Who's raising money for tea party movement?" Feb. 19, 2010

Los Angeles Times, "Koch brothers now at heart of GOP power," Feb. 6, 2011

Americans for Prosperity, "About Americans for Prosperity," accessed Nov. 11, 2011

Washington Times, "'Green' jobs no longer golden in stimulus," Sept. 9, 2010

PV Magazine, "SunPower to open Mexican plant," Aug. 8, 2011

Energy Department Loan Programs Office, "DOE Offers Conditional Commitment for $1.187 Billion Loan Guarantee, Support California Solar Generation," April 12, 2011

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SunPower, "SunPower Announces New Solar Panel Manufacturing Facility," Aug. 5, 2011

Interview with Natalie Wymer, senior director, SunPower corporate communications, May 1, 2012

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NRG Energy, 10-K filing, Feb. 28, 2012
Written by: Becky Bowers
Researched by: Becky Bowers
Edited by: Bill Adair

Koch Industries Slashed WI Jobs, Helped Elect Scott Walker, Now Orchestrating Pro-Walker Protest & Eight GOP State Senators In Wisconsin Can Be Recalled Right Now; Gov. Walker Can Be Recalled In January from THINKPROGRESS 18FEB11

THERE'S a lot more to this story than budget problems, this from ThinkProgress exposing tea-bagger gov scott walker as pretty much creating the Wisconsin budget crisis after having his debts to the corporate interest who own him, aka Koch Industries, called in and paid back by corporate tax cuts the state could not afford. I hope the workers and Wisconsin senate Democrats stand strong and remain united, because they are holding the moral high ground.....And take heart Wisconsin, there are 8 gop tea-bagger senators you can force out of office now and you can take on gov walker in JAN 12!!!
Wisconsin’s newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker is facing a growing backlash over his attempt to cut pay and eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees in his state. Although Walker is claiming his power grab is an attempt to close a budget gap, the budget “crisis” was engineered by Walker as soon as he got into office. As Brian Beutler reported, half of the budget shortfall comes from Walker’s own tax cuts for businesses and other business giveaways enacted in January.
A number of the big business interests standing with Walker are beneficiaries of his administration’s tax giveaways. But the greatest ally to Walker is the dirty energy company Koch Industries. In response to the growing protests in Madison, Koch fronts are busing in Tea Party protesters to support Walker and his union-busting campaign. Last night, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz reported on the involvement of Club for Growth and the Koch-financed Americans for Prosperity in the pro-Walker protest scheduled tomorrow. Watch it:


Koch Industries is a major player in Wisconsin: Koch owns a coal company subsidiary with facilities in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Ashland and Sheboygan; six timber plants throughout the state; and a large network of pipelines in Wisconsin. While Koch controls much of the infrastructure in the state, they have laid off workers to boost profits. At a time when Koch Industries owners David and Charles Koch awarded themselves an extra $11 billion of income from the company, Koch slashed jobs at their Green Bay plant:

Officials at Georgia-Pacific said the company is laying off 158 workers at its Day Street plant because out-of-date equipment at the facility is being replaced with newer, more-efficient equipment. The company said much of the new, papermaking equipment will be automated. [...] Malach tells FOX 11 that the layoffs are not because of a drop in demand. In fact, Malach said demand is high for the bath tissue and napkins manufactured at the plant.

Koch Industries was one of the biggest contributors to Walker’s gubernatorial campaign, funneling $43,000 over the course of last year. In return, Koch front groups are closely guiding the Walker agenda. The American Legislative Exchange Council, another Koch-funded group, advised Walker and the GOP legislature on its anti-labor legislation and its first corporate tax cuts.
According to the EPA, Koch businesses are huge polluters, emitting thousands of pounds of toxic pollutants. As soon as he got into office Walker started cutting environmental regulations and appointed a Republican known for her disregard for environmental regulations to lead the Department of Natural Resources. In addition, Walker has stated his opposition to clean energy jobs policies that might draw workers away from Koch-owned interests.
Moreover, other organizers for the pro-Walker protest are from groups associated with corporate and Koch interests. American Majority, a Virginia-based front group founded by organizers funded by millionaire investor Howie Rich, is on the ground contacting Wisconsin Tea Parties to support Walker in Madison. Austin James, an American Majority official who was caught teaching Tea Party members to spam Amazon.com profiles of liberal books with negative comments, is the contact for the Facebook page organizing the pro-Walker protest. Eric O’Keefe, a longtime conservative operative who helps lead American Majority, attends Koch strategy meetings.

Update Koch's Americans for Prosperity group has launched a new website and petition called www.standwithwalker.com. The new site attacks all collective bargaining, not just for public sector unions. Koch's front group also declares: "In fact, every state should adopt Governor Scott Walker's common sense reforms."

Eight GOP State Senators In Wisconsin Can Be Recalled Right Now; Gov. Walker Can Be Recalled In January

All this week, thousands of protesters have stormed the Wisconsin capitol in opposition to Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) plan to cut public employee pay and weaken or eliminate state workers’ collective bargaining rights. Many of them chanted “recall Walker,” as these protesters in Madison did Tuesday:

Yet Walker, who cannot be recalled from office until next January, is not the only official who could be the subject of a recall election. Under Wisconsin election law, any elected official may be recalled from office:

(a) The qualified electors of the state, of any county, city, village, or town, of any congressional, legislative, judicial, town sanitary, or school district, or of any prosecutorial unit may petition for the recall of any incumbent elective official by filing a petition with the same official or agency with whom nomination papers or declarations of candidacy for the office are filed demanding the recall of the officeholder.
(b) Except as provided in par. (c), a petition for recall of an officer shall be signed by electors equal to at least 25% of the vote cast for the office of governor at the last election within the same district or territory as that of the officeholder being recalled. . . .
(s) No petition for recall of an officer may be offered for filing prior to the expiration of one year after commencement of the term of office for which the officer is elected.

Because the recall statute allows elected officials to serve for a full year before they are subject to recall, Walker himself is immune until January of 2012. Eight of Walker’s Republican allies in the state senate have served at least one year of their current term, however, and thus are eligible for a recall petition right now. If just three of these Republicans were to be replaced with Democrats, the state senate would flip to a Democratic-majority body.
The eight Republicans who can be recalled right now are:

• Robert Cowles
• Alberta Darling
• Sheila Harsdorf
• Luther Olsen
• Randy Hopper
• Glenn Grothman
• Mary Lazich
• Dan Kapanke

When next January rolls around, a little over 500,000 petition signatures will be necessary to trigger a recall election for Gov. Walker.

Update An e-mailer asks how many signatures are required to trigger a recall election for an individual senator. The exact number will vary by district according to how many people cast a vote for governor in that district, but if you divide the approximately 500,000 signatures needed to recall Walker by the 33 senate districts, it adds up to between 15,000-16,000 signatures per senator.

 

RIGHT WING DECEPTION AND PROPAGANDA from THE NRDC ACTION FUND 6OKT10

HERE'S the truth about some of the groups paying for and running false and deceptive propaganda ads 
supporting the gop and tea-baggers in the November elections.

Over the next 30 days, corporate front groups will continue to bombard the airwaves with ads that seek to distort the records of candidates who have championed clean energy reform. We want to make sure you know the background of some of these sham groups -- and what you can do to debunk their efforts: Americans for Prosperity: A corporate-funded group that is spreading junk science and misleading messages across the country. This year, this front group has launched a $45 million campaign -- including TV ads and phony grassroots events -- in a number of congressional districts to confuse people about clean energy legislation and to promote a pro-corporate agenda. Americans for Prosperity is also supporting many Tea Party groups who oppose clean energy reforms. For example, the group has developed content and planned events in New Jersey, Arizona, New Hampshire, Missouri, Kansas and several other states.1 American Crossroads: American Crossroads receives significant support from Texans who made their fortune in the oil and gas industry. With donors like these and the support of Karl Rove, it isn't too surprising that one of American Crossroads' priorities is blocking any legislation that meaningfully addresses the very real problems of climate change.2 Americans for Job Security: In a Federal Elections Commission complaint, Public Citizen wrote that Americans for Job Security is a "sham front group that would be better called Corporations Influencing Elections...masquerading as a non-profit to conceal its funders and the scope of its electioneering activities." As the Media Matters Action Fund reports, this group's ads seek to mislead viewers to think that clean energy would be bad for the economy.3 These sham groups are also going on the offensive at the state level. In California, oil companies from Texas are working with veteran tobacco lobbyists to challenge California's clean energy climate law.4 If they're successful, it would be a blow to important clean energy reforms and the jobs they create (green jobs in California now employ more than 500,000 people and represents one of the fastest growing sectors of the state economy). What can you do? Use this form to tell a friend or click here to share this note on Facebook. If we don't get the word out, these corporate front groups will continue to poison the public dialogue and hurt future chances of meaningful action to protect our health and well-being. Sincerely, Peter Lehner Executive Director NRDC Action Fund 1. Americans for Prosperity (SourceWatch) 2. Rove’s Groups Spend Millions on Senate Ads 3. Americans for Job Security 4. Smelling A Chance To Burn Oil Money, Tobacco Lobbyists Orchestrate Effort to Repeal CA Clean Energy Law